Steam Summer Sale 2012 Gift-All

I remember when daily deals didn't exist. It was all weekend deals and we loved Valve for it.

You forgot midweek. You touch on a problem though, steam has made sales a bit commonplace and not-special. Having said that, apparently there's a queue to get featured in a sale because it does help a lot, which can be a significant difference for a smaller developer or a welcome bump later in the life of a title.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the steam store appears as one 'front' and it's hard to get something noticed. Maybe they need to make sections a little more specialised within the store, either for genres, by game series or by publisher, and promote better within those sections.

Scratched wrote:

Perhaps part of the problem is that the steam store appears as one 'front' and it's hard to get something noticed. Maybe they need to make sections a little more specialised within the store, either for genres, by game series or by publisher, and promote better within those sections.

They do that though, but it could certainly use some work. I suspect there's another UI revamp coming at some point. It's been two years since the last one and the Big Picture Mode UI might have sparked some discussion on the UI/UX front.

Here's some examples of the genre/publisher pages:

http://store.steampowered.com/genre/...
http://store.steampowered.com/publis...

Cobble wrote:

In preparation of the summer sale giveawayfest anyone want "Cthulu Saves the World" or "Breath of Death VII"?

I have codes for these too if anyone wants them. I got free copies with Penny Arcade Episode 3 but I already own them.

On the subject of sales it really depends on how much those 2-3 year old releases are selling on a normal day. I would wager that games that are 1+ years old do not sell hardly at all without a sale of some kind. A big sale like the summer one gets more people looking at those older games, ven more so than the weekend and daily sales. If games aren't selling at all at $20 but sell 1000 copies at $5, then publishers areal baby excited about sales.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In preparation of the summer sale giveawayfest anyone want "Cthulu Saves the World" or "Breath of Death VII"?

I have codes for these too if anyone wants them. I got free copies with Penny Arcade Episode 3 but I already own them.

Are they good?

I may pick up shogun 2 if it shows up really cheap.

They aren't bad, old school rpgs. they are just little time waster things. nothing to really put too much mindshare into.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In preparation of the summer sale giveawayfest anyone want "Cthulu Saves the World" or "Breath of Death VII"?

I have codes for these too if anyone wants them. I got free copies with Penny Arcade Episode 3 but I already own them.

I'll take one if they haven't all been claimed. Thanks!

hbi2k wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In preparation of the summer sale giveawayfest anyone want "Cthulu Saves the World" or "Breath of Death VII"?

I have codes for these too if anyone wants them. I got free copies with Penny Arcade Episode 3 but I already own them.

I'll take one if they haven't all been claimed. Thanks!

sent you a steam invite. I will gift you the games once you accept

hbi2k wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In preparation of the summer sale giveawayfest anyone want "Cthulu Saves the World" or "Breath of Death VII"?

I have codes for these too if anyone wants them. I got free copies with Penny Arcade Episode 3 but I already own them.

I'll take one if they haven't all been claimed. Thanks!

Ditto

Scratched wrote:

You touch on a problem though, steam has made sales a bit commonplace and not-special.

Yeah, totally not special. It's not like anyone made a thread about it a week before it's rumored to start and already get over 160 posts about it. Yup, totally not special. Nothing special about it. At all.

The big steam sale is an event. That's what makes it so special. People here are concentrating on the sales themselves but i think they are less important than the whole self contained "I cant wait to see whats on sale today" along with whatever prize gimmick valve cooks up. Sure, maybe with all the steam sales everyday the actual savings makes the sale a little less than it was before but who cares. its the overall spectacle of the thing that is exciting.

Oh, I still need to pick up the Witcher 2. Is that safe to get on Steam now, or still better to pay a bit more and get it through GoG?

Boom roasted. Big Steam sales are hyped up, with a specific date. It's like winning the lottery when a game you've been pining for becomes availible at $5.

The daily sales are just meh these days, I've barely noticed them. Except for when Bastion was on sale, but I already own it, and its inclusion in the humble bundle was a better deal.

Dyni wrote:

Oh, I still need to pick up the Witcher 2. Is that safe to get on Steam now, or still better to pay a bit more and get it through GoG?

If you get it on steam, you can plug the serial into GOG.

Scratched wrote:
Dyni wrote:

Oh, I still need to pick up the Witcher 2. Is that safe to get on Steam now, or still better to pay a bit more and get it through GoG?

If you get it on steam, you can plug the serial into GOG.

This program is ending in 4 days:

GoG Tweeted on June 20 wrote:

10 days left to get a CD key & backup of The Witcher or The Witcher 2 if you lost your old one. http://j.mp/WitcherBackup!

Scratched wrote:

You forgot midweek. You touch on a problem though, steam has made sales a bit commonplace and not-special.

And not just Steam -- Amazon and others have been having some really good sales lately, too. We can get deals all over the place.

The unique part of the big Steam sales has really been the metagames. I'm hoping for more of that; the summer sale last year got me to revisit several games I'd already owned, in order to chase silly prizes.

What are the chances of a Civ 5 Expansion sale? I don't like it at 30 dollars...

I'd say pretty slim. Maybe a 10%-25% sale with the base game going 75%. I believe I saw something similar one or two big sales ago. Like BAA being 75% and BAC 25% or something.

Scratched wrote:

I'd like to think there's someone on this site who "knows computers". Is there anything valve can do to stop their web servers melting for the 10 minutes around when they change the deals? It seems like the best they could do is change how they announce the deals, using other media.

Not really. If you build it, they will come. But if you just wait a bit after the start it's not going to hurt anything. Remember, it's code. It's not going to rot and they're not going to run out.

I usually wait an hour or so after and try not to dither about something so long I run into that last hour before the change. Things tend to be behaving themselves that way.

Sale-wise, all I know I need for sure is some traily-bits of Civ5 DLC (Korea, and something else). What I'll actually buy.... well.................

momgamer wrote:

Sale-wise, all I know I need for sure is some traily-bits of Civ5 DLC (Korea, and something else). What I'll actually buy.... well.................

Most of the small DLC (with the exception of the Polynesians) is currently on sale at GamersGate for 75% off. I doubt it will be any cheaper than that even on Steam's big sale. They are all listed as Mac versions, but the codes register on steam and unlock the DLC for PC users. I can verify that this works because I used it this morning to pick up the Koreans for $1.25.

EDIT: I now have all of the DLC civilizations. However, I've put off buying the Wonders of the World scenario pack and the Cradle of Civilization map packs. Are these worthwhile additions?

Thanks to SixteenBlue for firing off a set of "Cthulu Saves the World" and "Breath of Death VII" my way!

Oh, cool! Thanks for that. I'll check it out after payday.

edit: I don't know. They're on my list to buy too. The rest of my usual multiplayer gang have them and we want to have them for that.

Grubber started spreading the love and sent LA Noire my way.

Prozac wrote:

Grubber started spreading the love and sent LA Noire my way.

I was thinking about getting it for my wife, will be the first PC game she has ever played.

She really wants it after watching videos online and reading reviews

I seem to remember that last Steam sale I bought more stuff from sites wanting to compete with Steam than from Steam itself. Origin, Amazon, and GMG.

I'm as interested in those other players as I am what Steam discounts.

I'm hoping Pro Cycling Manager 2012 goes on sale.

Spoiler:

Not really.

brouhaha wrote:

I'm hoping Pyro Cycling Manager 2012 goes on sale.

Yes please.

Archangel wrote:
brouhaha wrote:

I'm hoping Pyro Cycling Manager 2012 goes on sale.

Yes please.

So... TF2: Spreadsheet Edition?

Garden Ninja wrote:
Archangel wrote:
brouhaha wrote:

I'm hoping Pyro Cycling Manager 2012 goes on sale.

Yes please.

So... TF2: Spreadsheet Edition?

I approve this.