It’s almost the end of November, which means it is technically but not spiritually still autumn. It is spiritually winter, the season of wearing gloves and using my phone’s flashlight to look for my dog’s poos in the long grass. Yet it’s not the Steam winter sale that started yesterday, but the Steam autumn sale.
Discounts are definitely never a bad thing, but Steam sales used to feel like big events on the PC gaming calendar. They don’t anymore, to me. Friends, are Steam sales still exciting to you?
I think I’m right in saying that Steam sales are, at the very least, not as exciting as they once were, if only because we’ve grown used to them. It no longer seems like a miraculous surprise to have so many games deeply discounted all at once. Doubly and triply so once you factor in all the other digital storefronts, all of which also have their own big seasonal sales.
Maybe it’s also just become harder to find the truly spectacular deals because there’s now so many of them. Sure, it’s great that Mad Max is £1.59, but it’s forever slashed to cheap, so it’s hard to get pumped about it. Instead it just feels like it’s obscuring the handful of games where its discount is actually news.
It feels like a bigger deal that Hitman: World Of Assassination is a mere £2.49, a full 90% off for some of the best stealth gaming ever made. 25% off a game as new as Metaphor: ReFantazio is significant, although it’s still £45. Dragon’s Dogma 2 at £30 feels like a good entry point for players uncertain about a slightly off-kilter fantasy RPG.
Maybe we just all permanently have more games than we can ever play now. Between bundles and freebies, who needs spend money, discounted or otherwise, just to throw another game on the backlog?
Or maybe I’m simply out of touch. There are definitely going to be some people saving their pennies and waiting for each new Steam sale to arrive, and more power to you. I’m not pooh-poohing Steam sales, so please put away your phone flashlights. I am genuinely curious how the RPS commenter is split, however: do you share my malaise, or are you currently posting Gaben memes in the group chat?