When was the last time a Steam sale was good?

When was the last time a Steam sale was good?

The one that happened before refunds were a thing

When you didn't had all the shit they sell regularly.

fpbp

Steam sales are still pretty good desu the only 'flaws' in them are devs being assholes by only putting full bundles on discount (e.g. Rockstar with GTA V + in-game cash) and the lack of consistent 80%+ sales on certain publisher's older titles.

Unless you were an autistic baby who enjoyed the shitty fucking meta-gaming or some form of super low tolerance adrenaline junkie who got a high off following every single flash sale the second it went up I don't really think their quality has declined all that much.

The latest halloween sale was pretty good, I got a bunch of games in the current sale too.
Maybe you should stop being a poorfag, the super deep sales were nice but they just weren't profitable for the developers.

The last time you didnt own everything you wanted. Steam sales have gotten worse because you own the stuff you want. New games rarely went on sale for that much but you filled out your library with old games you never got to play but wanted to. They havent gotten worse you have just gotten more games already

it was bad before that.
I'd say it's been about 5 years since steam has had an actually good sale to get excited about.
It used to be the most intoxicating shit, loads of fantastic games were constantly 75% off it was great.
Flash sales were a crucial part of it too.
>b-but now games are always on their flash sale price!
absolutely not.
The marketing behind a flash sale is that by limiting the duration you could lower the price further, then all these people who "got in" would spread word of mouth and people who missed out would gain interest.
WIthout flash sales it has been obvious prices have never been as low as they used to be, if people have that long to buy your game reduced you do not want to risk all of your prospective customers buying it for next to nothing.

Back when more than one game worth half a damn was released a year.

Today

You fags will complain about anything, I'm gonna get 4 games for 45 euro's out of this sale that will last me into next year's sales

2013 winter sale.

Back around the first sales when there weren't so much game on Steam, so nearly half of them if not more got some special holiday themed achievement. So around 2007, I think.

And before I was still a PC gamer.

before people started to babyrage because they missed the sail and "it's not fair!"

this is just purposefully ignorant.
The current prices for games that are as old as games were back then are not as low.
This is because of both refunds and flash sales being removed.
Refunds give buyers more certainty but can cost the publishers if lots of people use it, if you wanted to sell a game for $5 you might think twice since if you get loads of players who don't want it buying and then refunding you stand to lose a lot.
Rock bottom prices with an instant ability to refund is a problem economically you see.

Flash sales appeared as an inconvenience to customers and Valve portrayed its removal like it was doing us a favor but it's not true.
A brief sale at a huge discount raises a huge amount of interest, gets you on the front page of EVERYONE's steam (no personalized queue bullshit) and asks people to be there at that time.
This kind of excitement and exposure is great for their sales but it's controlled in that there will always be people who miss out.
By imposing this, not everyone who wanted to buy it will get to at the lowest price but the spill-over from excitement and exposure will spur on longer term sales
Why sell to every single prospect at $5 when you can sell a lot at $5 and a lot more at 7.50 or 10?

By removing this marketing gimmick and giving more power to the consumers, they've in turn actually hurt many thrifty consumers in seeking out amazing prices.

Sorry, wrong image.

the last year when a game that you cared about came out

gimmie mimic

This image should include their personalities and dynamic. I want to know more about them.

/thread

this post is pure soy

>newfags
we get it, you don't like that you never experienced them before they were shit.
It's not your faults.

The one before you owned all the games.

I used Steam since the orange box days and I don't miss flash sales much, you still have deep sales but they just aren't as exposed as before, you will have to dig around.
Pro-tip: Put every game you will want to eventually buy on your wishlist and get Enhanced Steam which lets you sort by discount amount or percentage.

I use wishlist, there hasn't been a sale over 50% off anything I've wanted for the last 3 years.

Instant gaming boys

Then you have shit taste and probably only play new AAA garbage, I have 65 games with 80% discounts or more right now in my wishlist alone, won't even bother counting the 75% ones.
I picked up more than 10 games in this sale for dirt-cheap, and not just random indieshit.

>probably only play new AAA garbage
no I typically buy AAA games that are GOOD on release.
These are more obscure games, smaller publishers and indies have a stick up their ass now and never want to do real discounts.

When the Australian dollar wasn't utter shit

you can bet your ass all those games already been on sale in other stores months before Steam had the same discount.

It's really baffling how people keep waiting for Steam sales. Especially on newer games you can get a 25-30% discount on day one if you don't buy on Steam.

>When was the last time a Steam sale was good?
When I didn't already own all the games I was actually interested in. Now I'm just wading through the same shit I never bought.

I have a billion games that I'm playing in my backlog, I'm not waiting for anything.

The reason why Valve had to nerf sales because of key resellers, who are capable of buying keys by the fuckloads during sales and then resell them later, basically extending the duration of the sale forever. However, you can't really criticize or blame key resellers for doing what they do, because reselling the shit you buy is a basic consumer right and Valve was gracious enough not to fuck people using key reseller services over. Currently, anyone looking for best deals should buy both during Steam sales and monitor key reseller sites.

Steam doesn't sell keys

It sells gifts, it's the same shit.

>buy everything on Steam when their sales were still good
>nowadays buy everything from keysellers because Steam sales are shit
gg Gabe

A lot of the time key resellers offer prices similar to those during Steam sales, but it's your right to buy those keys, so it's fine. The money still goes to devs or Valve+devs, if you buy gifts, those keys don't just appear out of thin air.

Been a while since I took a marketing strategy lecture, but the way this works is like this:

Each customer has a willingness to pay a certain price for a given product. The goal is to maximise revenue. This is achieved by making each customer pay exactly the price he is willing to pay. This is called price discirmination.

The great thing about video games is that the customers self select. Ignorant and lazy people, who are willing to pay more or wait longer for discounts, buy on Steam where prices are usually highest. People who compare prices and are always looking for a deal buy on other stores.

Keysellers are also a factor. Better to sell your game cheap through a less well known store than to lose business to keysellers.

this, user's comment makes no sense.

If steam sales were good no one would risk buying off G2A or Kinguin, even legit key sellers like Greenman would lose some appeal.
I heard the actual reason they nerfed sales is because they found people saw sale prices as the "real" price of the game and so people's perception of game prices declined to the point no one was buying full price or even regular sale prices anymore.

Steam is consistently cheaper for me because of the regional pricing.

Regional pricing is also a form of price discrimination.

Which region are you in? EU1 gets fucked pretty hard by steam pricing.

>If steam sales were good no one would risk buying off G2A or Kinguin, even legit key sellers like Greenman would lose some appeal.
M8, those same sites would just sell you the Steam gifts from Steam sales.

Steam is consistently more expensive for me because of the regional pricing
havent bought a single triple AAA game on steam since 75% of sales where a thing

This time. Got 50% off on deathwatch and 66% off on dork souls 3. Im sure to return dorksouls because 1 and 2 failed to be controller compatible despite morons saying to the contrary.

>Im sure to return dorksouls because 1 and 2 failed to be controller compatible despite morons saying to the contrary.
Are you stupid? Those games work perfectly fine with controllers, it's literally the only decent way to play them.