With a game like there has probably been existence market research to account for how much buzz the game will get. They may even be counting on the buzz to sell more copies at full price.

That is exactly how people making these decisions think. Its all numbers to them, there are no people involved in their thinking.

right, so that would put you into the 50% or the lower 25%, but there are people that will buy higher price, and as long as there is 1% willing to buy before the first sale it is worth it for them.

If you assume 25% of player will buy at 80, 50% will buy at $50, and 25% will buy at $20. Per 100 buyers they stand to make $5,000. However if they start at $50 with 75% of buys buying at that price, they will make $4,250. This is about maximizing profit by selling to fans with deep pockets first then discounting latter to captured the rest of the player base.