It was in a gem promo and some other promos as well.

Activision games rarely get more than a 25% discount. Which especially sucks, because several decade-old games (like Bloodlines and Call of Duty) still have a regular price of $20.
I saw bloodlines 75% off for one day during my last 4 years of using Steam.

i think it was on sale with one of the bundles like pick 5 or something (maybe $4 bracket or +$4/5 or something)
or it was its own sale for a day IIRC

Gem Promo

here we go $3.99 "You'd be insane not to get it!" February 18, 2013

I may be wrong but I thought I'd seen sanitarium in sales a few times on Gog. Mainly September/October time around halloween along with the usual horror type games. Wasn't expecting much when I first played it but is one of my favourite games. Wish Steam would put Stalker series on sale- never played any of them.

Jade Empire was on sale previous Winter/Summer Sales for Steam at least (to many's amazement I'll agree).

Expeditions Conquistador could've been -75% off a few days ago if it had won the community vote but sadly it didn't. It may still show up on the daily today. Either way it would appear the devs are prepared to discount the game to quite an extent already.

I think they have done that during the last two sales, otherwise I wouldn't have bought them from there.

I think I bought them directly from Steam, and not from some Steam key reseller site (GMG or such).

Not by itself, no. But I got it on a sale some time ago as part of some bundle, I should really try it one day...

If you go to staples or other local retailers and have a look at the PC games section, usually you can find 1 or 2 games there on sale. I got Torchlight on disc from staples for $3.00 ~4 months ago (before GOG gave it away). Rise of Nations was also on sale for $3.00 but I didn't have too much cash on me at the time... It just depends, always make sure to check out local stores that are going out of business as they usually sell their stock at really low prices.

Edit: I just wanted to contribute something to this discussion that isn't online-only sales to change it up a bit.

Has Bard's Tale ever been on sale?

Was it in the GOG summer sale? Devs don't seem averse to it, seems to have been on sale for android several times, and at least during the last few large Steam sales, including the current one. Would be odd if they didn't participate here on GOG.

I don't think so, otherwise I would have gotten it, since it was on my wishlist (except the 50%, I think).

Ditto!
Tell you what, you pay for half, I'll pay for half. You can play it Mon, Wed, Thur, and Fri. I'll take it Sat, Sun, and Tues.

Yes it does and it has been some time since it was on sale. But it was once. I got it in a sale, don't remember when.

Sanitarium is worth full price and then some. As much as I want Bard's Tale I'm not real keen on paying full price for a game with jokes worse than my own.

Deal? :P

But you'd laugh at them, so it doesn't really matter, does it? :D