Over the past few years Steam users have been noticing that the Steam sales were not were they used to be, aka "50% is the new 75%" but it's more than that, Steam or Valve however have dropped the ball, yes they will rake in millions but Steam has lost its touch on what made the sale so special in the first place. These main factors below are what make a Steam Sale special and make me willing to spend cash.
Publishers got smart.
Long story short the publisher, especially Triple A studios realised that they were under pricing games on PC, its a known fact that PC games have increased in RRP by 33% to be closer to console tier pricing on launch day and this has carried out in sales. For example a game like SFIV was 29.99 at launch, during a steam sale you would see a 75% drop to 7.50. Compare that to SFV which is 34.99 at launch and is now on sale for 50% instead for 17.49. Devs are playing the game in a big way, we are no longer going to see those crazy 75-90% deals like we used to see on Steam.
Stagnant discounts
It used to be that Steam would update games on a daily basis with new deals to cling you on day by day. Heck at one point deals would be updated every 8 hours -24/7. With Steam's new approach of showing all the deals its very easy to shift through everything in one day and just pick stuff you want and ignore all the rest. What I liked about the shorter deals was the impulse buy effect, these games were cheaper than the normal deals and gave people incentive to check every few hours or so.
You probably own everything already.
Another complication is that most of us have game libraries already in the hundreds or even thousands on Steam already, we are reaching a point in where we are becoming quite picky on what we buy and having to shift through the all the games that some guy has made in his bedroom that nobody really cares about. It is getting harder to find gems in the massive shovel-ware of indie and low budget titles and its going to get harder and harder to find games you want.
Steam sales are no longer fun
Remember when publishers did Christmas special events? Remember you could craft items into games? Remember when you could use cards to trade for stuff? Remember Game specific Achievements during sales? Well its all gone now, Steam was way ahead of its time with this and it made the Steam sale into a mini game in itself. However over the past couple of years Steam has moved away from that to smaller events or just collecting badges which offer very little incentive to check the store every day.
There are a lot of other reasons, but for me these were the main ones for me not spending so much on Steam over the past couple of years, even services outside of steam such as Amazon and gmg are dropping the ball. I think its due to devs finally realising that DD is the future and want tighter controls on pricing.
Publishers got smart.
Long story short the publisher, especially Triple A studios realised that they were under pricing games on PC, its a known fact that PC games have increased in RRP by 33% to be closer to console tier pricing on launch day and this has carried out in sales. For example a game like SFIV was 29.99 at launch, during a steam sale you would see a 75% drop to 7.50. Compare that to SFV which is 34.99 at launch and is now on sale for 50% instead for 17.49. Devs are playing the game in a big way, we are no longer going to see those crazy 75-90% deals like we used to see on Steam.
Stagnant discounts
It used to be that Steam would update games on a daily basis with new deals to cling you on day by day. Heck at one point deals would be updated every 8 hours -24/7. With Steam's new approach of showing all the deals its very easy to shift through everything in one day and just pick stuff you want and ignore all the rest. What I liked about the shorter deals was the impulse buy effect, these games were cheaper than the normal deals and gave people incentive to check every few hours or so.
You probably own everything already.
Another complication is that most of us have game libraries already in the hundreds or even thousands on Steam already, we are reaching a point in where we are becoming quite picky on what we buy and having to shift through the all the games that some guy has made in his bedroom that nobody really cares about. It is getting harder to find gems in the massive shovel-ware of indie and low budget titles and its going to get harder and harder to find games you want.
Steam sales are no longer fun
Remember when publishers did Christmas special events? Remember you could craft items into games? Remember when you could use cards to trade for stuff? Remember Game specific Achievements during sales? Well its all gone now, Steam was way ahead of its time with this and it made the Steam sale into a mini game in itself. However over the past couple of years Steam has moved away from that to smaller events or just collecting badges which offer very little incentive to check the store every day.
There are a lot of other reasons, but for me these were the main ones for me not spending so much on Steam over the past couple of years, even services outside of steam such as Amazon and gmg are dropping the ball. I think its due to devs finally realising that DD is the future and want tighter controls on pricing.
