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Even if Steam added a search tag in the "Specials" section for weeklong deals only, it still wouldn't compensate for the effectiveness and visibility of the billboard link.
As nifty as the billboard is it has a limited space and is also dedicated to promoting the newer titles. It isn't necessarily there to post sales of older games all the time. And there are weekly sales going on ALL the time. I can see what you mean but depending on the billboard is like depending on the store to keep all of your interested items in their front window. It just isn't the type of thing that will happen.
There's still the issue of not being able to do a tag search for weeklong deals. As it is now we get all sales including, for instance, sales that go on for another two months. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would appreciate a function to see sales that end this week. It just doesn't make sense to provide this information only on Monday.
This has nothing to do with keeping all of my interests in the "front window". To use an analogy, Steam is like a grocery store that puts out a flyer of the weekly sales on Monday. Grocery stores that do this usually have flyers available or displayed when you walk in the store. Steam is like a store that doesn't do that at all. So, unless you got the Monday paper, you have no way of knowing what's on weekly sale other than going through EVERY sale in existence.
Imagine a grocery store that, after Monday, leaves no way for shoppers to know what is on sale other than going through the entire store. That would be ridiculous because most people buy groceries every week or so and it's the sales that get a lot of people into the store.
Why isn't this "the type of thing that will happen"? It would take 30 seconds to put the link back up and costs absolutely nothing and diminishes the midweek madness advertising in no way. Like I mentioned, there are two midweek madness items to scroll through. Why in the world wouldn't they just make it three scroll items. How does steam benefit from removing the link? They don't. They actually LOSE potential sales because they are making a way of finding the weekly sales unavailble.
Simply, I think there are around 130-180 WEEKLY sales going on (but I don't know because there's no way to check this after a Monday). To find them, we all have to wade through ALL sales. There are WELL over 180 sales TOTAL at any one time.
Forget the billboard for a second, AT THE LEAST there should be an easily visible tag available under the "Specials" tab. But Steam doesn't even have that. (Not to mention that adding tags, under the main ones provided with tickboxes on the specials page, is far from intuitive or clearly expained. I've been using Steam for something like 8 years and I still wrestle with doing that.
There is no way to rationalized the way Steam is advertising the weeklies. It is simply a matter of poor design.
It is easily rationalized if you look at it from their perspective. The billboard is going to be for the new and latest thing available, not the cheapest thing available. That or recommendations. All specials are already sort of rounded up in their own section already. There are sales all the time. So putting the sales up on the billboard would just be dedicating slots to sales that are constantly happening. A shop isn't just going to keep their front window only packed with the items that are on sale...they are trying to sell the more recent and yes the more costly items as well. It is a store.
In a grocery store you don't have a conveyor belt that takes you directly to the item in question or anything. They don't put the product in a different location a lot of the time. It is still in the same spot, it is just on sale. Though sometimes they do I don't feel it is nearly as frequent as just marking the tag down.
To be fair. Steam does feature sales on the front page more during the bigger sales. Publishers and developers are customers on Steam as well seeing as how Steam takes a cut of sales. Sales are often methods of getting customers to browse the store frequently because it raises the chances of seeing something they would like to buy. That is a commonly used tactic for a retailer. The goal of the store is to sell stuff after all and Steam doesn't have the clerk that is the one typically helping you out. So the sales are supposed to kind of push you to browse every now and again.
Everything could always use some improvement. But expecting to never have to browse for anything is indeed unrealistic. It isn't like you are being put through any kind of work to find those deals. They are right at the bottom and the best deals are almost definitely going to be towards the top because those are going to be the ones other people go for too. You don't have to drive to a store and deal with any traffic or people. You don't have to talk to a clerk who wants to sell you a magazine subscription to go along with your game like a certain other game retailer. All in all...Steam is a very convenient way to buy games and it takes no time to make some clicks and find something.
Like I said, everything needs improvement and Steam will improve. But saying it is poorly designed just because it doesn't have those features right now seems kinda petty.
But that is my opinion.
Thank you! Bookmark created.
It's ridiculous that I had to rely on a post from another user to give me a page bookmark.
Everyone knows that the fewer hoops the better. And when the hoops aren't even clear to begin with...
It also establishes a physchological regiment of looking at steam every single day since something 'different' will be there.
I disagree with that logic. The difference is that midweek deals and weekend deals are given links for the entire run of their sales. Obviously weeklong deals are not. Using your logic, weekend deals should only be listed for the first day of the weekend. All three can easily exist together.
Furthermore, I'm not suggesting that each individual game with a weeklong deal get it's own page one link. So, keep giving the midweek and weekend deals their own specific page one links and make Monday's link for weekllies available all week.
How do you rationalize that one cannot even search for weekend deals by using a tag?
Are you saying if someone can't look at Steam on a Monday, that they don't deserve a provided way to see what they missed and have a week to purchase? After Monday they should be buried?
You're not really understanding how these sales operate.
Weeklong deals are a dumping ground of sales that a developer can queue up at any time they want. They simply fill in a field and they'll be promoted that week. These are low hanging fruit sales. Steam doesnt' even control what goes on sale there. Devs just queue them up automatically.
Midweek/Weekend deals are Steam curated events. They're intended to be high volume and lucrative. Given that the Store page already has so much stuff on it, every banner/icon/etc is valuable real-estate. The weekly deals simply do not warrant such head-line representation beyond their initial run on Monday. Because they would get more eye-balls than a highly curated weekend/mid-week sale.
They're simply prioritizing what sales are more important. Weekly sales aren't that important.
Not sure what 'logic' you're referring to there since I made no such assertion and nothing I said would even remotely cause any logical person to reach that conclusion. What you are asserting is entirely contrary to what I said.
The logic is:
We are going to put our highly curated sales in a better visibility position since we feel these titles deserve our extremely limited top fold space on the Steam site, rather than adding more clutter to the site by moving around the weekly sale banner.
You're allocating valuable ad space to those titles you feel deserve it. Weekly deals don't warrant that space compared to the Midweek/Weekend deals.
Yes because just like if you don't happen to visit the Steam page during the Midweek/Weekend sales you miss those too. The entire point is to create a psychology of constantly needing to watch the Steam store page.
In the old days (when I were a lad) retail stores used to live by the mantra "The customer is always right." These days this attitude is not so apparent, and some will even try, as part of their psychological strategy, to tell us that we are not always right.
The thing is though, that the customer is still always right, and successful businesses know this, and tap into it constantly...including Steam. (They just don't like to admit it anymore as they think we already have too much power.) The problem for us as individuals though, is that they do it by studying the big picture rather than caring too much about the opinions of an individual. I guess this works for the majority most of the time, but we'll always run into things like the topic of this thread where features we enjoyed in the past are changed or abandoned for something else that we're less fond of. All we can do is put our opinions out there and hope that they will eventually add up to making that big picture that these companies look at.
For what it's worth, I agree with the OP. Prior to last September I used to find that the weekly deals was fun to browse through throughout the week, and often after considering things for a few days I would give in and buy something that I would otherwise have ignored. Since they changed its prominence on the storepage, and the way it is presented, it no longer captures my regular attention.
Of course I would miss the weekend sales if I didn't visit Steam over the weekend. But I can see those games if I visit Steam on a Sunday instead of a Saturday. I am not suggesting weekly sales be listed in ADVANCE of AFTER they end. I'll say this again, midweek sales are advertised for AS LONG AS THEY ARE ON SALE. Not before or after. Weekend sales are advertised for AS LONG AS THEY ARE ON SALE. Not before or after. Weeklong sales are NOT advertised for AS LONG AS THEY ARE ON SALE.
We actually agree up to the point that I feel a link should be provided the whole week. Or at least a search tag. Would such a link offend you or inconvenience you? Of course not. You just don't desire one. The only thing we differ on is our desire and you are offering an explanation as to why Steam chooses not to provide the link. I agree that your explanation is the reason or part of the reason. It makes sense that you then disagree with me that Steam's decision not to provide a link or tab is not, as I said, "horrible design". I get it.
Advertising weekly sales all week long, for me, would not affect my decision to buy a game on a midweek sale or a weekend sale. Again, my suggestion would be to provide a generic communal link for the weeklies somewhere and continue keeping the prominent game-specific graphical advertisements for the duration of midweek or weekend sales where they are at the upper right storefront.
Exactly. I like going through the list over a few days too.
This thread, like many on Steam Discussions, is about a lack of functionality on Steam and discussing that issue. This is no different than many threads currently in the Steam Discussions forum.
My question was raised to point out this lack of functionality and why Steam doesn't provide it. My question was not how to get Help and Tips for working around the missing functionality.
I edited the workaround into the my OP so it wouldn't get lost for people that could use it. But the issue of why doesn't Steam provide the functionality instead of requiring users to use a workaround. People don't visit this thread to discuss a lack of functionality which, again, is what I'm aiming to do.
Maybe a more specific title for this thread would be "Why doesn't Steam list weekly sales after Monday".