Steam Holiday Seal 2015 |OT| This isn't the account you're looking for

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No dailies... :-(

Sale is meh for me. I still have 40+ games installed and another pile in the backlog waiting for those to be played. If GoT had been 75% or more I might have grabbed it, but I imagine it'll come down again in the spring and by then maybe I'll have knocked at least one or two games off the installed list.

Maybe.

I think the only game I really would have jumped on would have been Helldivers if they'd run something, even 25% off. I realize that was just published though.

Oh well.

The lack of dailies is a bummer though. You basically take a look at the sale on day 1 and then you don't have to worry about it again. Makes it less interesting imo.
 
Wait was Tropico Reloaded always a thing that existed on Steam? Like, the original first games? How come I never noticed them? Those are so bought. Nostalgia overload.
 
Haha, already did. A shady guy asked me to transport some souls somewhere and I couldn't find the place. Came back to port and the authorities searched my ship and then confiscated pretty much everything I had. Then got transported to some strange realm and yeah, that was it...

You
prayed to salt
didn't you?

Well, you learned your lesson, I suppose.
Stone and Storm are much more reliable.

Spoilers are incredibly vague about something that can be repeated.
 
I wonder the reasoning STEAM has gone away from their famous sale strategy. For the amount of work it would be to have a meta game and dailies (very little work) they could have made a lot more money I would assume.

Oh well, Gaben is rolling in dolla bills
 
I wonder the reasoning STEAM has gone away from their famous sale strategy. For the amount of work it would be to have a meta game and dailies (very little work) they could have made a lot more money I would assume.

Oh well, Gaben is rolling in dolla bills
People are saying it's because people would use the refund system once you see a lower price during a flash sale, which I guess makes sense.

At least there are cards... but I wish it was a real game instead of just "look at your queue". But that's basically the only way they have of trying to show you new games to buy now.
 
So once I browsed the sale, I have no reason to go back to it everday?

That's fucked up, where is my real Steam sale T_T

Not really. Maybe in a few days time, when things that aren't already discount crop up like Ubisoft did last sale. Aside from that, nope. This is it.
 
People are saying it's because people would use the refund system once you see a lower price during a flash sale, which I guess makes sense.

At least there are cards... but I wish it was a real game instead of just "look at your queue". But that's basically the only way they have of trying to show you new games to buy now.

Stupid Refunds, so true though. That refund policy is actually stupid though. I have used it once though and that was because the publisher put the game in a bundle the day after I bought it on sale.
 
I wonder the reasoning STEAM has gone away from their famous sale strategy. For the amount of work it would be to have a meta game and dailies (very little work) they could have made a lot more money I would assume.

Oh well, Gaben is rolling in dolla bills

Despite what they say, I'm going to keep saying the one and only reason is refunds, refunds and refunds. Valve isn't stupid, they know their sales are/were pretty big events in the gaming calendar and if you had to keep some extra staff to make sure the event runs properly, so be it. They knew many developers wouldn't run good sales for two weeks straight, the issues with only being able to show x amount of daily deals was solvable but they decided not to do that. Refund policy killed Steam sales, I really can't think of another good reason.
 
You
prayed to salt
didn't you?

Well, you learned your lesson, I suppose.
Stone and Storm are much more reliable.

Spoilers are incredibly vague about something that can be repeated.

Pretty sure I did do that. The lingo and all the items and stuff you pick up in this game will take some getting used to. I kinda like learning like that though.
 
This Steam sale is so disappointing I have spent more money at Origin.

I know Valve likes to try new things and see what works, but I cant imagine this years holiday sale being as successful as years past.
 
I wonder the reasoning STEAM has gone away from their famous sale strategy. For the amount of work it would be to have a meta game and dailies (very little work) they could have made a lot more money I would assume.

Oh well, Gaben is rolling in dolla bills

Two massive changes in ideology lately have forced Valve's hand to change policy. Refunds being one and the massive influx of games onto Steam being the other.

One of the huge issues the last few years is the vast majority of games on Steam would never see their best discount as they would never be featured during a sales period. This isn't fair to both consumers and developers who would be interested in a particular title. For example, I have had Brothers in Arms series on my wish list for literal years, but never received more than a general discount during a sales period and would be costs prohibitive to purchase the entire series. I finally had a chance this past sale due to the switch. Repeat this same example thousands of times over and you can see the issue with the previous implementation.

I can't see any reason this switch would be anything but consumer friendly, games are automatically on their deepest discount and gives consumers more choices in their purchasing ability. From a mainstream consumer perspective, the change is completely arbitrary. The front page will still be updated daily with 'featured' sales to advertise a variety of games.
However, people naturally fear change and often don't look at the bigger picture as a result.

Consumer interest is an issue, but that's Valve's job to solve. Either through meta games, trading cards, in-game rewards/unique achievements, etc. I'm very surprised Valve didn't implement one of their famous meta games.
 
Tomorrow I'm gonna leave for the holiday and I'm gonna bring with me a laptop I haven't used for quite a long time.

Then I realized something: when I'll log into Steam on that laptop (and most likely Steam won't remember me there), I'll be blocked out of the market or the store? And for how long?
 
Wow I'm surprised, Mad Max both runs and looks better than Just Cause 3. Glad I decided to pick it up even if didn't have a huge sale.
 
I can't see any reason this switch wouldn't be consumer friendly, games are automatically on their deepest discount and gives consumers more choices in their purchasing ability. However, people naturally fear change and often don't look at the bigger picture as a result.

Some games are at their deepest discounts, a lot of games are not. My wishlist has a lot of games at crappy discounts and that's how they will remain for the duration of the whole sale. And probably will in every major future Steam sale as well. In fact, PSN has better deals on many games right now and that would have been unheard of even a year ago.
 
Tomorrow I'm gonna leave for the holiday and I'm gonna bring with me a laptop I haven't used for quite a long time.

Then I realized something: when I'll log into Steam on that laptop (and most likely Steam won't remember me there), I'll be blocked out of the market or the store? And for how long?

One week. But only from the market, you can still purchase games from the store.

Wow I'm surprised, Mad Max both runs and looks better than Just Cause 3. Glad I decided to pick it up even if didn't have a huge sale.

Well, the game is less complex than JC3 (desert, desert and desert).
 
Some games are at their deepest discounts, a lot of games are not. My wishlist has a lot of games at crappy discounts and that's how they will remain for the duration of the whole sale. And probably will in every major future Steam sale as well. In fact, PSN has better deals on many games right now and that would have been unheard of even a year ago.

Some games went lower, some went higher. There is a massive net decrease in price due to the switch.

There are going to be growing pains, and I don't generally use one off examples to support my points.
 
REmake is 8€ on Uplay, lowest price so far I believe. Says it redeems on Steam although I haven't tried it yet because Ubisoft thinks it's a reasonable idea to only sell USK18 titles from 23:00-6:00 as kids don't stay up that late so they won't be tired at school the next day.
 
While I'm mostly doing horror games, this one isn't really one, though it does have some fantastic atmosphere.



NaisanceE - $4.79


I'm going to copy and paste my Steam review for this one, I worded my thoughts there.

Lasting about 3-5 hours, NaissanceE is a surreal exploration puzzle game that is appropriately atmospheric and moody, strange and surreal, sometimes puzzling and confusing, but most of the time something that feels like a trip into a strange, foreign, isolated world that runs by its own rules, rules that you have to figure out to progress and survive.

Only the most abstract of plots exists in the games; You start off the game running from some sort of shadow thing, and fall down to what can easily be compared to the rabbit hole. Your only given slight clues of a narrative, mostly coming from the chapters titles themselves, but the story is fairly simple... Lucy, our character, needs to go down deeper into this abyss and figure out what's down there. However, even without a strict narrative, the game manages to have a lot of personality and engagement. The loose narrative structure, surrealism, strange tripping moments, slight yet odd puzzle solving, and the strange world run by its own rules, remind me a lot of something like Yume Nikki or LSD: Dream Emulator, while it's a very different sort of game than either of those it in many instances can give off a similar otherworldly feel, and like those games, a strange inner-joy to try and explore and learn what you can about this strange, foreign, yet somewhat familiar place,

One super minor complaint is that I thought it'd be interesting if the game had developed more of its mechanics further, the game has the tendency to introduce an interesting concept and keep that concept to but a single section of the game, and never mixes and matches concepts like it could. However, the sheer number of ideas on display, how they're handled and presented, and how many of them strike the mark and work, more than make up for it, and also helps in the element of always guessing what may be coming next.

Besides that, the only complaint I have comes from a few moments. What you're supposed to do and where you're supposed to go is sometimes kind of obtuse, there's a few instances of trying to figure out what is the correct course of action to move forward that feels less puzzle solving and either trying to spot some obscure passage you missed or a guessing game with little hint, but again, minor in the grand scheme of things. There is one instance involving a wind tunnel and fans that I found to be a bit too trial and error, and sort of forced you to learn the breathing mechanic timing the character has while running to progress. There are some sequences the game turns more into a timed platformer, and these segments are notably weaker than the times the game moves at a slower pace, while I didn't find these segments bad, it is of note that they did strike less with me than most of the other sections of the game.

The game has several secrets to find, which were a joy to look for and uncover. Each of the chapters felt very different without breaking the flow of the game to what we learned before.

The flaws the game has are minor because the experience during its 3-5 hour run time is thoroughly gripping, strange, yet interesting, atmospheric, a sense of alone, sometimes dips into madness, and I'd even dare to say at times magical. It's a game that managed to capture a series of raw emotions of me whole playing with no dialogue or concrete story. It made me think deeply about things in the human psyche as I questioned my interpretations of things by mere suggestion, it can sometimes be mind-bending in the best possible way, and despite its short length, managed to be gripping from beginning to end. I'd say completely worth it for those who want to take a trip into a strange, interesting world.

Some screens:
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More coming, hope it helps some.
 
games are automatically on their deepest discount

But are they? The discounts dont seem nearly as deep as they have in the past. I guess that is on the Pubs and not anything Valve is doing, but the discounts seem a little more shallow in the last year or so.

I have seen games out for years that are selling slightly more than they have in past sales.
 
REmake is 8€ on Uplay, lowest price so far I believe. Says it redeems on Steam although I haven't tried it yet because Ubisoft thinks it's a reasonable idea to only sell USK18 titles from 23:00-6:00 as kids don't stay up that late so they won't be tired at school the next day.

They also have AC: Rogue down to $12, i think that's the lowest it has been
 
But are they? The discounts dont seem nearly as deep as they have in the past. I guess that is on the Pubs and not anything Valve is doing, but the discounts seem a little more shallow in the last year or so.

I have seen games out for years that are selling slightly more than they have in past sales.

I made a similar post somewhat addressing this issue as you posted, no problem sales threads move quickly, but I'll take some time to flesh it out.

There will be growing pains with this switch, it is a massive ideological change after all. Some publishers, especially AAA, are taking a wait and see approach. There will be growing pains, but, ultimately, the market will decide.
Those publishers that are holding back discounts, will likely not see quite the cash influx they have in past sales.

Hopefully things will normalize, but as I said previously, it's a net gain from a consumer and overall discount perspective.

I'm also taking a difficult position, being people naturally fear change of this magnitude.

Yeah, but it's just not as fun anymore.

It's arbitrary for me, but I can see why consumer engagement might be lower.

That's purely on Valve to alleviate this issue.
 
Two massive changes in ideology lately have forced Valve's hand to change policy. Refunds being one and the massive influx of games onto Steam being the other.

One of the huge issues the last few years is the vast majority of games on Steam would never see their best discount as they would never be featured during a sales period. This isn't fair to both consumers and developers who would be interested in a particular title. For example, I have had Brothers in Arms series on my wish list for literal years, but never received more than a general discount during a sales period and would be costs prohibitive to purchase the entire series. I finally had a chance this past sale due to the switch. Repeat this same example thousands of times over and you can see the issue with the previous implementation.

I can't see any reason this switch would be anything but consumer friendly, games are automatically on their deepest discount and gives consumers more choices in their purchasing ability. From a mainstream consumer perspective, the change is completely arbitrary. The front page will still be updated daily with 'featured' sales to advertise a variety of games.
However, people naturally fear change and often don't look at the bigger picture as a result.

Consumer interest is an issue, but that's Valve's job to solve. Either through meta games, trading cards, in-game rewards/unique achievements, etc. I'm very surprised Valve didn't implement one of their famous meta games.

Yeah, but it's just not as fun anymore.
 
Looks like I'll be picking up a handful of smaller purchases. I was really hoping for a better deal on Ori, Axiom Verge, Toukiden, and a few others.

At least I'll finally grab the upgrade from Dark Souls II to SotFS for $10.

I'm too busy playing Xenoblade anyways.
 
This may be the first Steam sale where I bought all the games from other retailers to activate on Steam. Seriously, these discounts are often piss poor compared to what you can get elsewhere.

RIP good Steam sales.
 
I wonder the reasoning STEAM has gone away from their famous sale strategy. For the amount of work it would be to have a meta game and dailies (very little work) they could have made a lot more money I would assume.

Oh well, Gaben is rolling in dolla bills

Valve now has the data to compare this years autumn and winter sale to previous years. If they see that they (and developers) are selling less and losing money then next year they will return to the daily/flash system.
 
It really does suck that dailies are gone. Putting that point aside, there are a couple of RPGs that I am hoping for a deep discount.
 
Is Dark Souls still worth getting (only $5)?

I have never played it (dont hit me). I know this is a favorite round here, but from the read, the online part is pretty prominent. Is this still played online quite a bit?

Also how is LAN coop. If both me and a buddy get this can you play LAN or is it easy to find each other online. Will we get bombarded by high level peeps jumping into our games and griefing us?

Is it good out of the box on steam, or will this take lots of manual patches and mods to make it enjoyable.

Is it better just to get Dark Souls 2 if Coop LAN is the target?

Thanks.
 
So, I managed to shrink my wishlist to about 57 games (from 100+). Still lots of stuff, but after checking the total price of the stuff on sale, it now looks way more affordable heh.
 
I much prefer the non-dailies version of these sales, but I can't imagine it's as successful for Valve or publishers. Curious to see what they do next year now that they have comparison data and can do the usual Valve iteration.
 
Is Dark Souls still worth getting (only $5)?

I have never played it (dont hit me). I know this is a favorite round here, but from the read, the online part is pretty prominent. Is this still played online quite a bit?

Also how is LAN coop. If both me and a buddy get this can you play LAN or is it easy to find each other online. Will we get bombarded by high level peeps jumping into our games and griefing us?

Is it good out of the box on steam, or will this take lots of manual patches and mods to make it enjoyable.

Is it better just to get Dark Souls 2 if Coop LAN is the target?

Thanks.
Iirc there's a coop mod that only lets players who have the same password enter each other's games. Pretty sure that the game is still played by quite a few folks.
 
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