Major Sales are dead

[Simpson]

i finally realized what's happening. companies have figured out that people spend the most amount of money during these major sales and that they make more money if they have a bad discount, rather than an all time low. people who check steamdb for price histories are in the minority, and a lot of steam users just see 40% off and impulse buy.

[Mailer]

I mean, I wouldn't think particularly poorly of anyone caving for a lighter discount above the "all time low" bar, because the same thing happens with IsThereAnyDeal as well, when you also start to see the whole sales history of a product. Steam shows recent product lows as well, but only for certain EU countries, and only across a limited time in the past, where there is a recent new regulation.

Games can dip into deep sales that have never since been repeated again and sometimes there's a logical reason for that. Some games grow out of their price points.

In my opinion, people should feel encouraged to buy at whatever percentage off that they think accurately satisfies their patience at that time. I know that not all of my purchases are "all time lows", and yet I almost always pursue discounts of 75% or more.

[Crazy Tiger]

That's a known. Companies adjusting their sales and pricing strategies to consumer behaviour is not something new.

Neither is people looking at the discount % and not the final price.

Originally posted by Mailer:

In my opinion, people should feel encouraged to buy at whatever percentage off that they think accurately satisfies their patience at that time. I know that not all of my purchases are "all time lows", and yet I almost always pursue discounts of 75% or more.

Agreed. People pay the price they think the game is worth getting for.

Which is fine.

[Kargor]

That's one thing, yes.

The other thing is size: I still look at the Star Deal every day; that's just one game on sale. Going through their main page, I also keep an eye out for "just released" bundles.

For Steam, I haven't even gone through the isthereanydeal mail yet -- I'm certainly not clicking through "thousands of games on sale" to find stuff that's not already on my shopping list anyway.

Both of these have always been a "problem" for me, though, so it's nothing new and Steam is still alive. In bygone days, they did at least have "daily deals" and "flash deals", which I monitored for interesting stuff to put on my shopping list. Nowadays, even the front page is not particularly interesting.

But, that's just me. As a whole, these sales seem to work fine for Steam -- and not everything they do is meant to suit my personal preferences.

[Jon the VGNerd]

I still remember years ago when Rockstar Games pulled a bait and switch tactic by "discounting" their base game while adding a shark card to it, which in turn the base price was still high. Amazing how a big gaming company like Rockstar Games can get away without any lawsuits. And yes, this was around 2015 IIRC.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Simpson:

i finally realized what's happening. companies have figured out that people spend the most amount of money during these major sales and that they make more money if they have a bad discount, rather than an all time low. people who check steamdb for price histories are in the minority, and a lot of steam users just see 40% off and impulse buy.

And people who check the steam db know that most games have a fixed low for discounts. and these lows are almost always during the major sales.

The only time you'll find lower is dev/pub specific sales events

[Tito Shivan]

What's been happening is Steam is no longer the ONLY place for digital sales. So there's no rush in deeply discounting a game to gain storefront visibility. Sales can be spread amongst multiple storefronts at multiple times, without having to go to the deep end of the discount bin.

Then there's other factors, like PWYW bundles have depredated the deep discounts (Now instead of going 90% off games end up on a Humble bundle). Or that visibility on Steam doesn't have the importance it used to (With Twitch and youtube being around) so no more need to fight for that visibility.

There's also the fact that devs have learnt people are willing to wait for a deeper discount and can now play the long game, trying to wear out those gamer's patience.

Major sales aren't dead They're still big events bringing loads of money to devs. It's just that the world that entailed large discounts during those sales is no longer there.

[J4MESOX4D]

Wait til the OP hears about how Black Friday works

[AmaiAmai]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Wait til the OP hears about how Black Friday works:lunar2019laughingpig:

Or Amazon Prime day...

[MrSteel300]

bro forget sales, companies don't even use regional pricing anymore, forcing users to use vpns with game keys to get affordable prices . of course single player games get the non drm treatment

[Simpson]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Wait til the OP hears about how Black Friday works:lunar2019laughingpig:

that's different. companies raise prices before black friday to slap a big discount tag on it while still keeping a high price.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Simpson:

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Wait til the OP hears about how Black Friday works

that's different. companies raise prices before black friday to slap a big discount tag on it while still keeping a high price.

The principle is the same, though. Companies offering a lower actual sales price during major sales.

It's standard business practise, you know...

[CANCELCULTURE]

Originally posted by Simpson:

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Wait til the OP hears about how Black Friday works:lunar2019laughingpig:

that's different. companies raise prices before black friday to slap a big discount tag on it while still keeping a high price.

That is actually a deceptive practice according to the Federal Trade Commission. Getting them to do anything is another story. They did go after Amazon.

Steam has a discounting policy to try and stop price / sales deception.
30-Day Discount Cooldowns
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/discounts

Either way if this kind of price deception gets passed, is noticed, proven, anywhere it should probably be reported.

Originally posted by Simpson:

Major Sales are dead

What's to be expected after years of doing the same thing over, and over, and over, at least 4 times a year? Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...

Looking at the discounts over at is there any deal, all the discounts on the endless list of .99 cent games is kind sad, yet laughable.

[Mad Scientist]

Bunch of fairly good to great stuff on sale 75% to 90% off, doesn't seem like major sales are dead.

[A no-brainer]

I bought 17 games on sale for 64 Euros and I am happy. Most of them 75 - 80% off or already rather low in price. All of them very positive ratings and most of them 2020- 2023 release date, so not overly old either.

Disco Elysium for example, one of the best games in its genre is 90% off right now and a steal.

I am 17 years on Steam and sales haven't been better back then. There were way less games on the store, the number of of games on sale even less and the time frame until a game got a decent discount was much longer than now.

The only real change I see is that there are no events (I only ever loved the sticker book event and still have mine on my profile) and they stopped the FOMO timed sales which is good. Also you need to check on SteamDB if there are legit other key sellers having a better discount, because they sometimes have. Buy there then.

[Simpson]

Originally posted by A no-brainer:

I bought 17 games on sale for 64 Euros and I am happy. Most of them 75 - 80% off or already rather low in price. All of them very positive ratings and most of them 2020- 2023 release date, so not overly old either.

Disco Elysium for example, one of the best games in its genre is 90% off right now and a steal.

I am 17 years on Steam and sales haven't been better back then. There were way less games on the store, the number of of games on sale even less and the time frame until a game got a decent discount was much longer than now.

The only real change I see is that there are no events (I only ever loved the sticker book event and still have mine on my profile) and they stopped the FOMO timed sales which is good. Also you need to check on SteamDB if there are legit other key sellers having a better discount, because they sometimes have. Buy there then.

nobody should ever give the current publisher of disco elysium any money, but you do you. not sure what kind of games you're buying, but my wishlist has 2 games with 75% or more and i don't actually want to play those games, i might even remove them now.