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[Draugoth]

Documentation Home Page (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

Policy Change Overview​

Starting on March 28, 2022, the time between discounts run on Steam will change from six weeks to 4 weeks (28 days). This means a minimum of 28 days between the end of one discount and the start of another discount.

This discount cooldown period applies to all types of promotions and discounts across Steam, with the only exceptions being our four major store-wide seasonal sales: Lunar New Year Sale, Summer Sale, Autumn Sale, and Winter Sale.

Specific Discounting Rules​

• You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
  
  
• It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
  
  
• Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
  
  
• Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
  
  
• You may not change your price while a promotion is live now or scheduled for the future.
  
  
• It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
  
  
• Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day.

 

[Majukun]

tbh don'r remember instances of games getting more than 90% discount

 

[Silver Wattle]

Seem like pretty decent changes, especially the minimum 10% discount.

 

[Fbh]

These changes sound ok to me.
Seems like they are mainly aimed at discouraging "fake" discounts, which has long been an issue in digital marketplaces.

 

[Sophist]

tbh don'r remember instances of games getting more than 90% discount

 

[iHaunter]

Seem like pretty decent changes, especially the minimum 10% discount.

The minimum 10% is better than 90%+ anyway. Most of the 90%+ games were shitty indie games.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Can they still be given for free? I mean yea, beyond 90%, might as well go 100%.

 

[Punished Miku]

Good. Switch needs to do something similar.

 

[kingfey]

Some good stuff.
I am tired of the 5% discount.

 

[GHG]

The minimum discount rule is good but I don't understand the reasoning for the max discount rule?

 

[hlm666]

"It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency."

best change in there.

 

[Punished Miku]

The minimum discount rule is good but I don't understand the reasoning for the max discount rule?

It's just kinda trashy to have a bunch of $0.01 games clogging up your sales charts instead of just being f2p. But I don't fully understand if there's other exploits that motivate devs to do this.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Yeah, I think is partially to combat fake discounts.

Look! 30% off!*

*same day the base price increased 30%

 

[winjer]

Good to see Steam, trying to curb fake discounts.

 

[Fbh]

Yeah, I think is partially to combat fake discounts.

Look! 30% off!*

*same day the base price increased 30%

Yup.
As well as "our game is actually $20 but we'll give it a bullshit price of $40 and then have it on sale for $20 almost permanently"

 

[kingfey]

It's just kinda trashy to have a bunch of $0.01 games clogging up your sales charts instead of just being f2p. But I don't fully understand if there's other exploits that motivate devs to do this.

They get to sell more games that way.
People like cheaper stuff. 95% discount guarantees instant buy out, if the game is good. 15 of these sales is like 1 full priced game.

 

[ManaByte]

How to spot someone who doesn't play PC games:

The minimum 10% is better than 90%+ anyway. Most of the 90%+ games were shitty indie games.

 

[KiteGr]

I remember psychonauts having a crazy low price once the 2nd game came out. I don't remember the price though.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

How about free games?

 

[VN1X]

How about free games?

All free games will be removed from that date onward.

 

[Corndog]

Documentation Home Page (Steamworks Documentation)

partner.steamgames.com

Policy Change Overview​

Starting on March 28, 2022, the time between discounts run on Steam will change from six weeks to 4 weeks (28 days). This means a minimum of 28 days between the end of one discount and the start of another discount.

This discount cooldown period applies to all types of promotions and discounts across Steam, with the only exceptions being our four major store-wide seasonal sales: Lunar New Year Sale, Summer Sale, Autumn Sale, and Winter Sale.

Specific Discounting Rules​

• You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
  
  
• It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
  
  
• Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
  
  
• Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
  
  
• You may not change your price while a promotion is live now or scheduled for the future.
  
  
• It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
  
  
• Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day.

Boo.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[A.Romero]

The minimum discount rule is good but I don't understand the reasoning for the max discount rule?

At least IMO it doesn't make sense to sell a game at $100 as a regular price but then discount it to $10 several times a year. It just inflates the prices needlessly. The Xcom example is a good one, don't know in US currency but it's about $50 converted to my local currency for a game that came out years ago and they are going to heavily discount several times a year anyway.

 

[Deerock71]

Even Nintendo has games 99% off sometimes, and that one crazy company gives games away for free prior to Christmas. Seems like an artificial stopping point...

 

[Pejo]

Seems like it's there to prevent "black friday" type sales where they increase the price of a game then say it's on "discount" for the same original price. Possibly something to do with refunds or maybe to crack down on some of those money laundering asset flip games too?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Good changes.

Some of these kinds of new policies are what you get in typical brick and mortar.

It prevents the supplier (in this case game studio) from gaming the system (no pun intended) with shady price changes.

Retailer have policies in place when you buy shit like soap or cereal where a supplier cant be putting something on sale over and over again in short time periods because that defeats the purpose of a sale price. It might as well be permanently on sale.

Also, the point of a sale is a reasonable or better discounted price. If every company put their game on sale for 2% off it would look stupid and clog up the system when trying to look for products on sale.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Seems like it's there to prevent "black friday" type sales where they increase the price of a game then say it's on "discount" for the same original price. Possibly something to do with refunds or maybe to crack down on some of those money laundering asset flip games too?

Totally.

The bags/luggage industry has been caught before doing this type of shit. Not Black Friday specifically, but they'd always have their on "60% off" like all year round. That came to a stop.

 

[iHaunter]

How to spot someone who doesn't play PC games:

On average, I also hate those style of games. Nice broad generalization. Congrats, you spent the afternoon cherry picking one game.

I'll be playing Elden Ring on steam/pc. Already pre-ordered.