Why are people still so obsessed about Flash Sales?

[aquila]

Look, I get it. It was a fun time back then, we were younger, could actually not buy any game we wanted, and Valve still cared about making every huge sale a little event with lots of side activities, flash sale was just one part of what kept you engaged and makes the nostalgia value.

But why oh why wont people let it go? Its been years and there is literally no point. We have a refund system now. All Flash Sales would do is bloat steam with millions of refunds. You would buy a game, then refund it once it gets cheaper.

There is literally no point. Instead of obsessing about Flash Sales, maybe advocate for Valve to introduce other means of getting some more % on Games, like they did in the past.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by aquila:

we were younger, could actually not buy any game we wanted,

Not all of us were children back then. We could buy whatever we wanted, we got amazingly better deals than today, and we enjoyed the way Flash sales promoted new stuff every few hours.

Nowadays, Valve just recycle the same low quality banners and put little effort into actually showcasing anything different for the duration of the sale. The sales are boring because Valve lost any real interest in doing anything with them, and publishers, likewise, got more stingy with the discounts while also raising base prices.

Originally posted by aquila:

All Flash Sales would do is bloat steam with millions of refunds. You would buy a game, then refund it once it gets cheaper.

Again, most of us knew how to shop smart. We still do. Flash sales are not the problem, impatient people not understanding how to shop smart were. The rest of us shouldn't be punished because they lacked the brains to think for a few seconds.

[Faedrill]

The same reason why people want the " good old times there you owned your games" back.
Rose tinted glasses.

They just remember the good things and forgot all the bad ones.

[BJWyler]

Yeah, flash sales have never been a good thing. Heavily influencing a FOMO mentality is the kind of actual anti-consumer feature that many complain about without actually knowing what truly is anti-consumer.

[Tito Shivan]

Basically they think the flash sales would bring back the deeper 75-90% discounts we used to have. But they forget the deep 75-90% discounts disappeared before flash sales did.

[Start_Running]

never mind that flash sales were a sneaky and anti consumer manipulation tactic.
Which basically made everyone's experience worse.

[sumolagann]

flash sales are kind of worse in reality, but more fun if you were into steam sale events. There are like 0 events now so it's a bit lame, if there is you get an ugly sticker

[Kargor]

Originally posted by aquila:

There is literally no point. Instead of obsessing about Flash Sales, maybe advocate for Valve to introduce other means of getting some more % on Games, like they did in the past.

Steam never did anything to "get some more % on games" -- they are a rather established company and don't need to pay sales out of their own pockets. If a publisher wants to give you a 70% discount, you get a 70% discount. Valve will not, and never has, make that a 75% or 80% discount.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Basically they think the flash sales would bring back the deeper 75-90% discounts we used to have. But they forget the deep 75-90% discounts disappeared before flash sales did.

There are discounts beyond 75%. I do not, however, have any statistics whether there's fewer of them now.

The big Steam sales have always had the problem that "everyone" is "waiting" for them, and that they run for 2 weeks. You don't run a 90% discount if everyone is buying at 66% as well.

[Piston Smashed™]

I remember waiting for the flash sales to re-new, everyone waiting with anticipation, will there be a pricing error that allows everyone to grab an insane bargain before anyone realises and sets the game back to it's supposed price. Such a fun game, especially when all the big traders missed out on such a bargain from adding hundreds or more copies to their inventories and watching them go around offering folks next to nothing for them because they got them for cheap but then they'd go and sell/trade them for silly prices.

[Aachen]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Steam never did anything to "get some more % on games" -- they are a rather established company and don't need to pay sales out of their own pockets. If a publisher wants to give you a 70% discount, you get a 70% discount. Valve will not, and never has, make that a 75% or 80% discount.

Well, they did try vouchers for an event, but they certainly didn’t revisit them or continue to offer vouchers when they debuted the point shop etc.

[deborahsimpson]

Flash ? watdat

[Satoru]

Note that when steam sales were new, this was actually a NEW thing, and thus everything was actually new and exciting.

Steam experimented with lots of various ways and methods to make sales.

* As steam expanded to a much more global scale for its customers, having flash sales began to be detrimental depending on your region. These kinds of things started off with it being valid for maybe 8 hours. extending to 24 hours, then a few days. Eventually getting rid of it entirely

* These flash/community sales had a very detrimental Russian Roulette style meta with developers. You had to apply to the flash/community sales before hand. but you had no idea if you were going to be accepted. Flash sales that had 'small' discounts compared to the normal sales were loudly derided by the community (which was dumb). So developers began to basically gamble. They would set their BASE sale at a HIGHER PRICE in the HOPE that when they got accepted to the flash/community sale the price differential would be worth it. But if you weren't selected you couldn't change the base sale price. Thus instead of say

$10 game -> 50% base -> 75% off flash sale

You'd get

$10 game -> 25% base -> 75% off flash

As such as a consumer you were overall getting worse deals as developers were trying to meta the flash/community sales. Since not all games would be accepted many games were left at a higher base % sale price that coudln't be changed. So in the above example the game would be stuck at 25% off, instead of the more intended 50% off.

People also seem to forget, that again Steam doing these sales at the time was an innovation and unique to steam itself. Today there are literally dozens of online stores running similar promotions. These promotions are also happening literally every day of the year somewhere. Steam sales have not gotten 'worse'. Its simply that there's now many other stores all doing the exact same thing.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Faedrill:

Rose tinted glasses.

Nothing rose tinted about it; sales back then were better. They had flair and enjoyment that went past just a discount. Valve at least TRIED to promote more than just the same handful of titles that get trotted out every single sale. Flash sales were small part of that, but an interesting one that, by end, had even eliminated "FOMO" given they actually ran for 24 hours, and were even repeated at the end of the sale too -- plenty of time for anyone truly interested in a title to check for it.

Even the percentage of a sale isn't the reason current sales are worse. The fact developers/publishers pushed prices up across the board is the problem. Now the same 60% discount is more expensive today than it was several years ago.

So to sum up, todays sales are void of unique identity, not as cheap as they used to be, with zero effort done to promote a range of titles. They're a wasted opportunity.

[rawWwRrr]

Rusty rose tinted glasses.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

Originally posted by Faedrill:

Rose tinted glasses.

Nothing rose tinted about it; sales back then were better. They had flair and enjoyment that went past just a discount. Valve at least TRIED to promote more than just the same handful of titles that get trotted out every single sale. Flash sales were small part of that, but an interesting one that, by end, had even eliminated "FOMO" given they actually ran for 24 hours, and were even repeated at the end of the sale too -- plenty of time for anyone truly interested in a title to check for it.

Even the percentage of a sale isn't the reason current sales are worse. The fact developers/publishers pushed prices up across the board is the problem. Now the same 60% discount is more expensive today than it was several years ago.

So to sum up, todays sales are void of unique identity, not as cheap as they used to be, with zero effort done to promote a range of titles. They're a wasted opportunity.

The promotion of titles largely depends on a user's library, browsed tags, wish-listed games, etc. The cheapness of the games is on the developers more than Valve. They can set the same discounts they used to if they want, they just choose not to.

The biggest issue with the flash sales is people also were able to find out what would go on sale next just like they were able to find out when big sales would happen before Steam started listing them out.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Basically they think the flash sales would bring back the deeper 75-90% discounts we used to have. But they forget the deep 75-90% discounts disappeared before flash sales did.

Sure there still are. And what people misses the most is that many of these discount now hide behind smaller discounts on a reduced base-price game.

IE: $60 game used to sell 75% off for $15. Now the game sells 'only' for 50% off... But the base price is now $30, so the actual discounted sale price is... $15!!

Originally posted by sumolagann:

flash sales are kind of worse in reality

Mind flash sales had to be lenghtened in duration up to the point they were basically daily deals, because so much people kept missing them (because they happened while they were sleeping, at work, far from a computer, etc...)

Originally posted by Satoru:

* These flash/community sales had a very detrimental Russian Roulette style meta with developers. You had to apply to the flash/community sales before hand. but you had no idea if you were going to be accepted. Flash sales that had 'small' discounts compared to the normal sales were loudly derided by the community (which was dumb). So developers began to basically gamble.

It became a race to the bottom. At first it was worth, because the boom of sales you got from the visibility of being on a flash sale made it worth it... But as visibility on Steam became less of a selling factor, so did that need of gambling.

Eventually Flash sales were just a little bump from the regular sale price before Steam got definetly rid of them.

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

Nothing rose tinted about it; sales back then were better. They had flair and enjoyment that went past just a discount.

Note EVERYTHING Valve did during sale events were nothing but mechanics to generate engagement with the platform. Buy games, play games, get achievements from games, Post screenshots, trade, make reviews... They did a great job out of disguising what basically was gamifying purchases.

Let's also not lose the focus that during many of those events the only way to really advance (and freebies) was to BUY a lot of games on sale (as progression in the meatagame was tied to achievements from on-sale games)...

Sale games were literally pay-to-win metagames.