Make The Actual Sale Price From Free Weekends Last A Day Longer Than The "Free" Period

[Kazumi]

So, Steam's Free Weekends are great, they let you try out games and put them on sale to make you more likely to buy them. Cool, awesome, it's basically a demo and it gets plenty of sales thanks to it. However, due to Steam's jank, if you try to gift someone a game that they've gotten for free temporarily thanks to the free weekend, it doesn't let you because it reads them as having the game, even if they haven't bought it yet. This just happened for me and a friend for this past Barotrauma weekend, we played it with some other friends, enjoyed it, and most of us bought it or already had it, but this one friend couldn't spare the money this month to grab it, so I was going to gift it and it wouldn't let me. Now, granted, the other person could probably just remove it from their Library, but in this case, they had already gone to sleep, so that wasn't an option, not to mention the various reasons it's dumb to have to announce to someone you're sending them a gift but making them uninstall the game first just for them to re-install it afterwards anyway.

Something Steam could consider is leaving the Free period for just the weekend as per usual, but keeping the sale up for a day longer. This would not only solve this problem quite easily (aka, not having to fix the jank in the code to allow gifts to people who only have the game during a free period), but also be good for people in certain time zones where the free period and sale end before the end of the weekend for whatever reason.

[Crazy Tiger]

Game devs/publishers decide that, they could let the sale last a day longer if they wanted too. And start and end times always default to 10 AM PST. That's for everything on Steam, though game devs/publishers can choose a different time. Most use the default, though.

[Wolf Knight]

that would be up to the game developer, they set the prices, they set when their game goes on sale and for how long it will be on sale. steam has no say in this. If a dev decides that the sale ends monday at 12am, then that is when the sale ends. steam cannot extend it

[Kazumi]

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

Except there is nothing to change in the system. What you want already is possible within the system. Publishers merely aren't doing what you want.

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

the publisher has the final say in this. steam cannot sell what they dont own, and steam does not own the games it sells. the only games steam has any say over are the ones that Valve makes. Steam can recommend the dev's extend the sale by a day, but that is all they can do.

[Bomoo]

Yep this seems like a legit issue, though it is a bit of a niche outlier case.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

Incorrect. Itt's 100% tthe devs. They decide if there's a free day, weekend, or week (yes that has happened) and how long the corresponding discount period lasts.

Valve has nothing to do with those things beyond making you aware of them.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

Except that's not how it works. Valve is as hands off as they can be. Once again bring it up to dev/pubs because they're the ones that control that.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

Valve doesn't force Devs/Publishers to do what they don't want to do. you should be thankful that such Devs/Publishers offer it at all, and they control the period of time or days involved.

Suggestions section lately is a lot of greedy "Valve make developers do (thing I want)"

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Kazumi:

While true that the publishers are the ones that decide it, its Steam's offer to make as its their system, thus its their system to change in discussion with the publishers.

Steam can suggest it. The publishers aren't required to follow it. And Steam isn't going to interfere with the publisher's decision in that regard.