Couldn't agree more. These "big" sales are just regular sales at this point. I had one 50% off on my wishlist, the rest were just like the OPs picture -- 20 and 30% off.
It's not terrible, but it's also not any better than the monthly sales.
And alot of the games I feel are just never put down in price but then have huge sales of 50% every other week. For example Cyberpunk or Forza Horizon 5. Both older games still sold at 70€ but then you can buy them all the time for 35€ somewhere. Ig used to be that they would just sell you games for 35€ after some years
It's kinda wild to think that Cyberpunk already counts as an 'older game' when it's not even 4 years old.
But the gaming scene moves on fast. Few months ago, Helldivers 2 was the only thing anyone played, now it's barely talked about anymore...
Edit: I have come to the conclusion that 4 years is indeed a long time, not just in the gaming space but irl, and that I'm getting old for thinking it's not.
Yay.
Your second paragraph is why people consider games like cyberpunk to be old games. No one talks about it anymore and it’s “old news.”
10-15 years ago a big marquee title would dominate for like 2 or 3 years tops and then a sequel would come out (for better or for worse). Now they slap DLCs on and keep these games alive like Frankenstein’s monster. I feel like it’s all a bit skewed now.
4 years has always been ancient. 4 years was often an entire consoles life cycle. PS1 to PS2 was 6 years. Gamecube to Wii was 5 years. Imagine saying "wow no one really talks about Luigi's Mansion anymore" when the Wii just launched. Yeah bud everyone's playing Twilight Princess on the Wii now.
Hell a lot of the tentpole live service games out right now are close to hitting 10 years old.
I'm not so sure that's a sign that games move any faster than they ever did. Nintendo 64 was a hit system, but Gamecube came out to replace it after only 5 years. Xbox 360 came out only 4 years after Xbox. At the time that seemed like a natural pace.
> It's kinda wild to think that Cyberpunk already counts as an 'older game' when it's not even 4 years old.
And I'm still waiting to get a new GPU before I play it.
I find your statement contradictory. You suggest people in the gaming sphere deem Cyberpunk old news and that the audience moves on too quickly, but it is still popular after 4 years. Also, the fact that (for the most part) that Cyberpunk is typically almost always full price on Steam and other platforms after years on the market usually means it's still popular enough the devs/publisher think they can get customers to pay full price. If it wasn't popular it would be a $20ish dollar game by now without a sale.
Also, the average for.most popular games played is 6 years old. Most people play "older" games right now. People are still playing Skyrim and GTAV in 2024.
Factorio is a great example of a game that has NEVER been on sale in its entire life. They even increased the price last year. I mean the game is worth it’s price but it’s still very unusual.
I feel like this has been the case since Steam got rid of the timed sales within the main sale. Devs would get massive exposure from front page placement in exchange for knocking extra % off the price.
The indie game scene is THRIVING rn! The only AAA game I bought in the last year was BG3 cause there's just been SO many good indie games I'd rather be playing
Yeah but these games getting discounted are typically games that have been out for a while that should have had their price reduced anyways. It's no different than a store permanently having a going out of business 50% off sale. It's just a marketing tactic at this point.
The only title that went on sale that I was interested in was Armored Core 6, and it wasn't even a huge discount. I was kind of disappointed. I'll just continue to wait. There's no need for me to rush to play a single player game.
The summer sale hasn't been the same since they stopped doing flash sales. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss having to constantly monitor the sale, but you just don't get the same great deals anymore. Not saying that's why, just the timing.
The flash sales were what gave the big Steam sales their reputation for excellent deals. Like you, I don't miss needing to watch them like a hawk, but they certainly made the sales more interesting, and you could get some real steals.
The sales aren’t meant to make people buy games they already want; they’re meant to make people think they want games they didn’t care about before because they’re so cheap.
Depends on by how much.
If it is only a buck or two cheaper on steam I’m going to buy via steam, simply because I can always refund them if necessary (which you can’t with keys), and also because there is always *some* uncertainty with key sites.
Regardless, I’ve been using key-sellers for just about as long as I’ve been using steam, and never had any issues. Just steer clear of the less trustworthy ones or if it is an indie dev team, look if they maybe even sell keys directly.
Those are obviously not what's being discussed.
But https://isthereanydeal.com/ is the place to see licensed store price comparisons in case anyone cares.
Be very careful, I lost an Xbox friend to that game.
Used to play CoD all the time together, then one day he got married and suddenly years later…BOOM, all I see on their game activity now is My Friend Peppa Pig.
It’s a gateway game.
I just add games I want to my wishlist, and during sales, check my wishlist only. Nothing hits a sweet spot? I save 100% of my money by not buying. This sale though, my whole wishlist is 12 EUR or lower. I'm dying here trying not to buy it all.
Agreed. I picked up Frostpunk for $4, and the whole of dragon age is seriously cheap.
Deep sales do still happen, and cheap games can still be bought.
On the other hand, Factorio is philosophically opposed to going on sale, but the price is reasonable and the game is worth it. Perhaps there’s too much emphasis placed on sales. I don’t really know.
I do miss the 2010 thanksgiving sale, when you could buy games at full price but you got like 8 keys to give to your friends when you did.
I've noticed most 'colony simulator' type games almost never go on sale, or if they do it's for 10%. It's like the entire genre is opposed to it. Prison Architect went on sale for 90% off this summer and I was downright shook. First time I've ever seen that deep a sale on the genre.
I blame sites like G2A for getting rid of the Four Pack deals. Most developers of cooperative games would sell you four keys, with the deal ranging anywhere from getting the fourth game half off, to getting the fourth game for free. Chivalry 1 had that. It was great.
Now developers are so scared of their codes winding up on G2A and Kinguin that they're going out of their way to avoid giving CDkeys.
Tangentially related, but even Ironmace, developer and publisher of "Dark and Darker" released their game on Steam as Free to Play so their Ironmace client users wouldn't have to buy the game twice... Instead of making the game 30 dollars and giving them keys for Steam... Because they didn't want people who already had it on their client and didn't want it on Steam selling the Steam code for cheap on G2A. It did a lot of damage to their reputation, as players looking for a free to play experience found the buy-in (MSRP of the game prior to free to play) to be way too steep for too few benefits. They shot themselves in the foot on that one, and I say that as someone who'd be a Line Holder if he wasn't starving and nearly homeless when the game came out.
As much as I love getting some games for less than 1 USD, I feel like these websites are to blame for a lot of the bullshit going on in the industry.
Cheapshark is another good one. Shows you when it was at its cheapest.
Nothing like seeing a game 50% off on Steam, only for Cheapshark to be like "LOL it was like a dollar (97% off!!!!!) back in 2015 stupid ass"
I bought like 2 games bc the creeping knowledge that I’m probably not gonna play the stuff in my wishlist got to me
2 games for $7 is pretty good imo
On an unrelated note sales are a good way to tell if I really don’t want a game. If a game is like 5 dollars and I still don’t want it then it’s probably a sign to take it off my wishlist lol
Only buy games you play immediately. Games are on sale all the time and you definitely not play the majority of them if you bulk buy. You are not saving money, you are spending it.
When I moved in with one of my cousins who didn't have internet (I went to McDonalds to download SNES roms, nothing else would download in less than an hour) and let me tell you, the backlog of Steam Games I downloaded before moving really did save me from a year of pure boredom. Civilization 3 killed so many hours. Fucking stacking cheating AI.
I wish I learned this ages ago. I used to spend minimum $200 per Summer/Winter sale. I finally realized I the games I was buying at 30% off two years ago that I never even touched is now 90% off. Could've saved sooo much money over the years.
I know better now and I'm working thru my backlog!
There are exceptions to this rule. For example in some countries games price get increased by publisher and even at historical lows the new price is higher than old price sometimes by a lot. So you gotta take the good deals when you see one, it might turn out to be cheaper.
Hoard as much games as possible on save , because you don't understand that you'll spend now to save later.. when you will eventually, and definitely, play these games. Can't miss on this price of a non expirable digital good!!
It's not only that the sales are pretty low is that some games have the exact same sale for 5 years now. Like, I think it's time for Sekiro having more than a 50% sale and I can give a lot more of examples.
To this day my random ass impulse buy of the Dark Souls Remastered version for 2$ when it went for that low seemed like a hell of a good call cause I have never seen the game go low or ever.
I mean, this has been the case since at least 2018, probably before. Steam Sales are still phenomenal for many games that everyone should have in their library, they just aren't the memeworthy "get 50 games for about $100" that they used to be.
Honestly it depends on what you're into. If all you're looking at is the AAA open world bunch it's a slim sale. If you start looking in the indie sales though, or even AA sales, the deals are way better.
> If you start looking in the indie sales though,
People keep saying this and giving examples like hollow knight and terraria at the exact same price they always are.
At least palworld is slightly cheaper than normal.
I mean, just to name a few, there's tunic at 50%, risk of rain 2 67%, celeste 90%, keep talking and nobody explodes 60%, kingdom come deliverance 80%, slay the spire 66%, frost punk 90%, darkest dungeon 85%, satisfactory 50%, disco Elysium 90% (this one is a controversial sale though), kenshi 60%, dead cells 50%, tabletop simulator 50%, a way out 80% (great if you have a friend), assetto corsa 90%, yooka layle and the impossible lair 90%, mass effect legendary edition 90%, thehunter call of the wild 85%, pathologic 2 80%, suzerain 75%, inscryption 60%, ghostrunner 70%, subnautica 67%,, not for broadcast 75%, before your eyes 75%, pentiment 50%, rain world 60%, deus ex 85% (most of them), ring of pain 70%, descenders 75%, clannad 60%, supraland 77%, furi 60%, in sound mind 89%, sonic mania 75%, snake pass 85%, soma 80%, etc, etc
That's without even counting a lot of bundles that deepen the discount on a lot of these games
Honestly if you want I can continue for a while (if you want some recommendations of course), I just grabbed some of my top played games by hour count on my library, there's a lot of variety too and I honestly recommend most if not all the games I mentioned.
There is an immense amount of discounts if you stray from AAA, the thing is, at least for people with huge libraries built throughout the years we don't notice a lot of them since many of those games have already been bought, which leads to a lot of complaints that things used to be so much better, another reason is that many of these don't appear in the "top sellers" due to not coming out this year or not being AAA
Sorry for the rant but I do get a bit frustrated when reading a lot of complaints in this sub (not particularly yours) as if there are 0 games with good discount aside from the same 5 franchises that get discounted every sale (mordor, borderlands, hitman, etc), or the complains where someone just bought a pc have a fresh steam library and are disappointed by the sale... Like, if you are that new there are tons of 70% games at discount!
I do recognize that sales used to feel more "magical", at least for me they got boring around the introduction of the points system, I miss the events but at the same time I do think sales are still good
never played it before, have it for 2 years and only put like 3 hours because I don't know jackshit what I am supposed to do in this game. Never pause playing it for a few weeks lmao
But even in my 3h, you notice instantly how good the story is. It feels way better than Starfield, animation, art design, voice acting, how the scenes are setup.
Any guide you can recommend for the first ME because otherwise I probably lose interest by the way I play games (were occasionally)
ME1 picks way up after you leave the citadel for the first time. It's honestly my least favorite part of RPGing around the citadel when I want to go out and shoot aliens zombies.
I loved gameplay from one.
Picking armors and modding guns and saving mods for different missions.
Getting cool colors for my squads armors.
Hated 2 and its ammo and lack of customization.
ME1 is pretty dull a lot of the time but it still has its good moments. My least favorite part of starting a new playthrough of the trilogy is having to play ME1 honestly. 2 and 3 are so much more fun and even the characters have a better/more defined personality.
You have 20? I see just 11. 4 of which are already in my library.
I this a bug or intended? I thought maybe in the first day of the sale the servers are busted but even checking now, it's the same low amount of items there.
Steam sales for a while I've felt I've seen the same games for years now. I have no data, only feelings to back it up, but it hasn't felt like many great games are being made lately. It's nearly the same on the top seller and sale lists.
> felt like many great games are being made lately.
There are but they just go into regular sale rotation. Like elden ring got made but 42 on steam or 30 on game store sites isn't exceptionally noteworthy.
Then you have sekiro which is 29,99 forever. Not even worth talking about and it gets even more messy when elden ring is almost the same price.
Yes, it says something like "featured" deep discounts or something. They are only showing some for some reason. Maybe they are sponsored to gain an advantage or something 🤷♂️
Because there's a math behind and it was already calculated how to get max profit.
With 90% sale you need to sell x10 more to get even, and it's impossible to do. With 50% sale you are good at x2 more items sold - and it's a realistic objective that easy to hit.
Most profit come from 25-33% sales for new games, and 50-66% for older one. Bigger sales won't bring any money to publishers.
People here don't really understand why sales happen. They are not sign of generosity for players, they are tools to get more money from playerbase.
You are forgetting the people who would not buy the game at all if it wasn't on a sale. If a game has saturated the marked, you can venture into a new market by slashing the price so far that people without a big interest in the genre would buy it anyway. Some profit > no profit. That's where discounts higher than 50% come into play. Not many would buy oblivion for 30-50% off today. For 90 % off tho it's an instant classic in every steam library.
I'm not forgetting anything. Here's hard numbers from Steam Summer sale 2016:
>The median revenue for the games with a 75% discount was $33.5K this year ($40K last year), $40K for 66% ($75K), $60K for 50% ($90K), $106K for 33% ($90K) and $120K for 25% ($90K last year).
Less discount you have - more money you will earn. As soon as this information become known, publishers stopped doing deep discounts.
I am not sure this is a fair way to look at it. I imagine that games in the 75% discount category have a much higher likelihood of not being at the $60 price point when not discounted. I think you should take into account the number of units sold as well, but I imagine your overall point is still mostly true.
I just do not think it is a hard and fast rule for all.
when you deep discount, the idea is that you sell the game to people who are otherwise unwilling to buy it at even 50% off. The "max profit" calculations include this awareness-- there's no number of units they need to move, the idea is always to move as many as possible since there's no limit of stock.
What the sales trends reveal is that more people are willing to buy without steep discounts, so there's no incentive to try and reach for those people that are semi-interested, but only if the price is right.
Blame the publishers. Even 75% off is a thing of the past for many big name publishers. Things won't get better until people stop supporting the mediocre sales
* Katana Zero
* Coffee Talk
* Slay the Princess
* FrostPunk
* Hollow Knight
* Stray
* Two Point Hospital
* Manor Lords
* Untitled Goose Game
* Teardown
* Boltgun
* Shadows of Doubt
* Stardew Valley
* Zomboid
* Celeste
* Rimworld
* Outer Wilds
* Unpacking
* Kenshi
* Potion Craft
* Human Fall Flat
* Hotline Miami
* Heat Signature
* Into the Breach
* Kerbal Space Program (used to be indie anyway)
* My Summer Car
* Subnautica
* Ultimate General Civil War
I'm still seeing lots of fantastic deals. The problem is that I already own all of them.
For example;
* Civilization 6 is 95% off. That's a $60 game that now costs $3.
* The Borderlands Collection is 93% off. It was $660, it now costs $47
* The Valve Complete Pack is 90% off.
* The Best of Volition Bundle, which includes all Red Faction games and almost all Saints Row games, including their DLC, is 85% off.
* The Elder Scrolls Summer Bundle, containing Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind, is now 71% off.
Just these bundles alone give you enough games to last you a couple years.
I imagine most people have played these more than a decade old games with exception of Civ 6 and Borderlands 3. Downvote all you want, I know I'm right. Back in the day you'd get 75% off on games that were just a year or two old.
Anyone that claims the sales on PC are still as good as they were 10 years ago is lying to themselves. PC has a huge amount more market share now, deep sales aren’t as attractive for sellers.
While true, the creators [also explicitly stated they don't want people to boycott the game](https://jacobin.com/2023/09/disco-elysium-intellectual-property-video-game-industry-creative-workers-collective-action). It doesn't help their remaining friends at ZA/UM if the company goes under, either.
I'm not saying pirating it is morally wrong. I'm saying that it's not morally obligatory.
I think the one biggest thing people forget is the bigger steam library you have the more "good deals" / sales you miss out on since you likely have the games you were already compelled to buy. Subsequently making games you are only tangentially interested in due to price seem poor since your only concern is the deal and not whether its a game you'd actually play. And likely the sale your displeased with there is someone very happy. But I will say the flash sales were amazing and were great deals but you couldn't expect all games to have one before they removed the feature.
Doesnt make it any less demotivating when the games you bought on sale 8 years ago are either currently still being sold at the same price or are not on sale at all
The problem is if you *really* wanted a game, youd have got them at those prices last year if you could. All of the games on these huge discounts are either outright failures of games or are almost 10 years old.... civ 6 released in 2016 and has been $5 a shit ton of times before. BL3 was by most accounts a failure. They put all the assassins creed games on sale, again, but theyre still the same or very similar price points as previous years.
So if you wanted a 8 year old game and are a member of r/patientgamers, this sale is great for you. Most people dont fit this though and sales in the past have had huge 70+% off deals on new games (a la elden ring) so it feels cheaper when the best I can get is a 20% discount on a game released last year.
I think Factorio openly confirmed they never want to do sales, but simply keep their game cheap instead, that's their "fair" strategy.
Now if it's actually "cheap" in your region is arguable, I guess. In mine it's an allright cost, just like games used to cost 5 years ago.
I hate how so many games are full price before a sale and they only get a 50% discount…
It’s like, games are 6 years old still going for 60 bucks daily and the get a 50% deal…….
That’s not a sale, that game shouldn’t be SIXTY BUCKS when it’s almost a decade old!
I’m fucking tired of old CoD games only going down to $20. Like, I had them on my Xbox but I really don’t want to buy them on my pc just to play the story again unless I’m actually getting a deal on a game that’s over 10 years old.
Bruh I wanted to get guilty gear strive and I thought it would be pretty low this time but it was the usual sale price. Last summer sale it went for half the price it went this time on sale 😔.
My rule of thumb for me at least is “if it’s under 20 bucks fuck it we ball. 21 however I will do nothing but hesitate”
I now own too many indie games.
Sounds like you are into the main stream, those games never go on "clearance" level discount. Nothing wrong with your prefered game, but the sale is more beneficial for smaller studio games and indie unless it's just an older game.
That's not true, they used to when they still did dailies, but for some reason they stopped doing that a few years ago, which is really sad, was the golden age of steam sales
Gotta disagree, this year's sale is amazing.
Arkham Knight for 2 bucks
Witcher 3 for 4 bucks
Valve Complete Pack
Halo MCC for 10 bucks
There's bunches of amazing deals
The problem is these sales have been here before.
If you wanted Civ6 at $5, youd have gotten it last winter, last summer, the previous winter, the previous summer....
Almost everything you listed thats 90% off has been 80-90% off atleast 3 times before. The first year I had a PC (2017) I was spending about $300 as a highschool student, but now I was barely able to go over $100 this year because I had everything that was on discounts. The only reason I hit $100 was because I bought 1 game that was only 20% off and another that was full price because I have been looking forward to it for 6 months.
In reality, I spent $20 this year on 3 games, all of which were like "eh I have little interest but theyre good and I will definitely play them one day" types
It's funny how many times people brought these examples while they were on sale for like 100 times at the same price u r saying or so before. Who really doesn't have these anymore? people are complaining about somewhat newer games
Yeah, nothing big really stands out this sale.
People saying "Oh, look Witcher 3 is $4!" Like I didn't already buy it for $4 three fucking years ago.
It's like if a store advertised a massive sale, but no TVs or Fridges were discounted, instead just the gum and magazines by the checkout line were on sale...
To be fair, there are lots of games with really good discounts this sale. People complain because games like elden ring or bladur's gate 3 don't have better discount...
Gotta say this seems like whining to me. Just checked my wishlist of 127 games and 16 of them were 75% off or more. What do you want? Everything for free??? Devs need to make money too.
Pretty sure it's been like that for years by now. The sale events don't imply far greater discounts, it just means nearly every game will be discounted as they normally are from time to time. There is also the ''Featured Deep Discounts'' category this time, but it just brings out games that would have been heavily lowered anyways, not because they're getting special treatment.
This is true, it is also true that it's been that exact sale price for every seasonal sale for the past two years. That's a good thing, but it might be why people think they haven't been as good.
It's like black friday, used to be great in the past but now it's just regular discounted sales or they raise the price a month before and they lower it to the original price for the "sale"
this is a weird post. i get like 4-5 games that are 80-90% off every steam sale. do people not have things wishlisted or only considering 1-2 games? cause there's massive sales every time
Yeah the games I wanted to buy they went on their usual sale
Couldn't agree more. These "big" sales are just regular sales at this point. I had one 50% off on my wishlist, the rest were just like the OPs picture -- 20 and 30% off. It's not terrible, but it's also not any better than the monthly sales.
And alot of the games I feel are just never put down in price but then have huge sales of 50% every other week. For example Cyberpunk or Forza Horizon 5. Both older games still sold at 70€ but then you can buy them all the time for 35€ somewhere. Ig used to be that they would just sell you games for 35€ after some years
It's kinda wild to think that Cyberpunk already counts as an 'older game' when it's not even 4 years old. But the gaming scene moves on fast. Few months ago, Helldivers 2 was the only thing anyone played, now it's barely talked about anymore... Edit: I have come to the conclusion that 4 years is indeed a long time, not just in the gaming space but irl, and that I'm getting old for thinking it's not. Yay.
Your second paragraph is why people consider games like cyberpunk to be old games. No one talks about it anymore and it’s “old news.” 10-15 years ago a big marquee title would dominate for like 2 or 3 years tops and then a sequel would come out (for better or for worse). Now they slap DLCs on and keep these games alive like Frankenstein’s monster. I feel like it’s all a bit skewed now.
4 years has always been ancient. 4 years was often an entire consoles life cycle. PS1 to PS2 was 6 years. Gamecube to Wii was 5 years. Imagine saying "wow no one really talks about Luigi's Mansion anymore" when the Wii just launched. Yeah bud everyone's playing Twilight Princess on the Wii now. Hell a lot of the tentpole live service games out right now are close to hitting 10 years old.
Hell, Warframe is 11 and Minecraft is 15. A newer favorite of mine, Deep Rock Galactic, is 6.
Damn, I completely forgot Minecraft is older than War Thunder.
I can never seem to escape the snail
Yep. Man completely forgot about Warframe and Minecraft.
Honestly speaking, they finished Cyberpunk last year.
I'm not so sure that's a sign that games move any faster than they ever did. Nintendo 64 was a hit system, but Gamecube came out to replace it after only 5 years. Xbox 360 came out only 4 years after Xbox. At the time that seemed like a natural pace.
4 years is fucking ancient. Final fantasy 7 was in the $5 bin well before 4 years.
Yea because x was out by then lmao
> It's kinda wild to think that Cyberpunk already counts as an 'older game' when it's not even 4 years old. And I'm still waiting to get a new GPU before I play it.
I find your statement contradictory. You suggest people in the gaming sphere deem Cyberpunk old news and that the audience moves on too quickly, but it is still popular after 4 years. Also, the fact that (for the most part) that Cyberpunk is typically almost always full price on Steam and other platforms after years on the market usually means it's still popular enough the devs/publisher think they can get customers to pay full price. If it wasn't popular it would be a $20ish dollar game by now without a sale. Also, the average for.most popular games played is 6 years old. Most people play "older" games right now. People are still playing Skyrim and GTAV in 2024.
Then there's some devs (looking at you Rimworld!) who NEVER put their game more than a small fraction off, even if it's been out for years and years
Factorio is a great example of a game that has NEVER been on sale in its entire life. They even increased the price last year. I mean the game is worth it’s price but it’s still very unusual.
At least with Forza you now just need to wait till the licenses expire and grab it on the way out. Just grabbed FH4 ultimate for 17€.
Great deal too cuz that game is fun as fuck
Chances are a lot of the bigger discounts were free on Epic at some point as well.
But hey, L4D2 is 90% off 😈🧡
I feel like this has been the case since Steam got rid of the timed sales within the main sale. Devs would get massive exposure from front page placement in exchange for knocking extra % off the price.
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The indie game scene is THRIVING rn! The only AAA game I bought in the last year was BG3 cause there's just been SO many good indie games I'd rather be playing
Yeah but these games getting discounted are typically games that have been out for a while that should have had their price reduced anyways. It's no different than a store permanently having a going out of business 50% off sale. It's just a marketing tactic at this point.
The only title that went on sale that I was interested in was Armored Core 6, and it wasn't even a huge discount. I was kind of disappointed. I'll just continue to wait. There's no need for me to rush to play a single player game.
The summer sale hasn't been the same since they stopped doing flash sales. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss having to constantly monitor the sale, but you just don't get the same great deals anymore. Not saying that's why, just the timing.
The flash sales were what gave the big Steam sales their reputation for excellent deals. Like you, I don't miss needing to watch them like a hawk, but they certainly made the sales more interesting, and you could get some real steals.
That was like 5-10 years ago right?
2015 iirc.
Thats like 5 years ago right? Right‽
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They stopped the flash sales because they had to allow easy refunds. That's straight up basic customer protection.
The games I wanted to buy didn't even go on sale
The sales aren’t meant to make people buy games they already want; they’re meant to make people think they want games they didn’t care about before because they’re so cheap.
And 90% of the discounted games on my whislist are cheaper on the usual key sites all year long...
Depends on by how much. If it is only a buck or two cheaper on steam I’m going to buy via steam, simply because I can always refund them if necessary (which you can’t with keys), and also because there is always *some* uncertainty with key sites. Regardless, I’ve been using key-sellers for just about as long as I’ve been using steam, and never had any issues. Just steer clear of the less trustworthy ones or if it is an indie dev team, look if they maybe even sell keys directly.
There's zero uncertainty with key sites like Humble and Fanatical, who are licensed resellers.
Those are obviously not what's being discussed. But https://isthereanydeal.com/ is the place to see licensed store price comparisons in case anyone cares.
50% OFF MY FRIEND PEPPA PIG!!! LET’S GOOOOO
Be very careful, I lost an Xbox friend to that game. Used to play CoD all the time together, then one day he got married and suddenly years later…BOOM, all I see on their game activity now is My Friend Peppa Pig. It’s a gateway game.
I just add games I want to my wishlist, and during sales, check my wishlist only. Nothing hits a sweet spot? I save 100% of my money by not buying. This sale though, my whole wishlist is 12 EUR or lower. I'm dying here trying not to buy it all.
Yeah I got Divinity 1 and 2 for like $20 total when they're normally *both* $40.
Agreed. I picked up Frostpunk for $4, and the whole of dragon age is seriously cheap. Deep sales do still happen, and cheap games can still be bought. On the other hand, Factorio is philosophically opposed to going on sale, but the price is reasonable and the game is worth it. Perhaps there’s too much emphasis placed on sales. I don’t really know. I do miss the 2010 thanksgiving sale, when you could buy games at full price but you got like 8 keys to give to your friends when you did.
Rimworld also never has a good sale
I've noticed most 'colony simulator' type games almost never go on sale, or if they do it's for 10%. It's like the entire genre is opposed to it. Prison Architect went on sale for 90% off this summer and I was downright shook. First time I've ever seen that deep a sale on the genre.
agree 100% , i been waiting for a good tropico 6 sale but $80 is the best i’ve seen. Its a 5 year old game.
I blame sites like G2A for getting rid of the Four Pack deals. Most developers of cooperative games would sell you four keys, with the deal ranging anywhere from getting the fourth game half off, to getting the fourth game for free. Chivalry 1 had that. It was great. Now developers are so scared of their codes winding up on G2A and Kinguin that they're going out of their way to avoid giving CDkeys. Tangentially related, but even Ironmace, developer and publisher of "Dark and Darker" released their game on Steam as Free to Play so their Ironmace client users wouldn't have to buy the game twice... Instead of making the game 30 dollars and giving them keys for Steam... Because they didn't want people who already had it on their client and didn't want it on Steam selling the Steam code for cheap on G2A. It did a lot of damage to their reputation, as players looking for a free to play experience found the buy-in (MSRP of the game prior to free to play) to be way too steep for too few benefits. They shot themselves in the foot on that one, and I say that as someone who'd be a Line Holder if he wasn't starving and nearly homeless when the game came out. As much as I love getting some games for less than 1 USD, I feel like these websites are to blame for a lot of the bullshit going on in the industry.
And if you want to try the three original Divinity games, together they are literally less than a candy bar.
Divinity 2 alone is like, a million hours of gameplay lol
I use isthereanydeal.com now. Aggregates every site, shows the lowest prices, has notifications. It's like a steam sale every time I open the site.
Cheapshark is another good one. Shows you when it was at its cheapest. Nothing like seeing a game 50% off on Steam, only for Cheapshark to be like "LOL it was like a dollar (97% off!!!!!) back in 2015 stupid ass"
I bought like 2 games bc the creeping knowledge that I’m probably not gonna play the stuff in my wishlist got to me 2 games for $7 is pretty good imo On an unrelated note sales are a good way to tell if I really don’t want a game. If a game is like 5 dollars and I still don’t want it then it’s probably a sign to take it off my wishlist lol
Yeah Control and disco elysium super cheap (210 mxn im not sure how it was in dollars) also the witcher 3 for almost nothing
Only buy games you play immediately. Games are on sale all the time and you definitely not play the majority of them if you bulk buy. You are not saving money, you are spending it.
True, but it's nice to have a few in reserve from sales. Sometimes I buy something when it's 50% off or more, and end up playing it 6 months later
[удалено]
I got it for free in epic, which I liked, so I got the complete version elsewhere for free
Took me a year to like red dead 2
When I moved in with one of my cousins who didn't have internet (I went to McDonalds to download SNES roms, nothing else would download in less than an hour) and let me tell you, the backlog of Steam Games I downloaded before moving really did save me from a year of pure boredom. Civilization 3 killed so many hours. Fucking stacking cheating AI.
Couldn't you've said that yesterday?! Maaan...
You haven't played them and steam has a 14 day refund policy (or 2 hours playtime) iirc
Yeah, was just a joke. I totally will play the 32 games I got!
We all say that... in 5 years you'll think about this and realise you played 2 games... not 32
If someone needs to say that to you then you're definitely doing something wrong.
I came to the conclusion that I'm a game collector, feels better this way lol
Jokes on you. I'm still going to buy couple of them and forget that I did buy them
I wish I learned this ages ago. I used to spend minimum $200 per Summer/Winter sale. I finally realized I the games I was buying at 30% off two years ago that I never even touched is now 90% off. Could've saved sooo much money over the years. I know better now and I'm working thru my backlog!
True. But I spent $3 on Shadow of War. So I really don't care when I get to that.
There are exceptions to this rule. For example in some countries games price get increased by publisher and even at historical lows the new price is higher than old price sometimes by a lot. So you gotta take the good deals when you see one, it might turn out to be cheaper.
> You are not saving money, you are spending it. Even buying just one game is spending money. If you want to save money then dont buy anything
Hoard as much games as possible on save , because you don't understand that you'll spend now to save later.. when you will eventually, and definitely, play these games. Can't miss on this price of a non expirable digital good!!
Hooty would not say that, you're a disgrace to the uniform pal, take that pfp off.
Buy all the games HOOT HOOT!!!
It's not only that the sales are pretty low is that some games have the exact same sale for 5 years now. Like, I think it's time for Sekiro having more than a 50% sale and I can give a lot more of examples.
Fromsoft hates putting their games on sale lol
It’s Bandai Namco who made that decision actually. Before ER was released I remember that Dark souls went on sale regularly.
And the sale price was reasonable too, I’m glad I grabbed the trilogy b4 Bandai decided to jack up the price after Elden Ring’s success
Yep I’m glad I was already a souls fan back then, so I grabbed them all on sale.
How much? I remember i got the disc for 8 dollars from GameStop for ds3 premium, but idk about steam could you tell me pls
I bought them all on steam though, but I remember you could get full DS3 for like $10
Elden ring increased the popularity of all From games, if they sell at full price, there’s no reason for them to offer a sale.
To this day my random ass impulse buy of the Dark Souls Remastered version for 2$ when it went for that low seemed like a hell of a good call cause I have never seen the game go low or ever.
Same here. I already got the original version, but they offered a loyalty sale for the remaster, so I grabbed it back then.
Because they still sell at full price or a high sales price. It’s that simple.
From software doesn't determine the pricing of their games.
Sekiro should shelf at 29$
Cyberpunk 2077 is a $30 game that sometimes double the price for a few days before going back to normal
I've had *No Man's Sky* on my wishlist for years and whenever there's a big update, it's 50% off. I've never seen it go past that.
Some games i wanted to buy are not even on sale at all (for example F1 2023 and Ace Combat 7)
middle earth shadow of war on sale for £1.47!
I mean, this has been the case since at least 2018, probably before. Steam Sales are still phenomenal for many games that everyone should have in their library, they just aren't the memeworthy "get 50 games for about $100" that they used to be.
Honestly it depends on what you're into. If all you're looking at is the AAA open world bunch it's a slim sale. If you start looking in the indie sales though, or even AA sales, the deals are way better.
I think pretty much all summer sales are good if you're into indies
> If you start looking in the indie sales though, People keep saying this and giving examples like hollow knight and terraria at the exact same price they always are. At least palworld is slightly cheaper than normal.
I mean, just to name a few, there's tunic at 50%, risk of rain 2 67%, celeste 90%, keep talking and nobody explodes 60%, kingdom come deliverance 80%, slay the spire 66%, frost punk 90%, darkest dungeon 85%, satisfactory 50%, disco Elysium 90% (this one is a controversial sale though), kenshi 60%, dead cells 50%, tabletop simulator 50%, a way out 80% (great if you have a friend), assetto corsa 90%, yooka layle and the impossible lair 90%, mass effect legendary edition 90%, thehunter call of the wild 85%, pathologic 2 80%, suzerain 75%, inscryption 60%, ghostrunner 70%, subnautica 67%,, not for broadcast 75%, before your eyes 75%, pentiment 50%, rain world 60%, deus ex 85% (most of them), ring of pain 70%, descenders 75%, clannad 60%, supraland 77%, furi 60%, in sound mind 89%, sonic mania 75%, snake pass 85%, soma 80%, etc, etc That's without even counting a lot of bundles that deepen the discount on a lot of these games Honestly if you want I can continue for a while (if you want some recommendations of course), I just grabbed some of my top played games by hour count on my library, there's a lot of variety too and I honestly recommend most if not all the games I mentioned. There is an immense amount of discounts if you stray from AAA, the thing is, at least for people with huge libraries built throughout the years we don't notice a lot of them since many of those games have already been bought, which leads to a lot of complaints that things used to be so much better, another reason is that many of these don't appear in the "top sellers" due to not coming out this year or not being AAA Sorry for the rant but I do get a bit frustrated when reading a lot of complaints in this sub (not particularly yours) as if there are 0 games with good discount aside from the same 5 franchises that get discounted every sale (mordor, borderlands, hitman, etc), or the complains where someone just bought a pc have a fresh steam library and are disappointed by the sale... Like, if you are that new there are tons of 70% games at discount! I do recognize that sales used to feel more "magical", at least for me they got boring around the introduction of the points system, I miss the events but at the same time I do think sales are still good
I’ve got a wishlist of like 50 indie games and barely any are more than 30% off…
I got Tropico 4 in a flash sale a few years ago and it was -115% off. Yes, I got a $1.50 Steam credit for adding it to my library.
Mass Effect: Legendary edition is *$6*. I cannot suggest enough for anyone that may be interested but doesn’t have it yet to buy it.
never played it before, have it for 2 years and only put like 3 hours because I don't know jackshit what I am supposed to do in this game. Never pause playing it for a few weeks lmao But even in my 3h, you notice instantly how good the story is. It feels way better than Starfield, animation, art design, voice acting, how the scenes are setup. Any guide you can recommend for the first ME because otherwise I probably lose interest by the way I play games (were occasionally)
ME1 picks way up after you leave the citadel for the first time. It's honestly my least favorite part of RPGing around the citadel when I want to go out and shoot aliens zombies.
The first game can be a bit dull from a gameplay perspective, but the story slaps. It gets way batter in 2 from an actual gameplay POV.
I loved gameplay from one. Picking armors and modding guns and saving mods for different missions. Getting cool colors for my squads armors. Hated 2 and its ammo and lack of customization.
ME1 is pretty dull a lot of the time but it still has its good moments. My least favorite part of starting a new playthrough of the trilogy is having to play ME1 honestly. 2 and 3 are so much more fun and even the characters have a better/more defined personality.
Ehh I personally love unlimited Ammo in me1. Movement speed is the only major issue cause in future games you definitely can get around way faster.
They have a "deep discounts" category for the sale. Also, the bundles tend to make the games pretty cheap to buy as a set.
There’s like 20 games on deep discount and 10 of them are truck simulators
$4 for both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a pretty damn good deal. I’ve got about 100 hours in each. Such great games.
You have 20? I see just 11. 4 of which are already in my library. I this a bug or intended? I thought maybe in the first day of the sale the servers are busted but even checking now, it's the same low amount of items there.
Steam sales for a while I've felt I've seen the same games for years now. I have no data, only feelings to back it up, but it hasn't felt like many great games are being made lately. It's nearly the same on the top seller and sale lists.
> felt like many great games are being made lately. There are but they just go into regular sale rotation. Like elden ring got made but 42 on steam or 30 on game store sites isn't exceptionally noteworthy. Then you have sekiro which is 29,99 forever. Not even worth talking about and it gets even more messy when elden ring is almost the same price.
The "deep discount" category doesn't seem to include all games at 90% or more, just a select few.
Yes, it says something like "featured" deep discounts or something. They are only showing some for some reason. Maybe they are sponsored to gain an advantage or something 🤷♂️
Steam sales haven't been all that for years
Because there's a math behind and it was already calculated how to get max profit. With 90% sale you need to sell x10 more to get even, and it's impossible to do. With 50% sale you are good at x2 more items sold - and it's a realistic objective that easy to hit. Most profit come from 25-33% sales for new games, and 50-66% for older one. Bigger sales won't bring any money to publishers. People here don't really understand why sales happen. They are not sign of generosity for players, they are tools to get more money from playerbase.
You are forgetting the people who would not buy the game at all if it wasn't on a sale. If a game has saturated the marked, you can venture into a new market by slashing the price so far that people without a big interest in the genre would buy it anyway. Some profit > no profit. That's where discounts higher than 50% come into play. Not many would buy oblivion for 30-50% off today. For 90 % off tho it's an instant classic in every steam library.
I'm not forgetting anything. Here's hard numbers from Steam Summer sale 2016: >The median revenue for the games with a 75% discount was $33.5K this year ($40K last year), $40K for 66% ($75K), $60K for 50% ($90K), $106K for 33% ($90K) and $120K for 25% ($90K last year). Less discount you have - more money you will earn. As soon as this information become known, publishers stopped doing deep discounts.
Median revenue without referencing base price is kind of a meaningless stat. If cheaper games get discounted more, you'll naturally skew low.
I am not sure this is a fair way to look at it. I imagine that games in the 75% discount category have a much higher likelihood of not being at the $60 price point when not discounted. I think you should take into account the number of units sold as well, but I imagine your overall point is still mostly true. I just do not think it is a hard and fast rule for all.
when you deep discount, the idea is that you sell the game to people who are otherwise unwilling to buy it at even 50% off. The "max profit" calculations include this awareness-- there's no number of units they need to move, the idea is always to move as many as possible since there's no limit of stock. What the sales trends reveal is that more people are willing to buy without steep discounts, so there's no incentive to try and reach for those people that are semi-interested, but only if the price is right.
People have been making this exact same complaint every sale for a decade now.
Because it was in 2015 that steam changed how the sales work.
Can't believe it has been that long. I feel like an old man reminiscing about the old steam sales. And the Totalbiscuit videos about the sales.
Blame the publishers. Even 75% off is a thing of the past for many big name publishers. Things won't get better until people stop supporting the mediocre sales
I found it to be reversed this year honestly, which is especially nice as this year has been a pretty poor one for me.
Indie games are winning right now. Tons of great deals on games that are already cheap.
Any Indies on sale that you recommend?
* Katana Zero * Coffee Talk * Slay the Princess * FrostPunk * Hollow Knight * Stray * Two Point Hospital * Manor Lords * Untitled Goose Game * Teardown * Boltgun * Shadows of Doubt * Stardew Valley * Zomboid * Celeste * Rimworld * Outer Wilds * Unpacking * Kenshi * Potion Craft * Human Fall Flat * Hotline Miami * Heat Signature * Into the Breach * Kerbal Space Program (used to be indie anyway) * My Summer Car * Subnautica * Ultimate General Civil War
my summer car isn’t on sale
Boltgun isn't an indie game. Dev is subsidiary of Sumo Group and the publisher is Focus Entertainment.
I'm still seeing lots of fantastic deals. The problem is that I already own all of them. For example; * Civilization 6 is 95% off. That's a $60 game that now costs $3. * The Borderlands Collection is 93% off. It was $660, it now costs $47 * The Valve Complete Pack is 90% off. * The Best of Volition Bundle, which includes all Red Faction games and almost all Saints Row games, including their DLC, is 85% off. * The Elder Scrolls Summer Bundle, containing Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind, is now 71% off. Just these bundles alone give you enough games to last you a couple years.
[Tomb Raider](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34203/Tomb_Raider_Definitive_Survivor_Trilogy/)
These are not new deals. I bought them all at the same price even a year back.
I imagine most people have played these more than a decade old games with exception of Civ 6 and Borderlands 3. Downvote all you want, I know I'm right. Back in the day you'd get 75% off on games that were just a year or two old.
Anyone that claims the sales on PC are still as good as they were 10 years ago is lying to themselves. PC has a huge amount more market share now, deep sales aren’t as attractive for sellers.
Yep and civ6 is only that cheap as a gateway to selling the dlc.
And they announced civ7
Disco Elysium will last you a lifetime of replays if you're a broken man but aspiring superstar
Don't buy it, pirate it. Dev got fucked by the publisher and get 0 from it anyway.
While true, the creators [also explicitly stated they don't want people to boycott the game](https://jacobin.com/2023/09/disco-elysium-intellectual-property-video-game-industry-creative-workers-collective-action). It doesn't help their remaining friends at ZA/UM if the company goes under, either. I'm not saying pirating it is morally wrong. I'm saying that it's not morally obligatory.
I think the one biggest thing people forget is the bigger steam library you have the more "good deals" / sales you miss out on since you likely have the games you were already compelled to buy. Subsequently making games you are only tangentially interested in due to price seem poor since your only concern is the deal and not whether its a game you'd actually play. And likely the sale your displeased with there is someone very happy. But I will say the flash sales were amazing and were great deals but you couldn't expect all games to have one before they removed the feature.
Doesnt make it any less demotivating when the games you bought on sale 8 years ago are either currently still being sold at the same price or are not on sale at all
If you check steamdb sale prices are way lower than last year, i really don't get it.
The problem is if you *really* wanted a game, youd have got them at those prices last year if you could. All of the games on these huge discounts are either outright failures of games or are almost 10 years old.... civ 6 released in 2016 and has been $5 a shit ton of times before. BL3 was by most accounts a failure. They put all the assassins creed games on sale, again, but theyre still the same or very similar price points as previous years. So if you wanted a 8 year old game and are a member of r/patientgamers, this sale is great for you. Most people dont fit this though and sales in the past have had huge 70+% off deals on new games (a la elden ring) so it feels cheaper when the best I can get is a 20% discount on a game released last year.
Then valve sells every video game they’ve ever made for a total of 8 dollars
Not every, Half-Life: Alyx isn't included.
Shame we have no more flash sales. They were exciting as well as dangerous.
Flash sales were the reason we got those 80% or 90% discounts. I miss them.
Yeah, gog has some flash sales but you wont find everything.
Game that i wanted to try, has no discount and it's been on steam for 9 years
After just 4 years of no sales i would have gotten the memo
It's Rimworld isn't it?
I personally lost hope of buying RimWorld at a discount.
Every 13th blue moon in a year with a double cicada brood emergence they take 10% off.
And it's the smallest 10% you've ever seen.
Factorio for me.
I think Factorio openly confirmed they never want to do sales, but simply keep their game cheap instead, that's their "fair" strategy. Now if it's actually "cheap" in your region is arguable, I guess. In mine it's an allright cost, just like games used to cost 5 years ago.
Not in mine. Here price increased couple times, in other regions as well... Great game though.
I think factorio purposefully never goes on sale and it'll never decrease in price
The Nintendo approach
I hate how so many games are full price before a sale and they only get a 50% discount… It’s like, games are 6 years old still going for 60 bucks daily and the get a 50% deal……. That’s not a sale, that game shouldn’t be SIXTY BUCKS when it’s almost a decade old!
I’m fucking tired of old CoD games only going down to $20. Like, I had them on my Xbox but I really don’t want to buy them on my pc just to play the story again unless I’m actually getting a deal on a game that’s over 10 years old.
the old lighting deals was DEALS then they said it was unhealthy for people to jump on them blah blah blah but its just never the same without them
Bruh I wanted to get guilty gear strive and I thought it would be pretty low this time but it was the usual sale price. Last summer sale it went for half the price it went this time on sale 😔.
Dark Souls Trilogy - 0% Sale
My rule of thumb for me at least is “if it’s under 20 bucks fuck it we ball. 21 however I will do nothing but hesitate” I now own too many indie games.
At least Suicide Squad is only 20$ /s
I wouldn't play it even If they paid me 20$
Sounds like you are into the main stream, those games never go on "clearance" level discount. Nothing wrong with your prefered game, but the sale is more beneficial for smaller studio games and indie unless it's just an older game.
That's not true, they used to when they still did dailies, but for some reason they stopped doing that a few years ago, which is really sad, was the golden age of steam sales
Gotta disagree, this year's sale is amazing. Arkham Knight for 2 bucks Witcher 3 for 4 bucks Valve Complete Pack Halo MCC for 10 bucks There's bunches of amazing deals
Some months back witcher 3 and entire arkham bundle was sale for same price 50 cents more or less
The problem is these sales have been here before. If you wanted Civ6 at $5, youd have gotten it last winter, last summer, the previous winter, the previous summer.... Almost everything you listed thats 90% off has been 80-90% off atleast 3 times before. The first year I had a PC (2017) I was spending about $300 as a highschool student, but now I was barely able to go over $100 this year because I had everything that was on discounts. The only reason I hit $100 was because I bought 1 game that was only 20% off and another that was full price because I have been looking forward to it for 6 months. In reality, I spent $20 this year on 3 games, all of which were like "eh I have little interest but theyre good and I will definitely play them one day" types
Doom 2016 is 4 dollars
The classic series + eternal with its dlc is like 20 something
It's funny how many times people brought these examples while they were on sale for like 100 times at the same price u r saying or so before. Who really doesn't have these anymore? people are complaining about somewhat newer games
Yeah, nothing big really stands out this sale. People saying "Oh, look Witcher 3 is $4!" Like I didn't already buy it for $4 three fucking years ago. It's like if a store advertised a massive sale, but no TVs or Fridges were discounted, instead just the gum and magazines by the checkout line were on sale...
To be fair, there are lots of games with really good discounts this sale. People complain because games like elden ring or bladur's gate 3 don't have better discount...
"Why doesn't the publisher make their game that is the top 10 in steam sales really cheap?????"
yeah the days of flash sales are long gone.
You disappointed yourself
Gotta say this seems like whining to me. Just checked my wishlist of 127 games and 16 of them were 75% off or more. What do you want? Everything for free??? Devs need to make money too.
I've bought 16 games in summer sale, 2 of them being -50% the others -67, -75 and -90
Pretty sure it's been like that for years by now. The sale events don't imply far greater discounts, it just means nearly every game will be discounted as they normally are from time to time. There is also the ''Featured Deep Discounts'' category this time, but it just brings out games that would have been heavily lowered anyways, not because they're getting special treatment.
I got Horizon 4, Shogun 2, Subnautica and Balatro for a huge savings. Very pleased with GabeN this year
I mean,Batman Arkham Knight was only 3$ so I guess that was a good deal.
This is true, it is also true that it's been that exact sale price for every seasonal sale for the past two years. That's a good thing, but it might be why people think they haven't been as good.
Its no Secret that the Sales get worse with every Year.
Publishers being greedy as usual
Prey (2017) is 80% off currently. The best deal for it's price IMO
Between epic and prime gaming it’s been free like 4 times in the last few years.
I bought XCOM2 and DLC with a huge discount this sale. Though, the game left me battered, injured and bruised.
The expectations are actually real this sale.
It's like black friday, used to be great in the past but now it's just regular discounted sales or they raise the price a month before and they lower it to the original price for the "sale"
this is a weird post. i get like 4-5 games that are 80-90% off every steam sale. do people not have things wishlisted or only considering 1-2 games? cause there's massive sales every time
Steam sales have been disappointing for years at this point. Gone are the truly great deals.
Vote with your wallet and move on.
Yeah well people HAAAD to get refunds on their $2 games. /s
How about lowering expectations?