Being one of the most popular gaming platforms, Steam over the past few years steam has been drastically increasing the number of sales they run every year. It’s a great thing that such sales exists, with Indie game bundles on rise and grossing more than millions for every game bundle within two weeks, steam has to do something to get the gamers know steam means business and does understand what is required.
Given that the Indie game bundles are run by multiple sites like HumbleBundle, HumbleBundleWeekly, IndieGame BundleStars, TheFreeBundle, StoryBundle [ebook bundle], Groupees, IndieGala, IndieRoyale, Bundle Dragon, Indie Bundle, they pretty much make steam look bad when it comes to game prices. And has very much corrupted every gamers’ mind that games can be much cheaper than what steam shows. Which is a true but also false when it comes to games produced by big publishers.
To tackle this and pulling back the gamers, Steam runs a lot of sales. Some of which are really crazy. If you miss on this, you would regret for really long that why didn’t you buy it when it was on sale. The regular steam sales is somewhere between 5% to 25% but when it comes to these crazy Summer sales the discount ranges from 10% to a staggering 90% on retail price on some game titles.
So let’s imagine this scenario. You go to the steam summer sale page, you come across the game which you always wanted to play and see a deal for let’s say Game A looks like a steal but then you see that Game B has a better discount than Game A, which then makes you wonder what if the Game A had that discount or will have that discount in future?
To answer that question, you’ll have to put another 2 hours searching for the past prices, asking everywhere on forums about it and wait until you get a concrete answer which would either tell you be patient and wait or would tell you to buy at that price. All this after waiting for few hours in which the sale might still be there or not. Sounds annoying and frustrating isn’t it? So here are some tips and tricks which would help you go through the steam sales without doing any prior research, save time and instantly get all the info you want on a particular game you wish to buy. All this would save your time, money and get you the best steam game deals possible. Yes, probably the cheapest possible deal on steam for any game.
Use your regular browser
Browse and look for the steam sale with your regular browser. As much as it is convenient and easy to do your steam shopping on client, its is very much advisable to do the prior decision on a browser. Once you decide the game you want, then go to your client, search and buy it. But decide the game you want to buy on client. Why? Because even though you will end up buying at the same price you see on the browser and the client, our modern browsers give us the option to install add-ons and extensions which makes everything just simple. Here are a few add-ons/extensions you should install on Chrome or Firefox
Enhanced Steam – This extension adds a couple of unique features to the steam website which are really helpful. For the complete experience make sure you are logged in on the site. This extension would
- Highlight the games you own and also highlight your wish list.
- Quickly pulls the info on the pricing history for each game.
- Calculates the amount you save on a bundle.
- Shows your total spending on steam and also points out 3rd part DRM on games.
- Displays the metacritic user scores and lots of other features.
Download and Install Enhanced Steam for Firefox / Chrome / Opera.
Daily deals and Flash Sales
Typically Daily deals and flash sales last for a very limited period of time. These are the sales when the game price goes above a discount price of more than 50%. If you see any game above 75% on these sales and you want it, you should grab is right away. Typically you cannot see anything cheaper than that. If you see flash sales of 50% of less, you can be a bit patient if you want and wait for a better discount.
Note : Daily deals lasts for 24-48hours and they have good discounts. Flash Deals lasts only for 8 hours and they have the craziest and the best discounts.
Game Bundles
Game bundles are the most to get more discounts, even if you see some game is on sale for a decent discount, you still should check what the bundle costs the bundles ( which includes all the game versions, DLCs and expansions packs ) end up being at a very cheap price.
Search for your game
At times you might not see the game you want on sale, but chances are it’s on sale just not on the homepage. So search for the game you want and there is a high chance you will find a discount. Same goes for the last day of the summer sale. Search for all the games you want, you’ll most probably get a discount on most of the games you wanted to buy.
Stop buying on Impulse
This happens, a lot. You see game at a very cheap price and you just get tempted to buy it. STOP. This would be end up being just another game you played for an hour and now it’s in your account which you would never play. Before buying a game check its ratings, user & critic reviews, steam also displays if your friend owns it ask them quickly, ask everyone who owns it, go to YouTube or GameSpot or IGN and look for a proper review and a video review with the gameplay. Buy it only if you like it not because its cheap. @jamiemadigan has posted a brilliant post on the Psychology behind steam’s summer sale which we totally agree.
Check your Cart before checkout
This doesn’t happen a lot but could happen. Many a times the game goes on sale and you instantly notice and add to cart. But sometimes the steam servers do have a delay and the sale price might not reflect in your cart. So make sure the cart has the discounted price you wanted and not the old discount.
Don’t wait till the last minute
If you see a game on sale and has less than 15minutes left, let it go. You do not want the steam servers to mess up your purchase process at any point and bill you the non-sale price. This could happen, so beware. Same goes with buying as soon as the sale goes live. Wait it out, the sales are usually for 8 – 48 hours. You have enough time to buy it, you don’t have to be the first to get it as soon as its live, there is no reward for buying quickly.
Missed that sale price?
So that game was on sale and you missed it being on sale, it’s still on sale but not a crazy sale anymore. Do not buy it right away, most of the decent sale prices are till the last day, if you missed some crazy sale chances are you will find it on the last day. Steam brings back the crazy sale price back on the very last day, so be patient and wait. There is no loss in waiting for the sale to pop again.
Have a Fixed Budget
Decide the budget you want and add 50-70% of that in your steam wallet, this way you will always have a tab on your limits whenever you are looking at the sale page. But do not add all your money there in the steam wallet, steam doesn’t give you an option to refund or cash out the money. So once it’s in there, it’s in there. There is no way to get that money out unless you buy some game or trade.
Steam Regional Price Checker
Well even though its sale, as usual the prices are different all over the globe. The steam regional store restrictions still exists. We as a user are restricted to buy from the only one region in which our account is created. But this extension helps us know the cheapest price for any game in different region. Even though we are restricted to buy games from our region only, there is a way around this; first let me tell you the benefit of this extension.
Steam Regional Price Checker as on its website lists all the prices of the games in all the different regions, making it easier to know where you can find the cheapest price for a particular game. There is more to this process, all you need is a VPN and follow the simple steps in this post.
Steam sales are tempting and if you go out of control, you will end up buying games you never wanted or would never play. So do not lose control. If you follow these guidelines and tips, you can spend less money and get most the games which you will play.
Good luck and enjoy shopping!