Steam Extends Holiday Games Sale

Though Holiday 2012 has come and gone and most of the world has returned to work, Valve's decided that Christmas isn't over yet for Steam users.

The Steam Holiday Sale, originally running from December 20 to January 5has been extended to January 7. The last day of Steam sales, a date of sales reprisals, has been tweaked into "The Encore Weekend", meaning that the most popular sales during the Holiday Sale will be reprised.

It's possible that Valve may be extending the sales for reasons outside of holiday spirit, however. Keeping in mind that this is pure speculation on the author's part, the Holiday Sale may not have generated the desired numbers that Valve's achieved in the past years. This year, Amazon, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, along with other digital download outlets, hosted similar end-of-the-year sales that outmatched Steam's in terms of time and discount percentage. The old jokes about Steam sales performing atrocities to a PC gamer's wallet just didn't ring quite as true this year. Have Steam sales finally met their match?

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gilgamex101 5 years ago

I wasn't too enthralled with the game selection, it wasn't as alluring as previous years for sure
skaz 5 years ago

Steam deals were horrible this season. I refuse to believe they were unaware of the other guy's deals. A quick visit to any other website would reveal that steam's prices were simply not as good.

It's all part of the game in my opinion. Steam wins either way, as their platform (DRM) is the main one being used, and one of the few, if only, being praised by gamers. So either way, they are still making out pretty good, it seems.
sorrento 5 years ago

Steam promos aren't good as before... so that could be the cause.

Other Comments

sorrento 5 years ago

Steam promos aren't good as before... so that could be the cause.
gilgamex101 5 years ago

I wasn't too enthralled with the game selection, it wasn't as alluring as previous years for sure
spasmolytic46 5 years ago

After that major change up of the steam TOS that made me agree to binding arbitration or lose my games I quit buying games from steam. That was a move into EA or Ubisoft territory and they still haven't made up for it.
spasmolytic46 5 years ago

Also no Mention of G.O.G., really?
skaz 5 years ago

Steam deals were horrible this season. I refuse to believe they were unaware of the other guy's deals. A quick visit to any other website would reveal that steam's prices were simply not as good.

It's all part of the game in my opinion. Steam wins either way, as their platform (DRM) is the main one being used, and one of the few, if only, being praised by gamers. So either way, they are still making out pretty good, it seems.
Gundam288 5 years ago

gilgamex101I wasn't too enthralled with the game selection, it wasn't as alluring as previous years for sure

I would say it was MUCH better than 2011's sale (there wasn't really anything IMHO in 2011), but 2010 was when they REALLY cleaned house and my wallet.

This year they had some good sales if you caught the timed ones right, like Torchlight 2 being on sale for $9.99 (50% off) and a few others.
fuzzion 5 years ago

I bought Painkiller(Riddle me later) and dead island. It was worth the price seeing it cost less than a bong.
casualcolors 5 years ago

It's nice to see GMG, Amazon and Gamersgate get the attention they deserve this holiday season. GMG and Amazon in particular have been complimenting sales that often times were already better than comparable Steam sales (ie. games on Steam being sold for 66% off were being sold on Amazon and Greenman Gaming for 75% off) but on top of that GMG and Amazon had other vouchers and coupons to further increase your savings, that could be stacked with those 75% off sales bringing many titles down to under 4 dollars.

I did far more shopping on Amazon and GMG this year than on Steam, and I feel like that is a trend that will probably continue. Adding salt to the wounds is the fact that most of the games Amazon and GMG sell are in fact Steam keys. Valve really screwed the pooch this year.
neiroatopelcc 5 years ago

ArticleThe old jokes about Steam sales performing atrocities to a PC gamer's wallet just didn't ring quite as true this year.

I'm not entirely in agreement with this part miss! Despite owning hundreds of games already, I still saw myself spending 50€ more than I should have this time around. And I know friends have done the same.
A friend of mien is now at 956 owned items. I'm 9 items behind.
ddpruitt 5 years ago

The answer is simple. I bought a lot of games from steam last year, but a few of those sales have gone to amazon because they had better prices and a bigger selection than last year.

Either way it's great to be a PC gamer, sucks for console gamers paying 4 or 4 times as much for the same games
shloader 5 years ago

It's all perspective. I just sold all my 360 games and replaced all but two of the non-exclusive titles for 4.99-7.49. Now I can enjoy them @ 60FPS instead of 30. I even bought some I was on the fence about for $4.99 (though Batman:AC don't work). Any I didn't get will be $4.99 next year. I didn't see any better prices at competitors sites for anything I had my eye on.
Usersname 5 years ago

Nothing in the Steam sale I wanted that I didn't find much cheaper elsewhere: GMG, GameStop, etc.

I'm sure the Sale competition hit Steam hard and took them rather by surprise. Most of what I bought registered on Steam, it was just more cheaply sourced. I downloaded several games from their servers without spending any money with the. Bandwidth must cost them.
upgrade_1977 5 years ago

I bought more games this year then any other games. I'd say the games were a lot cheaper this year too. So maybe they sold more games, but made less money, which I think is a good thing for the customers. I notice a lot more of my friends are starting to buy more games on steam too.

Quote:

Keeping in mind that this is pure speculation on the author's part
ben850 5 years ago

Torchlight 2 back down to $9.99? YES
aaron88_7 5 years ago

I'd be happy if I could take advantage of the 25% off deal on Assassin's Creed 3, but it ended at 10am on the day they sent me the email for the deal. What kind of gamer is a wake by 10am? Come on!!
mazty 5 years ago

The issue is that it's been a pretty poor year for games. I'm not sure why they expect to match sales when there is very few worthwhile games out there, let alone on sale.
CaedenV 5 years ago

I finally picked up portal and portal 2 for a total of $8, which was pretty good. But then again I am WAY behind the times on games, and most people already own a lot of the games that had really good deals.
dimar 5 years ago

Got Max Payne 3 for $15 on Steam. I even got an e-mail about the discount because the game was on my wish list. Me very happy!
The_OGS 5 years ago

Fantastic sales!
I bought Dishonored and Borderlands2 for $29 bucks (each).
RAGE was $5 bucks - tough to beat that...
What else - oh yeah Crysis2 for $10 bucks; Skyrim for $29; and Oblivion (GOTY) for $4.99 LoL.
Even FarCry3 was on sale, but you had to be quick to catch it.

Quote:

Steam deals were horrible this season.

Oh yeah sure - uh-huh, heheh...
Orlean 5 years ago

Max Payne 3 for $15 bucks was a steal and it's a good game too. Got Batman:AC what seems to be a good game, to bad I can't enjoy it just keeps crashing. Witcher 2 and Sleeping dogs are games I was able to get on sale too haven't played them yet though. I was hoping to see a AC3 and FC3 cheaper but no big deal I can always for another sale.

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