Steam would either have to make every publisher sign in on this deal even though it would only hurt the publishers, or they’d have to lose money every time they did that. If they sell a game for $40, take their $12 cut, then the game is $10 the next day, if they refund $12, they actually lose $2.
And for what? They have no obligation to do this. Why a 24 hour window? Why not 3 days? A week? 2 Weeks? Whatever arbitrary deadline you set is going to piss someone off who barely misses that deadline. So you might as well have the deadline be the actual sale.
I’m overly sensitive to this, but the fact is that actual super evil piece of shit companies like EA get some criticism but not nearly as much as Valve/steam. It’s this bizarre sense of entitlement that people have - because Valve treats them well, they think they’re entitled to everything.
Like when Valve used to run those contests where you’d get a drawing to win 100 games on your wishlist or whatever. People would say “OMG VALVE IS FORCING ME TO GET 45 ACHIEVEMENTS, HOW DARE THEY” when in reality the qualifying number would be like, 9, and those would be freebies. I remember people raging in these very threads at the idea that valve might not give enough freebie achievements to qualify for the raffle - I mean, how dare valve want you to spend $2.50 on a game to be entered in that promo. HOW DARE THEY. People would find every which way to complain about a freebie contest, so they just stopped running them. Yep, good job you idiots, because you couldn’t stop bitching about how your free shit wasn’t the exact form of free shit you wanted, no more free shit. And now you’re all happier because you somehow think not having free shit is way better than having free shit that isn’t given in the precise manner that you want.
If I ran Valve, I’d be tempted to say “fuck it, we’re just going to be total dicks like EA, so you guys can’t get some bizarre sense of entitlement and hate us for treating you way better than anyone else does”
Er, my math was in reverse, obviously. If you buy the game for $40, and they refund the difference, they’d be paying you back $30, of which their original profit was $12, so they’d be losing $18.
People usually sort through all of the sales stuff and pick out the worthwhile items at Reddit’s r/GameDeals/. Here’s a list of the deepest discounts during this sale.
I’m way too addicted to buying games on sale. I miss the old Steam sales where they had free goodies you could win.
There are three Sleeping Dogs DLCs that might be worthwhile. Nightmare in North Point is a separate mini campaign in which demons overrun a section of the city. Kind of amusing, a couple hours long, but gets a bit repetitive. Zodiac Tournament is an homage to grindhouse style kung fu flicks. Crazy rich guy runs a martial arts tournament, you have to survive through all the opponents and challenges. A couple hours long, the film grain effects are kind of charming. Year of the Snake I have not played yet, though I picked it up and will give it a go. All the other DLC packs are either extra cars, weapons, clothes or cheats. If you’re on the fence about the game and $5 is already pushing you, you can skip them. But if you want a bit more out of the game those three content packs are probably cheap enough to be worth it.
Wow, Steam totally wins the “Incomprehensible text graphic” thing to confirm one’s humanity. And, they suck at storing user ID’s and passwords. So I’ll be doing my shopping at Best Buy as usual this year…
Note that Origin is a different service than Steam, owned by EA and using its own client. I use it and like it fine but some people are finicky about that sort of thing.
Origin is also having a holiday sale in general but nothing grabbed me as a fantastic deal.
Ubisoft is offering a 35% off voucher on digital games/content. Again, Ubisoft uses its own client (Uplay) which I never had a problem with but no surprises if you decide to use it.
When I claimed the code, it said I would receive it within seven working days which sounds insane to me but it’s good for a year so maybe they’ll have some games on sale for Christmas or something. 35% might be the best discount you see on new titles like Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag or Arkham Origins.
Green Man Gaming has a 30% off voucher (GMG30-4IMHC-3C8ST) that works until Dec 3rd for a handful of titles. Most notably (IMHO) the Bioshock Infinite Season Pass.
The price for Burial At Sea: Episode 1 alone is $11.25 on sale right now (25% off) so getting both that and the Episode 2 for $14 is a pretty good deal.
Green Man Gaming gives you a Steam code, doesn’t it? I might have to ask some one to act as a middle-man so I can pick up Enemy Within for $20 rather than the obscene $50 they’re asking from Australians.
Yeah, GMG gives a Steam key for Steamworks games like X-Com: Enemy Within.
I thought GMG had some Australia-only voucher for “fixing” the unfair pricing but since I’m not in Australia I haven’t really followed it. (pre-edit: It looks like 2K gave them enough flack that they stopped doing so).
Only as much as they have to on the sales themselves. All they are effectively doing is making the sale start earlier.
And while I do think there’s no point for Steam to do this, as they already have enough good will amongst gamers, I have to say your argument made me almost want to change my mind. I do not see how wishing Valve would do something counts as being entitled.
Oh, and no one gets mad at EA over this because they are already mad enough at EA for other things. It’s not a matter of being Steam being nice. It’s a matter of EA being so bad that small complaints are overshadowed by bigger ones. Like, you know, getting Origin to actually work consistently.
The weekly humble bundle includes SPAZ, which I liked. If you pay at least $6, you’ll get Defense Grid, a tower defense game I’ve seen recommended here a few times.
