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Steam Summer Sales 2012 Thread: we still like you Tony

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C

Codeblue

Member
Why is everyone speculating that Ys will go lower?

Haven't all deals that appeared on both flash and dailies been the same price?
 
A

AngryChinchilla

Member
I'm not really liking that community's choice can be past deals. It feels like a waste of 8 hours. I wish that the community vote would be for an EXTREMELY deep discount that would make it special and not just the same deal we just had for a daily.
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
Dimorphic said:
Okay then.

So if L4D2 wins who wants to;

A) Buy a four pack and gift me a copy (I'll PayPal back the dosh)
B) Buy an individual game and gift it too me (I'll PayPal back the dosh, assuming this method works)
Click to expand...

are these our only two options? what if we want to buy you more expensive games?
 
S

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
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...

I already expressed my disappointment at the meta-game they had going on. While I still already bought 3 things(Clash of Heroes and Trine 2, with upgrading my SSFIV to AE). The metagame in this one is promoting absolutely no reason to play titles. Rather its the same exact thing as a facebook one. Keep checking for updates and vote.

One of the strong things about the Potato Race, Christmas, and Summer sale was on top of giving a reason to play titles. It also made people want to purchase them. I own 7 out of the 10 games, but I want to go for all cheevos. There is no goal in this one other than to spend 5 seconds every 8 hours voting. And even then, there is no potential reward or free content to unlock. It feels lazy and half ass. Like something you'd expect from XBL.

The other bit you mentioned is a sort of natural progression. Both at the fault of Publishers and just the nature of the beast. For a while, the 75% off 20$ for retail games and the 75% off 10$ for indie games clearly became the static end point. You'll basically never get better than that for a few years. For example, we need group of dailies end up by Mass Effect, Dead Space, Battlefield, etc. By now, most long term users own the games and its really only benefiting new ones. The same with the indie packs. Most of them, I already own. There is zero reason for me to pick up any of the list. Many have already been on sale half a dozen times over. Why do we need another pack with Audiosurf or another game that has been on sale, every sale, and in multiple packs + indie bundles prior. Again, its great for new users. But sales have become static with it.

Which is largely were I feel like the sales are at now. Its just another sale for me to pick out the games at MSRP 20$ for 75% off, basically a fiver. And pick up a few indie titles. Its static. There doesn't feel like there is any real excitement. Almost everything has been on sale cheaper from elsewhere. This I was expecting. What is really disappointing is the first thing I mentioned. There doesn't really feel like there is anything to do for the older user. The lack of any sort of meta-game to promote playing titles and purchasing the few you had. Replaced with just a cheap poll.


And now we have a community vote for Valve franchises..... All which have been that price and wasn't one a Daily already?
 
LiquidMetal14

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I only have PvZ in retail form and that's the wifes so I bought it for 2.50. Yesterdays daily's didn't grab me so I hope todays deals are better. Most of my buys have come from flash and community picks.
 
L

Lain

Member
I'm thinking of voting for L4D2, even if I have no intention of buying it, since I already have Portal 2 and no interest in HL2.
 
T

toastyToast

Member
goober said:
at some point like in 6 months or at some point during the summer sale??


WHAT DO YOU KNOW
Click to expand...

That's about as deep as the discount is going to get for now

It's already being discounted further

Why would they discount even further than that during the same sale period?
 
C

Cutwolf

Member
Voted for L4D2. Haven't played it. Played first one and it was fun.

Is there still a thriving/friendly community? I won't know what I'm doing for awhile.
 
C

CarbonatedFalcon

Member
Left 4 Dead is the easy choice here. Portal 2 was a daily deal (and if for some godforsaken reason you don't have it by now, shame, shame on you. $5 for GOTY 2011? Absolute steal.)

and Half Life 2 was a flash deal. And seriously, who doesn't have HL2 + Episodes now either?
 
R

Rickenslacker

Banned
Cutwolf said:
Disappointed that Binding of Isaac hasn't cracked top 20 sales. People are missing out.
Click to expand...
Someone can correct me here but I believe the sales are tracked by amount spent, not units sold, so BoI would have to sell a lot more than most other things to show up given how cheap it is.
 
E

Edgeward

Member
Cutwolf said:
Voted for L4D2. Haven't played it. Played first one and it was fun.

Is there still a thriving/friendly community? I won't know what I'm doing for awhile.
Click to expand...

Yes, very much so. Well, not so sure about friendly at times especially in versus, but very active. Just play with gaffers, they've always treated people well.
 
T

toastyToast

Member
Cutwolf said:
Voted for L4D2. Haven't played it. Played first one and it was fun.

Is there still a thriving/friendly community? I won't know what I'm doing for awhile.
Click to expand...

Community still exists and is very active

You might run across a few not-so-nice people in Versus if you are still new. Since you played the first you should be fine
 
Kelegacy

Kelegacy

XBOX - RECORD ME LOVING DOWN MY WOMAN GOOD
PaulLFC said:
Do I buy both Ys games now (£8.78) or wait to see how much the Ys Pack that's in the registry will be?

Decisions decisions...
Click to expand...
I am torn over this exact thing. If it was 75% off I would bite but will it get cheaper than this?
 
T

The One Who Knocks

Member
Rickenslacker said:
Someone can correct me here but I believe the sales are tracked by amount spent, not units sold, so BoI would have to sell a lot more than most other things to show up given how cheap it is.
Click to expand...

Also worth noting is that since it was in a Humble Bundle (I think it was the Voxatron bundle?) that might also detract potential sales from it as people may just end up buying the DLC at the discounted price while not necessarily buying the base game as they already have it.
 
W

Winnie the Pimp

Member
Speaking of Pixeljunk Eden a little earlier, i noticed i don't have that game in my Steam collection yet and it's 80% off!!

I adored PJ Monsters and liked PJ Shooter, this is totally different though right? Would you guys recommend it?

Keep in mind this is NOT about price anymore obviously ("just get it, it's dirt cheap) but more about investing precious gaming TIME into it...
 
D

dorn.

Member
Dimorphic said:
Okay then.

So if L4D2 wins who wants to;

A) Buy a four pack and gift me a copy (I'll PayPal back the dosh)
B) Buy an individual game and gift it too me (I'll PayPal back the dosh, assuming this method works)
Click to expand...

I'm in the same situation and would be in for the four pack too.
 
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