Rumors are that the steam sale starts in about 4 hours and runs through July 4.
You shouldn’t expect much - the recent Winter sale was by far the worst Winter sale they’ve had. Since the refund system was enacted, they stopped the policy of daily/flash sales and just kept everything the same price for the whole two weeks. Publishers are willing to do steeper temporary discounts to get on the front page, to avoid risking looking like they devalue their games by only making them temporarily discounted, hope to cash in on a wave of people buying it for a cheap price and having word of mouth make people buy it for the higher price, etc. Now without daily/flash sales, they just set a higher price point for everything. Stuff that would normally be a $5 flash sale will just be $10 throughout the whole sale.
I don’t know why they don’t just implement some obvious solutions, like if you refund a game you can’t rebuy it for 2 weeks. The only reason you’d do that anyway would be just to refund for a sale, which generates transaction costs for valve.
Hopefully I’m wrong and they’ve addressed this issue, but no rumors to that effect. I think the golden age of steam sales may just be over.
When they announced the refund policy, they did just the opposite and explicitly said that refunding/repurchasing at a sale price was a legitimate use of the policy.
Anyway, agreed that the sales have been lackluster and less of an “event” each time. Still, if you don’t buy many games or don’t own many, this is a prime time to pick some stuff up.
Right, they say that refunding/repurchasing is a legitimate use of the policy, and then simply get rid of all daily and flash sales so it’s a moot point.
If they were to put a cooldown period on rebuying games after a refund, they could still keep the flash/daily sale format.
Because people would rush to buy stuff on day one, even knowing how everything worked, and then cry that they were soul raped because the game was on daily sale the next day, instead now none of us can have nice things and we just have high prices with no deep sales.
Weirdly enough there were lots of people during the winter sale that they preferred this. They were afraid they’d be victimized by having a game go on deep sale after they bought it, so they’d rather not have even deeper discounts lest their impatience be punished. Or that it was such a burden to check the daily sales once a day. And that they were now happier that they would pay more for games… when they could’ve done the very same thing in the previous format anyway, just buy it on day 1 for whatever the base discount price was.
eh - they just need a new button to push if the game you just bought goes on sale, to either refund the difference, or just give you store credit for the same.
FYI, the sale has started but the site is under heavy load and pretty flaky. Discounts are showing for some people and not others, etc. I’d sit tight for a few hours before attempting to buy anything (or determine if you want to buy anything) since you’re not going to miss any time sensitive deals anyway.
Yeah, no surprises. It’s the same static sale format as the winter sale, and prices on a lot of stuff aren’t even at their all time low. Random example, Flight Sim X is $7.50, but it’s been $5 like 8 times before. Banished is $7, but it’s been $5 before. The new format is so weak that it can’t even match previous sale prices from years ago, let alone set new lows.
Very few things on my wishlist are any lower than they were than in the winter sale unfortunately.
I’m struggling to think of a game I actually want to buy right now. I still have dozens of games to play, and I’m addicted to Rocket League. I might buy some DLC for other games if it’s on sale.
If you’re having trouble accessing Steam, or just want to browse a full list of sale items, you can check out the sale here: https://steamdb.info/sales/
Man, did I pick a lousy time to decide to do a clean re-install of Fallout 4. Well, I can start loading all those all-DC post-GECK mods in only 23 hours. Hoo hoo.
I’m tempted to splurge and buy Anno 2205. I thought that Anno 2070 was pretty fun (Steam says I got 99 hours out of it), and it took a long time for that title to come down on price much further than 2205 is now.
It’s hard to get excited for these sales now, both because I already own so many games and because there seem to be very few games that get a truly deep discount like we used to see with the flash sales - especially since the discounts on DLC look to be even weaker, so buying complete versions of last year’s awesome games still runs well over $50, instead of a few years ago when the total package for a yearling GOTY version would be closer to half that.
I’m probably going to go ahead and pick up Gauntlet and Dragon’s Dogma. I was hoping Fallout 4 would see a deeper cut, but I can wait (the price may or may not drop by the winter sale, but by then I may actually have played through some of my other games, including FONV).
Are there any hidden gems out there worth looking into this time around?
As a side note, my wife and I are looking into remodeling our kitchen sometime soon, and I’ve been having a blast playing with this free online design tool. I think I may have discovered an interest in playing something in the builder/design genre. Can anyone suggest some must-haves?
I’m thinking about trying this Final Fantasy 13. The series hasn’t been must-have for me since 10. 11 was apparently an MMORPG, so I lost interest in the franchise. Also, I disliked the way that the games started tending to reward not grinding for levels. But I do remember the older games fondly, and 13 is on sale for $7.99. It’s in three parts, the other two at $9.99 each. Is it worth it? Is the old magic there?
Anyone play Stellaris? I’m tempted, though at $35.99 it’s not cheap, and I like, but am not crazy about, other Paradox games. Still, a space-themed one is tempting. Any recs for or against?
My ten years on Steam has been keeping me frugal these past Steam sales. So far the 4 games I searched for on the Steam sale, I already owned!
I did pick up A Bird’s Story on account of it being a $1.40 for short story experience from the guy who made To the Moon.
And as I predicted, I cried my eyes out last night. Totally worth that buck and a half.
Also picked up Besieged, which I’ve had my eye on for a while, but was not planning on picking it up since it’s still on Early access. However some reviews said that there was actually substantial content int he game already, so I grabbed it.
Might grab Tales form the Borderlands, but I’m confused - the entire “Borderlands over my life” bundle is cheaper than just Tales from the Borderlands… Not sure if an error or what.
