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Steam Summer Sales 2012 Thread: we still like you Tony

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S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
To add a contrasting point of view, I'd say this is pretty much the worst Steam sale I've ever been through. Not because of what's put on sale--obviously how much or how little I personally buy has nothing to do with if it's a good sale. I already have a ton of games, and so it's natural that many deals will be on stuff I already have.--but because of the characteristics of the sale. I want to say first that I love the flash and community voted deals, I have no objections to either.

- Essentially nothing has been on sale above 75%--the best Steam sales involve discounts above 75%. Sometimes that involves an indie game (PB Winterbottom for $0.50, CivCity Rome for $0.90). Sometimes it involves retail games at 80-90% off.

- Most of the discounts do not exceed what they were at Christmas. I mean, obviously 2012 stuff is new, and that's great, but for returning sales, they're comparable. And there have been, as far as I can tell, fewer MSRP drops this year than in the past, so that makes it hurt more. Some of this is because a lot of sale staples have had their MSRPs stall at $19.99, so you get the 75% off = $5 sale on everything. BioShock, Mass Effect, Portal... I'd like to see companies start lowering MSRPs for older retail games to $10 so that the corresponding discount can breach the $5 barrier.

- The Indie Packs, while still a great deal for someone starting, are much worse than any prior sale. They're certainly worse than the 5-for-$5 packs previously. But more to the point, the indie packs don't emphasize any one genre or type of game. They're just random games. Which might be good from Valve's perspective, because you're likely to buy the pack if you want 2 of the games--but from a consumer perspective, the previous packs would generally be either "I want 4-5 of these games" or "I don't want these games at all", which meant better value for purchases. That's because they used to pack them by genre.

- No comically awesome recent release ultra-bomba discounts. Here I'm thinking of stuff like Kane and Lynch 2 for $5 2 months after release. Alan Wake's: American Nightmare is probably the closest, and it's still just 75% off a $15 MSRP, not a $50 game dropping 90% in 2 months.

- The lack of a sale-related metagame discourages experimental playing and buying of games. I've really loved the treasure hunt, Christmas sale, and Summer sale that had daily achievements. It encouraged me to boot up old games (finished and unfinished) and give 'em another run. Moreover, it encouraged me to take a chance and gave an opportunity to spotlight key indie games. I played a lot of stuff that I don't think I would have otherwise played. Orcs Must Die was one of the great ones, PAM was one of the terrible ones. But I don't regret it at all. It was very fun. And it's sorely missed here.

- The de-emphasis of the "plot" of the summer sale. I love the background art every sale, but this sale it's comparatively a smaller event versus the last few where they've done daily art collages including the game's daily sales. The comical text written every day used to be on the main page, now it's relegated to the Summer Sale group. I do look forward to see how the dudes do with building their treehouse.

- Overall presentation of the main page is pretty static. I've loved the catalogue style presentations in the past. Really rich, great web applications. I assume it's partially related to Valve as a company being busy right now, and partially related to just them not wanting the servers to take quite as badly.

- To me, at least, the full-company packs represent the magnum opus of value for a new customer. But it feels like the price of them has slowly crept up a little bit, and many publishers have stopped doing complete packs, instead emphasizing selections.

- It feels like fewer non-featured games have steep sales. A lot more 33%, 40%, and 50% and a lot less 66%, 75%, 80% on random games in the catalogue that never ever had a hope of being featured. Maybe this suggests that the summer sales suck oxygen away from most games and towards those who are being featured. I had hoped that all games would have seen huge revenue+sales spikes to continue justifying deep discounts on random stuff. Many games that took part in the Christmas sale aren't even on sale now. Consider Westward IV--this is a totally random game that basically no one here would have played. It's not ever going to be featured. It's a basically non-violent RTS with persistent characters across maps and a western theme. It's family-friendly. Fun little game. But anyway, it's not on sale. And it was during the last Christmas sale. And it was during the last summer sale.

- (Not Valve's fault) Other companies like Amazon went earlier and offered mostly the same deals on Steamworks products.

I'm not saying this is not a good sale. All Steam sales are good sales. You can get tons of games and spend way less than $100. You can build a library very quickly. If this is your first sale, you'll be very very happy with it. I'm just saying that this is the weakest sale for me for all of these reasons. I feel confident posting this when we're still on day 2 because most of these problems are self-evidently going to be with the whole sale. Some of them might be fixed if the subsequent daily deals are stronger.
 
S

Spierek

Member
Cryptozoologist said:
Where are you? If you're overseas and your card isn't working, try going to http://store.steampowered.com/?CC=US or ?CC=EU or something like that to go to the region where your card is from.

I'm in China and have to shop from the ?CC=US link to make purchases. If I don't they always fail.
Click to expand...

I also had a similar problem; I just changed the "Country" field during checkout to the country I'm currently living in (UK) and it worked.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
I saw the Alan Wake flash deal and immediately bought it. I paid, went back to the front page and saw the franchise deal. Now I had to buy Alan Wake and American Nightmare separately. #fml

MRORANGE said:
less than 10 minutes before another fixed vote.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I couldn't believe how people voted an fps over another fps and then the fps won.
 
C

Chrysalis

Member
Universaldamps said:
I was going to buy might and magic clash of heroes. Twas 75% off just as a part of the regular sale. It's now showing up as 33% off for no good reason. Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...

It was part of the Might & Magic VI franchise daily. 33% is the regular sale discount.

Edit: NM. Beaten...by like, 2 pages.
 
X

Xavien

Member
brotkasten said:
I saw the Alan Wake flash deal and immediately bought it. I paid, went back to the front page and saw the franchise deal. Now I had to buy Alan Wake and American Nightmare separately. #fml



Yeah, I couldn't believe how people voted an fps over another fps and then the fps won.
Click to expand...

AC isn't a fps though...
 
M

More Fun To Compute

Member
Stumpokapow said:
- Essentially nothing has been on sale above 75%--the best Steam sales involve discounts above 75%. Sometimes that involves an indie game (PB Winterbottom for $0.50, CivCity Rome for $0.90). Sometimes it involves retail games at 80-90% off.
Click to expand...

PixelJunk Eden 80% off. You saying that is less worth shouting about than Winterbottom?
 
T

TheLucifer

Member
Plants Vs Zombies won :( Going to buy it anyway.

Too bad for Qube. I'm going to buy it anyway as well if I have something left on the 22nd.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
atomsk said:
PvZ wins...

aw man
Click to expand...

Bummer. PvZ is on every platform under the sun and it's had this discount on all of them. Meat Boy is on multiple platforms and has hit that pricepoint several times before. QUBE is a 2012 release that's never been anywhere near as cheap as 3.75 before.

More Fun To Compute said:
PixelJunk Eden 80% off. You saying that is less worth shouting about than Winterbottom?
Click to expand...

That's a good discount percentage for sure, but it's also on a game that was just sold for $1 on its original platform (a platform with significant less good sales than Steam) a few weeks ago, and it's on a game that was just part of a 5-games-for-$5 indie bundle a few weeks ago. Winterbottom had never previously been below $5.

Not that the game isn't worth $2. It absolutely is. It's absolutely worth full price. This is my whole point. If you just want to look at this sale, like every Steam sale it's great and amazing and OMG and MY WALLET!!!! But if you take the long view, this is a weaker sale.

I also didn't actually mention that in my big post, but it's worth noting that the economics on PC game sales have changed a lot in the last year with the rise of the indie bundle. 5-games-for-$10 would have been an amazing deal a few years ago, but now if you're a long-term PC gamer you've probably gotten a lot of the indies that Steam will feature as part of HIBs, IRs, IGs, BeMine, or other bundle options. And even if you give quite generously to them, you're still looking at an effective price below what the Steam sale value is now.
 
masterkajo

masterkajo

Member
Why? PvZ? Why? I wanted Q.U.B.E. First time I didn't get what I voted and first time I really wanted it... Arghhh. Bad, Internet, bad!!
 
Aretak

Aretak

Member
Plants vs Zombies over Super Meat Boy...

Dkvkc.jpg
 
benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
- The Indie Packs, while still a great deal for someone starting, are much worse than any prior sale. They're certainly worse than the 5-for-$5 packs previously. But more to the point, the indie packs don't emphasize any one genre or type of game. They're just random games. Which might be good from Valve's perspective, because you're likely to buy the pack if you want 2 of the games--but from a consumer perspective, the previous packs would generally be either "I want 4-5 of these games" or "I don't want these games at all", which meant better value for purchases. That's because they used to pack them by genre.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't want these indie packs at all because of that. Before you'd get two or three good games, an iffy one or possible gem, and a likely dud in a genre you like, all for the cost of one game.

- To me, at least, the full-company packs represent the magnum opus of value for a new customer. But it feels like the price of them has slowly crept up a little bit, and many publishers have stopped doing complete packs, instead emphasizing selections.
Click to expand...
I theorized yesterday that the publishers realized they could sell you five or six either bombs or less popular older titles for the price of one game, and then put the more popular games up as daily deals. Whereas before they either sold you the individual games or let you just plop down on the entire catalog. That first Eidos pack for example, I got every game they had on the service including the newest titles at the time, that they were also trying to sell as half off daily deals, like Batman and Mini Ninjas for $50.
 
A

Arksy

Member
Stumpokapow said:
To add a contrasting point of view, I'd say this is pretty much the worst Steam sale I've ever been through. Not because of what's put on sale--obviously how much or how little I personally buy has nothing to do with if it's a good sale. I already have a ton of games, and so it's natural that many deals will be on stuff I already have.--but because of the characteristics of the sale. I want to say first that I love the flash and community voted deals, I have no objections to either.

- Essentially nothing has been on sale above 75%--the best Steam sales involve discounts above 75%. Sometimes that involves an indie game (PB Winterbottom for $0.50, CivCity Rome for $0.90). Sometimes it involves retail games at 80-90% off.

- Most of the discounts do not exceed what they were at Christmas. I mean, obviously 2012 stuff is new, and that's great, but for returning sales, they're comparable. And there have been, as far as I can tell, fewer MSRP drops this year than in the past, so that makes it hurt more. Some of this is because a lot of sale staples have had their MSRPs stall at $19.99, so you get the 75% off = $5 sale on everything. BioShock, Mass Effect, Portal... I'd like to see companies start lowering MSRPs for older retail games to $10 so that the corresponding discount can breach the $5 barrier.

- The Indie Packs, while still a great deal for someone starting, are much worse than any prior sale. They're certainly worse than the 5-for-$5 packs previously. But more to the point, the indie packs don't emphasize any one genre or type of game. They're just random games. Which might be good from Valve's perspective, because you're likely to buy the pack if you want 2 of the games--but from a consumer perspective, the previous packs would generally be either "I want 4-5 of these games" or "I don't want these games at all", which meant better value for purchases. That's because they used to pack them by genre.

- No comically awesome recent release ultra-bomba discounts. Here I'm thinking of stuff like Kane and Lynch 2 for $5 2 months after release. Alan Wake's: American Nightmare is probably the closest, and it's still just 75% off a $15 MSRP, not a $50 game dropping 90% in 2 months.

- The lack of a sale-related metagame discourages experimental playing and buying of games. I've really loved the treasure hunt, Christmas sale, and Summer sale that had daily achievements. It encouraged me to boot up old games (finished and unfinished) and give 'em another run. Moreover, it encouraged me to take a chance and gave an opportunity to spotlight key indie games. I played a lot of stuff that I don't think I would have otherwise played. Orcs Must Die was one of the great ones, PAM was one of the terrible ones. But I don't regret it at all. It was very fun. And it's sorely missed here.

- The de-emphasis of the "plot" of the summer sale. I love the background art every sale, but this sale it's comparatively a smaller event versus the last few where they've done daily art collages including the game's daily sales. The comical text written every day used to be on the main page, now it's relegated to the Summer Sale group. I do look forward to see how the dudes do with building their treehouse.

- Overall presentation of the main page is pretty static. I've loved the catalogue style presentations in the past. Really rich, great web applications. I assume it's partially related to Valve as a company being busy right now, and partially related to just them not wanting the servers to take quite as badly.

- To me, at least, the full-company packs represent the magnum opus of value for a new customer. But it feels like the price of them has slowly crept up a little bit, and many publishers have stopped doing complete packs, instead emphasizing selections.

- It feels like fewer non-featured games have steep sales. A lot more 33%, 40%, and 50% and a lot less 66%, 75%, 80% on random games in the catalogue that never ever had a hope of being featured. Maybe this suggests that the summer sales suck oxygen away from most games and towards those who are being featured. I had hoped that all games would have seen huge revenue+sales spikes to continue justifying deep discounts on random stuff. Many games that took part in the Christmas sale aren't even on sale now. Consider Westward IV--this is a totally random game that basically no one here would have played. It's not ever going to be featured. It's a basically non-violent RTS with persistent characters across maps and a western theme. It's family-friendly. Fun little game. But anyway, it's not on sale. And it was during the last Christmas sale. And it was during the last summer sale.

- (Not Valve's fault) Other companies like Amazon went earlier and offered mostly the same deals on Steamworks products.

I'm not saying this is not a good sale. All Steam sales are good sales. You can get tons of games and spend way less than $100. You can build a library very quickly. If this is your first sale, you'll be very very happy with it. I'm just saying that this is the weakest sale for me for all of these reasons. I feel confident posting this when we're still on day 2 because most of these problems are self-evidently going to be with the whole sale. Some of them might be fixed if the subsequent daily deals are stronger.
Click to expand...

To be honest all would be forgiven if they had a meta-game event such as achievement hunting or coal-collecting. It doesn't have to be much, just an excuse to buy indie games foe cheap and collect stuff....
 
J

jgminto

Member
This is all your own fault. For not voting for TW2 in the previous round. You brought this on yourself GAF and I will enjoy PvZ.
 
T

The One Who Knocks

Member
I just don't understand this at all, why would people vote for Plants vs. Zombies? Super Meat Boy I can kind of understand, it's still on other platforms at an expensive price but even that has been discounted lots of times before. There just isn't any real logic voting for them over QUBE which was the best deal.
 
D

dosh

Member
Ok, so apparently, if you want a game NOT TO BE a Community Choice, just ask me to vote for it: I lost every. single. time.

HoosTrax said:
Hey don't look at me, I voted for QUBE -- the only game out of those three that everyone and their mother doesn't have already.
Click to expand...

Indeed.
 
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