Why are there no more mini games in Steam sales?

[Taevas]

This has probably been asked before (so apologies if that's the case), and I'm sure it simply comes down to money and dev time, but hey, I thought I'd ask anyway. Does anyone know why Valve stopped creating the mini games and competitions during the major seasonal sales?

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that they changed the pricing model: no more worrying about missing out on a flash sale, and no more voting on which game has the biggest discount. Good call. But it just feels like the sales are a bit...hollow now. Anyone else feel this way?

[BJWyler]

From what I understand, there was massive shannanigans going on with the Grand Prix event, so Valve opted to do away with them.

Sale prices are determined by the developers. I have found plenty of good deals during sales events, and even better ones during the rest of the year. It all depends on what you are looking at. Newer games are not going to get big discounts. You need to wait a year or two before that happens.

[Taevas]

Shenanigans? As in people trying to rig the outcome? I didn't think the mini games necessarily granted huge perks...If that's the case, then that kind of sucks, but I understand.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Taevas:

Shenanigans? As in people trying to rig the outcome? I didn't think the mini games necessarily granted huge perks...If that's the case, then that kind of sucks, but I understand.

The grand prix event let users choose the team they entered, if i remember right.
That was an avoidable mistake that had expected consequences.

[Taevas]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Originally posted by Taevas:

Shenanigans? As in people trying to rig the outcome? I didn't think the mini games necessarily granted huge perks...If that's the case, then that kind of sucks, but I understand.

The grand prix event let users choose the team they entered, if i remember right.
That was an avoidable mistake that had expected consequences.

Ah, OK. That makes sense. Just a real shame as all. I quite enjoyed those things.

[Caver]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Originally posted by Taevas:

Shenanigans? As in people trying to rig the outcome? I didn't think the mini games necessarily granted huge perks...If that's the case, then that kind of sucks, but I understand.

The grand prix event let users choose the team they entered, if i remember right.That was an avoidable mistake that had expected consequences.

There were two issues with the grand prix event

- first too many people picked corgi

- second there was some sort thing that people used to up their steam level massively

Then there was the javascript thing that did something similar for the Saliens mini game in another steam event...

[Taevas]

Thanks for the info guys. Much appreciated.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Originally posted by Taevas:

Why are there no more mini games in Steam sales?

Seriously, Steam can't be arsed to fix their own client and keep it bug free anymore. I'm not sure how you expect them to be able to run such a thing in those conditions.

[Taevas]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

Originally posted by Taevas:

Why are there no more mini games in Steam sales?

Seriously, Steam can't be arsed to fix their own client and keep it bug free anymore. I'm not sure how you expect them to be able to run such a thing in those conditions.

Yeah, I guess this is the depressing truth of things.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

There were problems to mini games that allow people to choose their teams, where most people automatically choose the winning group because they want to be on the winning team non stop, the other issue is that people get mad that the team that wins allows people to be picked at random from said team that wins to get free games from their wishlist. The other bigger problem is that there people that try do dumb things by making mass amount of accounts to try higher their winning odds to get picked which is a problem IMHO.

The other problem is that when Valve wanted to make it more fair, or try to make it balance for the other teams so they have a chance to actually win once, was by altering the on going game event which cause people to get upset, and wanting to switch to the other winning team, and yeah it pretty messy alright.

So because of the whole hate, and bashing it kind of cause steam to back away from doing anymore mini games at least for now, besides puzzle games where everyone can win a free badage lol.

TBH I rather Valve just make a mini game that can be team base, but does not matter which team won system just pick random across all teams no matter what even if team lose, or won it don't matter, it just random pick some players as everyone in the same pool to having a chance to win, as well put a gate that only people that spent at least $20, or more on their account can qualify to be in that pool so people can't just bot it to try win into it, which yeah it will hurt all those F2P accounts, but at least it stop people from trying to flood the servers with bots for it when they know they have to cough up a pretty penny.

[Taevas]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write this. Basically, the upshot is that they're not coming back, which is a shame. I guess it's not worth investing in it, when so many people will look to exploit any gain from the system.

[Shiro♌]

Another thing is, Steam was really, really really busy during the entire Grand Prix event.
It wasn't unusual for store transactions to fail (tons of discounts, yet, you couldn't have bought anything), you being unable to list items on the community market, and stuff like that.
At some point, you were even lucky just to get to connect to Steam and chat with friends due to how busy Steam was..

Honestly, it was a fine event, but got messed up the moment too many users have gathered around and made annoying not just participating within the event, but using Steam aswell.
It was as if we were indirectly told to go outside rather than spend our free times behind our desktops.

[Kargor]

It's probably too much work for too little benefit.

Steam has one business: selling games. These events were meant to increase the sales; if they didn't do that, or not enough, then it's not worth doing them.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but Valve has enough problems as it is to sell me games during their big sales. These events didn't do anything for me in that regard.

[Taevas]

Originally posted by Kargor:

It's probably too much work for too little benefit.

Steam has one business: selling games. These events were meant to increase the sales; if they didn't do that, or not enough, then it's not worth doing them.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but Valve has enough problems as it is to sell me games during their big sales. These events didn't do anything for me in that regard.

Huh, I hadn't actually thought of it like this, but that's a solid point. I guess I saw this as enriching the player experience, but you're right - it was designed to drive people to use the platform more, and therefore increase sales, not just give people something fun to do.

[J4MESOX4D]

Valve made two key changes to major events in recent years - first was the removal of flash sales and also not having the sales gimmick. It's made the events non-existent and the overall sales quite boring but as said above, from a business standpoint it's a logical move. This way players weren't wasting their time on a game that was likely exploited and users weren't stalling from purchasing in the hope that a game they wanted would reduce further in a timed flash sale.

What you see day one is what you get throughout so it's quite dull but fair to everyone including developers. The mini games often drew unforeseen exploits and frustrations and flash sales penalised people who were sleeping or had to work. Playing purchases you made is far better than wasting it on some clicking gimmick also.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by Taevas:

Originally posted by Kargor:

It's probably too much work for too little benefit.

Steam has one business: selling games. These events were meant to increase the sales; if they didn't do that, or not enough, then it's not worth doing them.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but Valve has enough problems as it is to sell me games during their big sales. These events didn't do anything for me in that regard.

Huh, I hadn't actually thought of it like this, but that's a solid point. I guess I saw this as enriching the player experience, but you're right - it was designed to drive people to use the platform more, and therefore increase sales, not just give people something fun to do.

Yeah I think that's it in a nutshell. Steam points came in one of the big sales, and they kept that. I think amassing points was probably the larger draw, so they expanded the points market which is super cheap/easy to maintain, and dropped the mini games.