More Frequent Steam Sales Ahead As Valve Reduces Discount Cycle

KEY POINTS

Steam games now have a minimum of 28 days before they can go on sale again
This change will take effect on March 28
Valve is also releasing more dev tools for better discount and sales tracking

It has been confirmed that the discount cycle between game sales on Steam will be reduced, so the offers could become more frequent starting next month.

On March 28, the gap between sales will be reduced to a minimum of 28 days, said a report by GamesIndustry. However, this change will only apply to promotional events apart from the seasonal ones like the Lunar New Year, Autumn, Summer and Winter sales. Promotional events such as publisher sales, mid-week sales and weekend deals will be the most affected by the change.

It is not the only pricing-related change coming to the titanic game platform. The report also said that prices cannot be changed while a promo is running, and a game cannot be sold at a discount after having its base price altered until after 28 days have passed.

Lastly, Valve will be providing developers with the beta version of a new bulk discounting tool, which should help with the management of promotions.

The Valve Steam Deck, a handheld PC designed for gaming on the go Valve

This move could potentially mean that the frequency of individual game sales will go up drastically. The previous rules held that games could only go on sale after 30 days or six weeks since their previous promotion dates. Having this reduced to a minimum of 28 may cause more developers to sell their games at lower prices more often.

However, this may fall more in line with mere wishful thinking, as this change does not necessarily guarantee that games will be discounted since the 28-day rule only refers to the minimum number of days before developers can promote their games once again.

The next big Steam event will be the first Steam Next Fest of 2022, which will feature hundreds of free game demos and possibly more discounts on select titles. Next Fest will run from Feb. 21 to 28, followed by the first Remote Play Together event and a big JRPG sale, according to SteamDB.

Once the Lunar New Year sale ends, all games will still have to adhere to the current Steam sale rules until the new ones become effective in late March.