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Steam Winter Sale 2015
Jan. 12th, 2016 03:50 amYou know, they're bragging about how the steam winter 2015 sale was so profitable and all that. But I have to wonder myself. The current estimates, which say "at least" $270 million was made in revenue during the sale, appear to be a bit lower than the winter sale from back in 2013 which topped $340 million.
Yeah, this year's sale isn't finalized yet but 2 years later you would expect them to beat that old 340 million easily. I tried to find quotes for 2014's Winter sale but I can't find anything mentioning it myself. The thing is, they yanked out the flash sales, community sales, and essentially any sale that was really worth looking at. They went through the trouble of referencing the success of this winter sale by comparing it to the summer sale - which I think did have flash sales. And they mentioned how the winter sale made twice as much money as that... but... the summer sale doesn't take place at Christmas when people are more likely to be buying games instead of outside partying. Also, I wonder if they're being honest about that comparison as well. According to steamspy, which tracked 1355 games in the summer sale (Those that sold more than 5000 copies only) and the total -revenue- from that summer sale on just those games was over $245.5 million. That's just the games themselves. I don't think it counts DLC and other things. If this is an indication, it doesn't look like this winter sale actually did double the revenue compared to the summer sale.
"The Winter Sale, like the Autumn Sale before it, did not feature daily deals or flash sales, something that was done as “a better way to serve customers that may only be able to visit Steam once or twice during the 13-day event,” Valve explained. “We also saw this change as an opportunity to showcase a deeper variety of titles to customers each day, while having confidence that any game being highlighted would be at its lowest discount.”"
I spent less than $0.00 on the steam winter sale this year. Compared to the 70-80 dollars I spent last Christmas. How did I spend LESS than nothing? I mindlessly clicked through the game queue 3 times a day to get those temporary Christmas sale cards. I completed a badge from those doing that, then started selling any others I received on the marketplace. Made probably 2-3 bucks, of which I still have a little bit left over. I just bought a couple of permanent cards from badges I was mostly finished and a 4-pack of rpgs that look like they were done in RPGMaker2003, of which they all had bland reviews but I figured why not. it was a buck. total.
Getting back on track, I found the winter sale (And the autumn sale just before it) rather bland. True to Valve's promise, you could check the entire sale on day 1 - and if you don't see anything you want, you're done. No reason to visit the store again during the sale. Unless you wanted to grind out some free holiday cards to make some cash. o/
For me the front page was littered with the same garbage each and every day - remember I was grinding cards, so I had to check in every day anyway. The only things to go over 75% off were things Valve owned, or were several years old. And none of it interested me. How the hell is this "personalized" front page suppose to work if it fails at showing me anything I want. Some things from my wishlist occasionally showed up, but nothing spectacular. Most of it was AAA garbage I most definitely don't put on my wishlist or follow but hey it got "good reviews" so let's spam you with it.
It took a few days for me to find out how to get to the other things on sale. Somewhere in the middle of the store page there was a small sentence saying "see all the other 10053 items on sale!" And when you click to it you get to a search page. And that search page worked HORRIBLY for the first week. Most times it'd come back as blank for no reason (likely lag on their servers) and the only way to fix it seemed to be to start over again. Refreshing it just refreshed the blank page. Now get to page 5 of 20 and have that happen. Yeah, didn't encourage me to check through it.
Regardless, of most of the things on sale, there were DLC items puffing up the ranks and anything that went over 75% off there tended to be either Valve's games (Again), ancient games (again), or games with mixed or simply bad reviews. (most.) IE: Things you likely already have or would have absolutely no desire to own at any price.
You also had to be careful what you were buying. There were cases where buying a bundle for 75% off was actually more expensive than buying the individual games in the bundle which had their own different sale prices.
Well. Whatever, ultimately it doesn't matter a great deal to me. End of the day: I sure hope Steam -did- make a lot more money with their bland, poor quality sales (personal opinion I guess.) because they sure as heck didn't make any money from me with it this year.
Egads, I think I've ranted.
*update* And since I forgot to link the original article, here it is. Looking over the comments section (I know, I know) I can see some of the typical Valve shills regurgitating the information they were fed in Valve's defense (ie: "People who say that the price cuts were less than usual don't know what they're talking about. It was a completely normal sale just a bit more convenient.") but overall a lot of people seem to be agreeing with my opinion that it was a pretty piss poor sale.
I still don't know why people seem to think the discovery queue is useful. The only reason they probably find it useful is because they already like the types of games being repeatedly suggested over and over. ("This game has positive feedback!" "... from completely unrelated people with entirely different gaming tastes than yourself.")
If the only things you wanted to buy were the things that were plastered on the storefront (That for many of us, like myself, overall had nothing to do with our personal tastes or preferences, then you can argue the sale was "a bit more convenient". The game you want would be on the front page and you would be looking at the lowest price it'll ever go in the sale. No checking back later to see if you should buy it now or not. But the sale itself would be uninspiring and many of us apparently just ignored it. If what you wanted wasn't what Valve was forcefeeding you on the front page, it was far far FAR from being convenient and you had better hope the only good sales hidden in the background were things already on your wishlist or you were spending hours looking through those 10000 items.
I will reiterate though. There -were- games that hit the 90 to 95% off in this sale. I had to go through that search option to -find- them however and as I said up above, they were all games that were ancient and with mixed or bad feedback. As people mention in the comments, the games that did get up to 75% off were all for old games that have been around for a few years (on average). The new games, which use to get the 75% discounts back in the day, were generally poor 10-30% off. Basically normal every day sales. Not Massive Holiday Sales.
Egads I ranted more. Ok I'm done this time.
Yeah, this year's sale isn't finalized yet but 2 years later you would expect them to beat that old 340 million easily. I tried to find quotes for 2014's Winter sale but I can't find anything mentioning it myself. The thing is, they yanked out the flash sales, community sales, and essentially any sale that was really worth looking at. They went through the trouble of referencing the success of this winter sale by comparing it to the summer sale - which I think did have flash sales. And they mentioned how the winter sale made twice as much money as that... but... the summer sale doesn't take place at Christmas when people are more likely to be buying games instead of outside partying. Also, I wonder if they're being honest about that comparison as well. According to steamspy, which tracked 1355 games in the summer sale (Those that sold more than 5000 copies only) and the total -revenue- from that summer sale on just those games was over $245.5 million. That's just the games themselves. I don't think it counts DLC and other things. If this is an indication, it doesn't look like this winter sale actually did double the revenue compared to the summer sale.
"The Winter Sale, like the Autumn Sale before it, did not feature daily deals or flash sales, something that was done as “a better way to serve customers that may only be able to visit Steam once or twice during the 13-day event,” Valve explained. “We also saw this change as an opportunity to showcase a deeper variety of titles to customers each day, while having confidence that any game being highlighted would be at its lowest discount.”"
I spent less than $0.00 on the steam winter sale this year. Compared to the 70-80 dollars I spent last Christmas. How did I spend LESS than nothing? I mindlessly clicked through the game queue 3 times a day to get those temporary Christmas sale cards. I completed a badge from those doing that, then started selling any others I received on the marketplace. Made probably 2-3 bucks, of which I still have a little bit left over. I just bought a couple of permanent cards from badges I was mostly finished and a 4-pack of rpgs that look like they were done in RPGMaker2003, of which they all had bland reviews but I figured why not. it was a buck. total.
Getting back on track, I found the winter sale (And the autumn sale just before it) rather bland. True to Valve's promise, you could check the entire sale on day 1 - and if you don't see anything you want, you're done. No reason to visit the store again during the sale. Unless you wanted to grind out some free holiday cards to make some cash. o/
For me the front page was littered with the same garbage each and every day - remember I was grinding cards, so I had to check in every day anyway. The only things to go over 75% off were things Valve owned, or were several years old. And none of it interested me. How the hell is this "personalized" front page suppose to work if it fails at showing me anything I want. Some things from my wishlist occasionally showed up, but nothing spectacular. Most of it was AAA garbage I most definitely don't put on my wishlist or follow but hey it got "good reviews" so let's spam you with it.
It took a few days for me to find out how to get to the other things on sale. Somewhere in the middle of the store page there was a small sentence saying "see all the other 10053 items on sale!" And when you click to it you get to a search page. And that search page worked HORRIBLY for the first week. Most times it'd come back as blank for no reason (likely lag on their servers) and the only way to fix it seemed to be to start over again. Refreshing it just refreshed the blank page. Now get to page 5 of 20 and have that happen. Yeah, didn't encourage me to check through it.
Regardless, of most of the things on sale, there were DLC items puffing up the ranks and anything that went over 75% off there tended to be either Valve's games (Again), ancient games (again), or games with mixed or simply bad reviews. (most.) IE: Things you likely already have or would have absolutely no desire to own at any price.
You also had to be careful what you were buying. There were cases where buying a bundle for 75% off was actually more expensive than buying the individual games in the bundle which had their own different sale prices.
Well. Whatever, ultimately it doesn't matter a great deal to me. End of the day: I sure hope Steam -did- make a lot more money with their bland, poor quality sales (personal opinion I guess.) because they sure as heck didn't make any money from me with it this year.
Egads, I think I've ranted.
*update* And since I forgot to link the original article, here it is. Looking over the comments section (I know, I know) I can see some of the typical Valve shills regurgitating the information they were fed in Valve's defense (ie: "People who say that the price cuts were less than usual don't know what they're talking about. It was a completely normal sale just a bit more convenient.") but overall a lot of people seem to be agreeing with my opinion that it was a pretty piss poor sale.
I still don't know why people seem to think the discovery queue is useful. The only reason they probably find it useful is because they already like the types of games being repeatedly suggested over and over. ("This game has positive feedback!" "... from completely unrelated people with entirely different gaming tastes than yourself.")
If the only things you wanted to buy were the things that were plastered on the storefront (That for many of us, like myself, overall had nothing to do with our personal tastes or preferences, then you can argue the sale was "a bit more convenient". The game you want would be on the front page and you would be looking at the lowest price it'll ever go in the sale. No checking back later to see if you should buy it now or not. But the sale itself would be uninspiring and many of us apparently just ignored it. If what you wanted wasn't what Valve was forcefeeding you on the front page, it was far far FAR from being convenient and you had better hope the only good sales hidden in the background were things already on your wishlist or you were spending hours looking through those 10000 items.
I will reiterate though. There -were- games that hit the 90 to 95% off in this sale. I had to go through that search option to -find- them however and as I said up above, they were all games that were ancient and with mixed or bad feedback. As people mention in the comments, the games that did get up to 75% off were all for old games that have been around for a few years (on average). The new games, which use to get the 75% discounts back in the day, were generally poor 10-30% off. Basically normal every day sales. Not Massive Holiday Sales.
Egads I ranted more. Ok I'm done this time.
