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Steam Winter Sales 2012 | Deal quality keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'

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G-Fex

Member
I bought the galactic civilizations pack.

I played master of Orion I got from GOG for a little bit and I liked it, I hope this is good and easy for a beginner like me.
 

Painraze

Unconfirmed Member
To be fair it's only because everyone is beating Steam at their own game now. Most of the stuff that has shown up on Steam winter sales so far has been cheaper on other websites that just activate on Steam anyway.

In fact walking dead will be the first thing I've bought this winter on Steam itself. Everything else has been on Amazon.

I don't see how that's a bad thing. Valve started a great sales trend with PC games and others are following their lead, sometimes besting them. That's great for everyone and doesn't really reflect badly on Steam IMO.
 

inky

Member
Underwhelming stuff again. I'm just holding out for FTL. I don't even want to play it, I just want to use the joke I made: "FTL? more like FTG amirite..."

I'm sure I'm the only one who thought of that one :p
 

Sianos

Member
Amazon has been amazing this sale, glad to see this wonderful competition of who can have the best sales.

No matter who has the best deals, we win.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
man, haters everywhere. Everyone feels so entitled

This is such garbage though. The fun has been completely stripped out of it. And these discounts aren't any where what they used to be. It's not that Steam is getting beat by anyone with a pulse, it's that Steam is getting pulverized by the ghosts of Steam Sales Past.

Plus, I don't even seen how this is productive. The whole point of aggressive pricing was to get people to impulse buy. You only buy games you're mildly interested in if pricing is aggressive. I know I'm not alone in scaling back, because I check the Steam community everyday and there's not a whole lot of purchases being made on my friends list.

Is it just me or were almost all of these flash sales

Welcome to the new format. This is the third sale like this. By the end, some will have gotten 3 or 4 appearances.
 
There's no entitlement involved. This sale hasn't offered much of anything that feels on par not only with previous Steam sales, but especially what GMG/Amazon has been offering lately. It's understandable that people (myself included) are disappointed.


yeah, but they could easily not have a sale at all. They do this, what, 3-4 times a year? What does everyone expect? If other sales elsewhere are better, buy those games, I don't see how that effects the steam sale. I'm happy with my purchases so far and the same games popping up more than once is beneficial to those who missed a flash sale or vote sale.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
I don't see how that's a bad thing. Valve started a great sales trend with PC games and others are following their lead, sometimes besting them. That's great for everyone and doesn't really reflect badly on Steam IMO.

I don't disagree, I am just saying it's not surprising for people who track sales to be underwhelmed by the Steam specific sales so far.
 

cicero

Member
Amazon has been amazing this sale, glad to see this wonderful competition of who can have the best sales.

No matter who has the best deals, we win.
Actually, we still lose if Steam no longer takes the time for meta games or achievements.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
There's no entitlement involved. This sale hasn't offered much of anything that feels on par not only with previous Steam sales, but especially what GMG/Amazon has been offering lately. It's understandable that people (myself included) are disappointed.

oh wtf, so are we turning it into an 'entitlement' argument now? Fuck that shit. I agree that there is no entitlement involved. Before, it was 'oh the sale lasts til Jan 3 blah blah blah'. This sale has been terrible with what Steam has offered and done before AND yes, Amazon and GMG has been offering better deals and games and in Amazon's case, you don't have to wait for most of them since we know what's coming up AND they discounted a huge number so you get more choice.

I love Steam and Valve, but I'm not going to be so blind as to not clearly see they got whupped this year. I expect the best from Valve and Steam, and they most certainly did not deliver; if anything, they seemed to be dialing this one in since there's nothing special about it.
 

drizzle

Axel Hertz
Is it that hard to discount The Witcher 2? Oh but make way for Walking Dead like 80 times over the course of the sales. I get that its hot shit right now but come on.

These kind of complaints cannot be taken seriously when there's still 8 days left to go.

The only complaint I have about today is the fact that they're all repeats from flash deals (but we already knew about that. And that's a good thing: people that lost the chance to buy on the flash deals can buy on the daily and the other way around) and some games are not getting deep discounted enough for me to buy them right now. In other words, anything below 66% discount is amateur hour, while 75% discount is the preferred number.

For instance: I'm sure that the dude that missed the Dead Rising 2 sale because of 5 minutes will be STOKED when it returns as a daily deal.

Also, The Witcher 2 was already discounted on the Autumn sale, so you can stay calm: It'll be discounted again.

Like I said, 8 days to go.

Don't have anything but Steam credit right now =\

There's your first mistake. We have been having better discounts on Steam-redeemable stuff from Amazon and GreenManGaming for more than a year already. This year is just overwhelming because Amazon is going Balls Out on digital distribution content this time around.
 

Enco

Member
This is such garbage though. The fun has been completely stripped out of it. And these discounts aren't any where what they used to be. It's not that Steam is getting beat by anyone with a pulse, it's that Steam is getting pulverized by the ghosts of Steam Sales Past.

Plus, I don't even seen how this is productive. The whole point of aggressive pricing was to get people to impulse buy. You only buy games you're mildly interested in if pricing is aggressive. I know I'm not alone in scaling back, because I check the Steam community everyday and there's not a whole lot of purchases being made on my friends list.



Welcome to the new format. This is the third sale like this. By the end, some will have gotten 3 or 4 appearances.
I agree that there's no more fun in steam sales.

Well summer was great for the first week but everything else has been pretty bad.

It's boring, repetitive and the games are all cheaper elsewhere.
 

MRORANGE

Member
Guys I have this crazy theory:

TKWhA.png
.
 
No matter what, your first sale is the most magical.

If you're just starting up your PC game collection every day is magical. People are getting disapointed because they already own a lot of the older titles and the newer ones aren't having as strong sales as hoped. Still an amazing deal overall.

I'm in the same boat as a new gaming PC person and I feel like a kid in a candystore. Before the sale I had like 10 games in my Steam library. Now I have 30. I could see how some would be disappointed if they already owned everything being discounted as it wouldn't do them any good.

Hope Stalker goes on sale again for $5. Missed out on that one.
 

Sianos

Member
Actually, we still lose if Steam no longer takes the time for meta games or achievements.

I'm pretty disappointed about that. Shame people had to ruin it by creating hordes of accounts to get the achievements and coal from free to play games, I really enjoyed the meta game. At the very least they should still do the cheesemints.
 

cicero

Member
This is such garbage though. The fun has been completely stripped out of it. And these discounts aren't any where what they used to be. It's not that Steam is getting beat by anyone with a pulse, it's that Steam is getting pulverized by the ghosts of Steam Sales Past.

Plus, I don't even seen how this is productive. The whole point of aggressive pricing was to get people to impulse buy. You only buy games you're mildly interested in if pricing is aggressive. I know I'm not alone in scaling back, because I check the Steam community everyday and there's not a whole lot of purchases being made on my friends list.
We keep saying this and yet people keep repeating the whole "entitlement" or "you already own all the games" bits. The old Holiday achievements alone drove much of my impulse purchases, and they were FUN. You competed with others because you saw what they were achieving/buying and you did the same. I think Steam is so big now they no longer feel they have to make a larger effort, people will come and buy anyway.

EDIT: Well, that and the whole issue with people ruining the game by creating new accounts and using $.01 humble bundle keys.
 

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Void is not included in the holiday sale.
It isn't? Looks like I'll be crying in a corner over there.

They'll probably end up in a future Humble Bundle, so I shouldn't feel too bad about it. But it still sucks not having a sale on the games I want, or the discount not being as much as I'd like.


Apparently I have poor taste in wishlists. I always feel like there's hardly anything else on Steam I want to buy or something, but then I have 18 games on my wishlist...and I don't think any of those have been a daily or flash deal. I must choose better games!
I found out mine is the opposite case. I almost never use the wishlist when buying games. So far, of the 12 games I bought on this sale (not counting the repeated ones from the Amazon bundles, which I gave away), only 2 were on my wishlist prior to the purchase. And I stopped myself from getting several more that also weren't, like the Splinter Cell collection or Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (shut up, I like that game!).
 

Volcynika

Member
It isn't? Looks like I'll be crying in a corner over there.

They'll probably end up in a future Humble Bundle, so I shouldn't feel too bad about it. But it still sucks not having a sale on the games I want, or the discount not being as much as I'd like.

Store page doesn't have the "Holiday sale!" Thing. Just the "Special promotion!" it had on release.
 
These kind of complaints cannot be taken seriously when there's still 8 days left to go.

It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It isn't that big of a deal really. You're right.

And I only have Steam credit because I traded some stuff in at Gamestop and got some cards. I don't have any money in any bank accounts right now to take advantage of Amazon or GMG or GOG sales or whatever as the holiday season and the wreck I was in 2 nights ago completely draining all my funding. Not looking for sympathy, just wanted to explain as its slightly embarrassing to reveal that you have no money to your name at any given time.
 

Suite Pee

Willing to learn
That chart is definitely backwards. Yeah, I'm somewhat disappointed with this sale, but I also just passed 300 games. If I stopped buying games now, I wouldn't finish the ones I have for at least a year, and then I'd have time to spend getting great and getting the most out of the best of those games.

I still picked up a few games outside of Steam, though. 7.49 for Scribblenauts, 5 for Dreamcast Pack, and 20 for XCOM were too hard to pass up. But, still, if I were new to Steam I can imagine this sale would still blow my mind.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
We keep saying this and yet people keep repeating the whole "entitlement" or "you already own all the games" bits. The old Holiday achievements alone drove much of my impulse purchases, and they were FUN. You competed with others because you saw what they were achieving/buying and you did the same. I think Steam is so big now they no longer feel they have to make a larger effort, people will come and buy anyway.

I know. I'm bored. It's the only reason I'm engaging it. Nice to see mrorange posted his graph again. :lol. I think it's safe to say that the majority of gaffers don't own 1000 games and this is NOT the reason for the discontent amongst us peasants.
 
Ok so it has been established a couple posts back that Sonic CD is apparently worth getting and a good game BUT is this specific Steam port good as well? I heard bad things about the other older Sonic games on Steam so how is this one different?
 

Wolfie5

Member
I have to agree with not so exciting steam sale so far. But, at the same time I have gotten some good deals and all of them has been games on my wishlist(not a big list btw), so I am happy with that.

I have been through all steam sales in the past and this is the first time I have still not purchased any games on impulse. No deal that has been tempting as it used to be.
 

Mairu

Member
yeah, but they could easily not have a sale at all. They do this, what, 3-4 times a year? What does everyone expect? If other sales elsewhere are better, buy those games, I don't see how that effects the steam sale. I'm happy with my purchases so far and the same games popping up more than once is beneficial to those who missed a flash sale or vote sale.

Are you fucking kidding me? It's not like they run these sales to reward customers for being customers, sales happen because the companies discounting the games want to make money.

People are rightfully disappointed because Valve set a standard people were expecting with their previous sales and they haven't lived up to them. You can argue that people's expectations were too high (I'm sure it takes a lot more effort to add achievements and create a metagame around the sale rather than just discounting) but those expectations are created based on what Valve and the publishers they've worked with did before, not based on some imaginary ideal of what companies should do during the holidays.
 

Jedi2016

Member
My problem with the sale isn't really specific to Steam, since all of the distributors appear to be working the same sales. It's that the games I want simply are not being put on sale at all.

I'm getting sick of the "I wonder if today is the day that (insert game here) goes on sale?!?" only to see the same shit show up that's already been on sale. But I sure as hell can't just go buy the game anyway.. that's the jinx, and the game will go on Daily the very next day.

The only one that would remotely interest me today would be TWD, if I hadn't already picked it up for the same price a few days ago when it was the Community Choice.
 

drizzle

Axel Hertz
It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It isn't that big of a deal really. You're right.

It's just funny.

It's more like you're frustrated because the game you want to buy with the money you have is not coming up as a sale fast enough to satisfy your desires.

So what if TWD came up 3 times (a flash deal, a community vote and a daily deal)? If The Witcher 2 came on the first day, you bought it and that was it, would you care as much about TWD getting 3 chances to be sold?

Everybody complaining sounds like "omg the games I want for the prices I want are not coming up, this sale is horrible. Screw everybody else" to me.

When "Mark of the NInja" came up as flash deal, everybody was expecting that. Suddenly, it was an amazing deal, Steam Sales redeemed, etc etc.

Except the game was only 50% off. Technically, that's a bad discount. But everybody was hella excited, because everybody wanted the game no matter what the price, they just wanted a discount. When it comes back as a Daily Deal, people will complain again.

And when it's 75% on the summer sale next year, people will complain again.

If the sale ends and the game you want doesn't come up for the price you want (for instance, Dead Rising 2 in every sale except this one), then you're more than correct in complaining.
 
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