Auto purchase

[Xite >X< 👁️👁 🇦🇺]

Like a wish list, only it auto purchases games or items in the order you choose as funds become available in your wallet or discounted at or below prices you set.

Example, you sell off cards you don't want and purchase those to complete sets as the funds come in.

Thoughts?

Edit: Also developer can raise capital quickly by offering a discount that would gain multiple sales immediately and know the minimum number of sales beforehand.

[Start_Running]

Could work but probably not the best idea.

[76561198407601200]

Doesn't the standard wishlist already inform you when a game is on sale, thus being able to purchase it ?

[Brujeira]

Originally posted by The Living Tribunal:

Doesn't the standard wishlist already inform you when a game is on sale, thus being able to purchase it ?

It sends out an email notification but people don't always keep their registered email address up to date.

Yeah, not sure that I'm keen on this suggestion. If anything, it would give users a way to automate 'drunk buying' and all of those drunk purchases would have to be refunded - with obvious consequences for both Support's workload and the inevitable warning for the user abusing the refund system.

[Eldin]

Originally posted by The Living Tribunal:

Doesn't the standard wishlist already inform you when a game is on sale, thus being able to purchase it ?

Yes it does. It will inform you if there's any discount.
I personally don't buy games if they're not at least 50% off, so those notifications about 10% and 20% discounts are useless to me.
I also add all games I might like to wishlist. And a lot of them I'm planning to buy in few years (when I get better PC and when it's price drops)

Why would auto purchase be useful:
- "I will buy this game only if it gets 90% discount" It might get 90% discount, it might not, but you know that you won't miss it when it gets discounted.
- "This game gets 75% discount every few months, but it's currently not discounted" Set it for auto purchase and you'll get it immediately when it gets discounted.
- Some sales lasts only few days and it's easy to miss them. If you haven't been paying attention you'll miss it and then you'll have to wait few more months for that game to get discounted again.
- Auto buy game gift for your friend's birthday, so if you forget it, Steam won't.

And many more.

[cinedine]

There was a thread like this some days ago.
This is a very bad idea. Have enough games on your auto purchase list and suddenly your out of money during one of the big sales.
And even with stuff like limits and safeguards for this not to happen, people would simply forget they every set it and complain about where their money went, Steam stealing from them, and why they have a random game they are no longer interested in or purchased on another platform in their library.

Originally posted by Eldin:

Why would auto purchase be useful:
- "I will buy this game only if it gets 90% discount" It might get 90% discount, it might not, but you know that you won't miss it when it gets discounted.

I agree, that would be immensely useful ... just not for the user.
Make a half-assed joke game, have enough users interested for the cards or achievements to buy at 90 % off ... ramp up the price to a thousand and have a sale as soon as you legally can.

[Xite >X< 👁️👁 🇦🇺]

I said set a price not a percentage discount and if the money isn't in you wallet the purchase can't happen.

[Eldin]

Originally posted by cinedine:

people would simply forget they every set it and complain about where their money went, Steam stealing from them, and why they have a random game they are no longer interested in or purchased on another platform in their library.

If you forget about it then it's completely your fault. If you fear that you'll forget about it then just don't use it.
If you forget to turn off oven, you can't blame it on the company that made it because they gave you ability to turn it on in the first place.

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by Eldin:

Why would auto purchase be useful:
- "I will buy this game only if it gets 90% discount" It might get 90% discount, it might not, but you know that you won't miss it when it gets discounted.

I agree, that would be immensely useful ... just not for the user.
Make a half-assed joke game, have enough users interested for the cards or achievements to buy at 90 % off ... ramp up the price to a thousand and have a sale as soon as you legally can.

This could be avoided by either typing the maximum price that you'd pay for that game, or if you set percentage, it's percentage of game price at the time of setting it.
If developer later set game price to $1000 it won't auto purchase game for $100.


It would be cool if developers could see how many people would pay how much money for their games.
So if game usually gets discounted for maximum of 30%, but developers sees that a lot of people would immediately buy it at 50% discount, they could adjust the price so more people can buy it. Or something like 1 minute 50% discount so those people who have that game on auto purchase list could get it for 50% off