But not entirely bad.
As of the time of this article, the most discounted item in the Steam store is the strategy war game "XCOM2", the main price is reduced by 94%, and the national price is only 11.4 yuan, reaching an all-time low.
After more than a month, we won't see this kind of "broken bones" game, as Steam operator Valve is about to adjust the discount rules for Steam stores.
The Steamworks Archive updated a blog post on Feb. 2, announcing changes to the discount rules on March 28. One of the changes mentions that the discounted price of the commodity should not be less than 10% of the original price or higher than 90% of the original price, that is, the minimum 10% discount (-90%) and the maximum 10% discount (-10%).
Valve didn't give a definitive answer, but the changes were more like targeting certain game publishers.
Steam's algorithm lists a single leaderboard for the game being discounted, and increases the recommendation on the homepage and list. Valve limits discounts higher than 90% off, which can erase the possibility of some publishers cheating on recommendations with the help of negligible discounts, and remind these manufacturers in disguise: if you don't want to discount, you can not fight.
"TYRONE vs COPS" only sells 6 pieces, but it frequently gives -1% discount
Another batch publisher will raise the original price of the game several times beforehand, and then release a "considerable" discount, defrauding the Steam algorithm of strong recommendations, thus fooling players into buying the game.
Not only has Valve eliminated discounts of less than 10% off, but it also restricts them through two rules: no discounts for 28 days after any product price increase, and no change in product prices during or after scheduling future promotions. Obviously, Valve does not want the common marketing strategy of "first increase the price and then discount" to appear on its own platform.
"Trivia Vault: Toy Trivia" rose from 11 to 70, and then sold 7 at a 1 discount, the above data comes from the SteamDB website
Although restricting the discount of the game seems to be detrimental to the player, in fact, there are not many high-quality games with discounts below one discount. Most of the AAA games are reluctant to reduce their own price, and indie games can not necessarily save players much money by hitting a broken bone, and works like "XCOM2" that are a bit famous and have the courage to fight fractures are rare.
At the same time, this change will not affect those "white prostitute" games that are free for a limited time. Steam's original rules pointed out that "no 0% discount on products" and that the so-called free claim is not a "-100%" discount, but a temporary modification of the pricing to 0. The "White Prostitution" offer will continue to exist in the future, provided that the issuer has negotiated with Valve.
The original rules
Limiting the discount is only part of Valve's new rules. The remaining rules focus on adjusting the discount cooldown period, which is the time between two discount campaigns.
According to the adjusted specific rules, from March 28, the interval will be shortened from 6 weeks to 4 weeks (28 days), and the duration of a single discount campaign cannot be longer than 2 weeks or less than 1 day. Theoretically, as long as publishers are willing to discount, we are happy to see discounts that will be more frequent than before.
The game is a cooldown period within 28 days of release, and publishers cannot discount it. However, at the time of the game's launch, the publisher can implement a price reduction and wait until the end of the first offer to enter a 28-day cooldown period.
Steam hosts four large store-wide seasonal specials a year: Lunar New Year Sale, Summer Sale, Autumn Sale, and Winter Sale. These four specials are exceptions, and publishers can publish promotions regardless of the cooldown period.
However, the following three exceptions are exceptions: games that are within 28 days of release, 28 days after the end of the initial offer, or within 28 days of price increases are not eligible for seasonal sale. Therefore, some of the favorite games that have just been released will definitely be absent from the next sale event, which is not necessarily the publisher's conscience, but more likely the Steam rules do not allow it.
In general, Valve's discount rule changes have "disadvantages" to players, with the advantage of improving the game's pricing mechanism and increasing the frequency with which Steam harvests players' money.
Corresponding to the adjustment of the rules, in order to allow game manufacturers to arrange releases and promotions in advance, Valve announced all steam promotions in the first half of this year, and the event schedule was full, until the summer sale in June.
Image source SteamDB website
When Steam's "limited-time special" is about to become a "limited-time original price", players must be more "wary", optimistic about their wallet balance, and pay attention to the increasingly frequent promotions in the future.