Steam Winter Sale 2015 is on
The annual Steam Winter Sale is in full swing since yesterday. The event, which has been one of the most anticipated sales on Steam this year, offers big discounts on almost 10,000 games, software and hardware currently available on the Steam Store.
Valve changed sales on Steam significantly this year, and the first sale reflecting these changes was the Exploration Sale of November 2015.
The main change is that all discounts are final meaning that there are not any Flash Sales or Daily Deals anymore that would bring the price of a game down even further.
What this means is that you can go through all discounted titles once, buy the games that you are interested in if the discount is big enough, and be done with the sale for the most part.
Steam Winter Sale 2015
Some users may like the change, considering that one does not have to pay constant attention to changing deals on Steam anymore while other users may miss the excitement and better offers that went along with it.
Since you never knew which games would end up getting better discounts by being featured as a daily deal or flash sale, you'd have to pay attention to changing deals on the Steam Store to make sure you did not miss any better offers.
Another thing that is different this year is that there is no real event surrounding the Steam Winter Sale 2015. While Valve promises "new excitement daily", it is limited to just two things: first to exploring your personal recommendation queue to get Winter trading cards in return for that.
You can grab three trading cards each day by going through your recommendation queue three times (or less if you only do it once or twice). Gone are the times where Valve added games or other activities to the sale. Second, a cartoon that Valve publishes alongside the sale.
There is only one thing that is changing on top of what has been mentioned already: different deals are highlighted each day on the frontpage, but their discounts don't change which makes them less exciting and useful.
Another factor that weights heavily on this year's winter sale is that sales have increased in number in recent years. The Exploration Sale was less than a month ago and it featured nearly the same offers as the Winter Sale. While you may see discount changes when you compare these two sales side by side, the Winter Sale this year looks just like a copy of the earlier sale but with trading cards and a cartoon added to it.
Now You: What's your take on the new direction sales are taking on Steam?
I don´t like their new sale system, boring and uneventful.
A Steam security problem is now fixed per
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/25/10665814/valve-steam-holiday-sale-security-problems
FYI
Dont worry Guys, Jeff is just a dick, dont buy that game
Haha. I recommend a game I like (that’s on sale for half off, no less) and I’m a spamming shill dick who caused GamerGate.
Gotta love the internet :-)
@devonAIR, oh these clowns don’t bother me. I’ve been online since the internet was a black screen and a unix prompt, and I’ve seen and heard it all, I think. I realize people will say things they normally wouldn’t when they can hide behind anonymity. Human psychology interests me.
Glad you liked the game. I just discovered it a few months ago, and has quickly become one of my favorites.
@jeff
I for one appreciate the recommendation. I watched some videos on it, and it’s right up my alley, and I’d not heard of it before, so thx
btw, it’s rated “overwhelmingly positive” on steam user feedback. Ignore the trolls.
For those who enjoy, or want to try the survival genre, I highly recommend “The Long Dark” at $9.99. It’s a really well made game with friendly, active developers.
The Long Dark is not a survival game.It is an indie adventure game with a “survival” theme. Also I hope you are not in any way tied to the developers, because that would be spamming. Part of the reason GamerGate happened. Never forgive. Never forget.
Sorry, Fred. In the future, I’ll be sure and get your permission before ever posting a recommendation for a game I like.
And yes, folks. TLD is very much a survival game in every sense of the word. Mr Joos shows his ignorance about the game in calling it an adventure game. He’s clearly never played it.
“The Long Dark is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience…” – steam store
“The Long Dark is our inaugural first-person post-disaster survival simulation game.” – Hinterland (devs)
“The Long Dark is a first-person open world-survival simulation video game in development by Canadian company Hinterland for multiple platforms” – wikipedia
“The Long Dark is one of our favourite survival games” – Rock, Paper, Shotgun
etc.
And I thought GamerGate happened because of a bunch of whiny anti-feminist manbabies.
I would venture to suggest that the reason the sale format has changed might be because the introduction of the refund policy makes changing the price of an item multiple times throughout the sale period untenable. I think the change is positive.