Steam Deals and Digital Sales

gshurik

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Fyff said:
I feel like the only people who don't like Steam Sales are those with 1000 games in their collection they still have yet to play. I always find one or two things to pick up.
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Yup. People who somehow expect to see brand new titles at 70% off when this has rarely been the case.

The Black Friday sale had a ton of deep discounts for new games. Shadow of War was 40% off, Civ VI was 50% off. Hell even Wolfenstein 2 which had just come out was 50% off.

It's easy to selectively remember the outliers in old Steam Sales, but the fact is that brand new AAA titles were never deeply discounted until at least 6-12 months later.
 
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Amzin

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I have almost 800 games and I think 50 of those or so are from this year, maybe 15-20 from Steam sales. But I also play my games nowadays :p Steam sales still have plenty of great shit every time. It helps that I have broad tastes though. I'm not just waiting for latest Sportsball or CoD to hit $5
 
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gshurik

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Amzin said:
I have almost 800 games and I think 50 of those or so are from this year, maybe 15-20 from Steam sales. But I also play my games nowadays :p Steam sales still have plenty of great shit every time. It helps that I have broad tastes though. I'm not just waiting for latest Sportsball or CoD to hit $5
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Assuming you're not looking solely for AAA titles that released in the year there's a ton of good deals. Even Prey is currently at 50% off and that was a AAA title this year.

Steam Sales have always been a great catch up tool. If you don't buy every game at full launch price and wait you're going to normally be saving around 50% on a purchase, which is an insane discount. As a new gamer I could buy CS:GO, The Witcher 3, Fallout New Vegas, Dark Souls 3, Stardew Valley and a bunch of other games for less than £100. The only people who are complaining are those who want very specific titles that have recently released.
 
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Utnayan

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Fyff said:
Yeah but it's not like Civ V was on sale for less then 30 bucks in 2011. Is a 7 year old game with a new sequel on super sale, sure. I don't remember Civ V getting super low until like 2015.
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Civ 5 complete edition dropped 75% 2 weeks after launch in 2014.

Civilization V Complete drops 75% in price two weeks after initial release

Civ 5 Standard was $19.99 about year after launch in the fall sale of 2011.

Point is, these sales have had their prices hiked pure and simple and these are for the same legacy games which had better price discounts 3 years ago. How prices can go UP after 2 and a half years on games that are over 7 years old when 2 and a half years ago they were more than half the price of what they are listed for today in this "Sale", is ridiculous.

It isn't about a "sale" any longer. It's about conditioning and mind think to get people to think they are getting a great deal, in which some cases they are, and in others they would have had a great deal if they could time warp back to when Steam sales actually mattered in 2015. Digital sales (Depending on your region) are still awful for Sony/MS marketplaces in comparison when someone takes a look around at the marketplace.

Just be a smart consumer. Steam isn't what it used to be any longer - that is evident. It is a great platform to hold games and launch/friends/play, but their sales are now irrelevant compared to past history, and competition will easily be able to find you better deals in which you will probably register the code with Steam anyway.

Now, I am not saying that's Valve's fault. It's the publisher's fault. That's for certain. Valve has done a ton of great things including digital refunds of games and protecting gaming consumer rights. But these "sales" are less than what they were a couple years back, and that's across the board. And Steam is no longer the end all be all glory of sales during summer/fall/winter any longer, and you will probably find better deals elsewhere moving forward.
 
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spronk

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steam sales used to fucking rock because of price mistakes and massive 24 hour 90% sales. no ones gonna sell their (GOOD) game for 90% off for two weeks though, whatever gains you make in sales you lost by not capturing the plebs happy paying just 50% off.

so yeah, sucks for those of us who were able to visit every day and pick shit up but whatever, my steam library is currently 4584 games so i don't really give a shit anymore.
 
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Pyros

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They still have historic lows on various stuff. Just not that much, and on quite a lot of stuff they basically never hit the historic lows anymore, they constantly do sales for less. It's just a matter of using IsThereAnyDeals.com or something similar and buying when it makes sense. You can easily import your steam wishlist to that and set up alerts whenever a game on the list hit an historical low and just buy from whatever shop is selling(you can also filter shops if you don't like buying from some russian website or whatever). Steam isn't just the best anymore for sales and hasn't been for many years now. Arguably even before they stopped the daily deals sales and shit, you could already find better prices due to currency conversion or whatever.

But steam sales are still nice if you're lazy(generally speaking, most sales are still pretty close to historical lows, you're losing like 1-5$ per game) or if you're buying relatively new stuff which often gets discounted to their lowest prices because they hadn't been discounted yet(so like even if it's only 25% off, since it's new that's the lowest).
 
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Utnayan

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Well, let's illustrate a point here.

Here are two of the best games I have played. Tomb Raider Remake, and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Franchise - Tomb Raider

$2.99 for a GOTY candidate launched in 2013. $19.79 for Rise of the Tomb raider less about a year and 3 months old and even better than the first.

Then look at this bullshit.


Good post Pyro.
 
Utnayan

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Evernothing said:
Ys: Originon for $4.99 right now as a flash sale.

Excellent action RPG with focus heavily on action.

Ys: Oath is Felghanathe previous game on for $3.74, also excellent, although I hear Origin makes some improvements.
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Hell, I can even go back in time to the thread in 2012. The above is a quote I took from 2012 (Obviously)...

Check out the sale price on these games 5 years later. Just click the link and look at the price that was given in the text on the original post.
 
Borzak

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Maybe it's because few people are looking to pay AAA game prices for a variety of reasons. Lot of games coming out and such. Or maybe they just feel like the AAA pricce for "AAA" games aren't much triple A.
 
Fyff

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Utnayan said:
Civ 5 complete edition dropped 75% 2 weeks after launch in 2014.

Civilization V Complete drops 75% in price two weeks after initial release

Civ 5 Standard was $19.99 about year after launch in the fall sale of 2011.

Point is, these sales have had their prices hiked pure and simple and these are for the same legacy games which had better price discounts 3 years ago. How prices can go UP after 2 and a half years on games that are over 7 years old when 2 and a half years ago they were more than half the price of what they are listed for today in this "Sale", is ridiculous.

It isn't about a "sale" any longer. It's about conditioning and mind think to get people to think they are getting a great deal, in which some cases they are, and in others they would have had a great deal if they could time warp back to when Steam sales actually mattered in 2015. Digital sales (Depending on your region) are still awful for Sony/MS marketplaces in comparison when someone takes a look around at the marketplace.

Just be a smart consumer. Steam isn't what it used to be any longer - that is evident. It is a great platform to hold games and launch/friends/play, but their sales are now irrelevant compared to past history, and competition will easily be able to find you better deals in which you will probably register the code with Steam anyway.

Now, I am not saying that's Valve's fault. It's the publisher's fault. That's for certain. Valve has done a ton of great things including digital refunds of games and protecting gaming consumer rights. But these "sales" are less than what they were a couple years back, and that's across the board. And Steam is no longer the end all be all glory of sales during summer/fall/winter any longer, and you will probably find better deals elsewhere moving forward.
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So a year after launch it had the same discount the new one has now and then a 3 year old game had the same discount the new one has now but it used to totally be better?
 
Utnayan

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Fyff said:
So a year after launch it had the same discount the new one has now and then a 3 year old game had the same discount the new one has now but it used to totally be better?
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You stated that Civ 6 is only a year old and isn't old enough to receive a higher discount yet. Then said Civ 5 (To your knowledge) wasn't discounted for a while after release (More than a year) - Civ 5 was down to 19.99 within the first year. Civ 5 Bundle was 75% off within the first 2 weeks after launch. Yet Civ 6, an inferior game by all accounts, isn't seeing the same sale percentages (It is $29.99 in the same time frame) as Civ 5 did like for like.

Combine that with a decrease in sale percentage discounts across the board over the last 4 years (Especially within the last 2) and we are getting an aftermath effect which is over-hyping Steam sales into thinking they are still this grandiose bastion of deals, when in fact, over the last 2 years the deals have become worse, down to the same titles from years ago being more expensive now than before in the same deal structure.

It's silly when I keep seeing "OH MY GOD STEAM SALE, WOOT!!!!!", and at the same time, bandwagoners ignoring that their games are more expensive now than 2 years ago in the same sale methodology, for the same exact games to boot.
 
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Amzin

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Steam revenue continues to climb every year and according to their data, every sale since they stopped doing flash/daily deals has been better than the one before it.

I can say this again now because it continues to be true, there's never been a better time to be a gamer, much less a PC gamer. The sheer number of legitimately great titles you can grab in bundles or 75% off in sales is preposterous. Devs and publishers of said titles continue to actually end up making more now than they used to, in most cases. Also PC is getting way more ports than in the past which is a bonus.

I haven't paid full price for a PC game as far back as I can remember, and even now you can get 10%-20% off minumum even for AAA pre-orders via Amazon, Humble, or GMG
 
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Janx

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Utnayan said:
Well, let's illustrate a point here.

Here are two of the best games I have played. Tomb Raider Remake, and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Franchise - Tomb Raider

$2.99 for a GOTY candidate launched in 2013. $19.79 for Rise of the Tomb raider less about a year and 3 months old and even better than the first.

Then look at this bullshit.


Good post Pyro.
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Yeah but EA and Ubisoft are notorious faggots.
 
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W

wanand

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Another reminder that if you have a recent Samsung TV (like last couple 2 few years) there is a free Steamlink App you can use without having the box. I use it all the time for the living room and moved the box into bedroom. Try to mention it when it comes up and I know a lot of people got new TVs this year.
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Just wanted to say thanks for this, I got a SAMSUNG UE55MU6670 55" Smart 4K Ultra HD HDR Curved LED TV the other day in the sales with a soundbar, never tried steam link before so was going to buy one in the steam sale then saw your post.

Tried it yesterday must say I was not overally impressed with it but might be because both TV and PC are wireless connected to the router. TV can be wired in so might try that see if it any better but last night trying W3 and Tomb raider could really notice the lag, not unplayable but enough to notice
 
Intrinsic

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wanand said:
Just wanted to say thanks for this, I got a SAMSUNG UE55MU6670 55" Smart 4K Ultra HD HDR Curved LED TV the other day in the sales with a soundbar, never tried steam link before so was going to buy one in the steam sale then saw your post.

Tried it yesterday must say I was not overally impressed with it but might be because both TV and PC are wireless connected to the router. TV can be wired in so might try that see if it any better but last night trying W3 and Tomb raider could really notice the lag, not unplayable but enough to notice
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Could be. All my stuff is on LAN and never really had an issue.

On another unrelated note; finished Doki Doki Literature Club last night and while I don’t get the weeb or VN stuff this was fucking out there. Pretty well executed for what it was trying to do. And I actually want to do another playthrough for some of the alternate stuff. Bizarre little thing.
 
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Noodleface

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I play my steam link on wifi just fine but I'm running ac1900 on a high-speed connection (300 down)
 
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Fyff

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I got a steam link for xmas and it won't run on my shit wifi but works fine with cables.
 
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meStevo

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New Humble Monthly is up, starts off w/ Civ VI and 2 of the DLCs for $12. Lowest price ever has been $26.

Humble Monthly

Alternatively, here's a referral link, but it only gets me stuff, not you: Humble Monthly
 
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Blitz

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Sooo. Is Civ VI worth it? That's a fantastic price, but I've seen a lot of people say it's best to just stick with V.
 
Utnayan

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Goes to show to stay away from steam sales. Laughable that this is 12 with dlc and base game during that sweet winter sale was 29.99 still two days ago.

No blitz. Game sucks. Civ 5 is worlds beyond better.
 
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