General Video Game Deals Thread

[mikemariano]

Regarding the Steam sale cards, badges, etc., I feel kinda bad when I sell the sale cards I've gotten because I'm participating in this thing that seems to me weirdly manipulative and that I'm taking advantage of some poor card-buying sucker.

 

That's me!

 

Completing the Summer Sale badge has been worse than useless.  I used to have .33 cents in my Steam wallet.  Now I have .11.  All that money went into selling duplicate cards and buying necessary cards.

 

In a half-hour, my team will come in last place for the only day I contributed points.

 

My prize for this was the badge, the standard wallpaper and chat emoji, and "underpants" for The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot.

 

The underpants icon is so hideous and so worthless.  Valued at .03, it is basically unsellable, and if my Realm of the Mad God prize from the Winter Sale is any indication, it will never go up in value, either.

 

To get rid of this thing, I friended the "Trashbot," a bot with a Steam account that will accept any trade you give it.  I gave it my underpants.

 

FYI: My purchase of Jazzpunk during this sale did nothing to earn points, cards, etc.

[neonrev]

It is a legal thing in the US at least, to prevent implications of gambling. Providing a non-purchase route to enter the contest prevents it from being a lottery.

[Twig]

A quick Google (PDF: http://www.jonesday.com/files/Publication/69ea168c-4173-4321-9fa5-d4b8bb86ae1c/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/b9a311c5-f53d-4a89-97fc-d85993081c2e/Bennet.PDF) suggest that it's done so that there is a "free" alternative for entry, thus preventing it from being classified as an illegal lottery. This PDF is from 2007, but I doubt laws have changed in this regard in the past seven years, so seems legit? Interesting.

 

edit: beated

[Professor Video Games]

Genuinely curious how alternate entry cards Valve receives.

[feelthedarkness]

there is that Transistor I wanted. 

[Bjorn]

To get rid of this thing, I friended the "Trashbot," a bot with a Steam account that will accept any trade you give it.  I gave it my underpants.

 

Thanks!  I did not know this existed.  I might have to use it to dump some unsellable emoticons and backgrounds that just continue to bug me for cluttering up my inventory.

[undermind9]

i would suspect a lot.  a cursory search in the googles already yielded a forum of people who talk about their winnings/contests/tips tricks etc.  they have a private forum section of new/upcoming events - its gotta be in there somewhere right?  http://tinyurl.com/l6zrlba

 

 

this site is fairly incredible.  its like slick-deals for only free stuff...and most of these websites look riddled with adware. i can only imagine the implications of signing up to a handful of these give-aways, instant spam for sure

[neonrev]

Further down in the T&C there is this:

No later than August 1, 2014, Sponsor will hold a random drawing for alternative entries received, using the same odds as applied for corresponding day’s actual regular drawing (determined by the number of point-scoring team members on that day’s winning team). Sponsor will award prizes to each such alternative entry winner. Sponsor will contact each winner via email to the address registered to the winning account. The decision of the Sponsor will be final and binding in all matters.

I don't know how they would match the odds for the mail-ins to the corresponding day's online odds, but it appears that team color has nothing to do with whether or not you're eligible for the drawing, so it actually seems like a better chance? I'm sure the more 'system-gaming' steam users are taking advantage of that.
 

[JonCole]

That's me!

 

Completing the Summer Sale badge has been worse than useless.  I used to have .33 cents in my Steam wallet.  Now I have .11.  All that money went into selling duplicate cards and buying necessary cards.

 

In a half-hour, my team will come in last place for the only day I contributed points.

 

My prize for this was the badge, the standard wallpaper and chat emoji, and "underpants" for The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot.

 

The underpants icon is so hideous and so worthless.  Valued at .03, it is basically unsellable, and if my Realm of the Mad God prize from the Winter Sale is any indication, it will never go up in value, either.

 

To get rid of this thing, I friended the "Trashbot," a bot with a Steam account that will accept any trade you give it.  I gave it my underpants.

 

FYI: My purchase of Jazzpunk during this sale did nothing to earn points, cards, etc.

 

For contributing points today, you'll get a free Summer sale card. You can sell it and recoup pretty much your whole loss. Also, I put all my .03 items on the market and the sell super slowly, but probably 30% do eventually sell.

 

Your purchase did nothing on its own, sure. Steam holds a history of your purchases through the sale and every $10 you spend gets you a card. If you were to buy more, it would contribute to you getting that free card.

 

None of these things is meant to redeem whatever wasted effort you perceive, but I figured they were worth noting.

[Architecture]

What the hell is even going on? At this point, it's not even about playing games, it's about playing Valve's game to win...what? A chance to get free games?

[Nachimir]

Every Steam sale, I think "Oh I should look into this thing with points and cards and crafting or whatever", then glaze over within a few lines and think "Fuck this shit".

[Professor Video Games]

What the hell is even going on? At this point, it's not even about playing games, it's about playing Valve's game to win...what? A chance to get free games?

 

Also underpants.

[Justin Leego]

SpeedRunners. When is SpeedRunners going on a flash or daily? WHEN I MUST KNOW WHEN

 

I'm gonna get it when it's sub-$5 as my third and final perch of the sale period, but for that to happen I need it to go at least 50% off. Twas a failed Community Choice on the first day, Assetto Corsa was in the same batch and is today's daily. So c'mon!

[mikemariano]

What the hell is even going on? At this point, it's not even about playing games, it's about playing Valve's game to win...what? A chance to get free games?

 

I knew what I was getting into: "I will spend fake money and real effort to craft this worthless badge just so I can say I existed during Summer Sale 2014."

 

But even knowing that, I was unprepared for the hideous underpants.

 

 

For contributing points today, you'll get a free Summer sale card. You can sell it and recoup pretty much your whole loss. Also, I put all my .03 items on the market and the sell super slowly, but probably 30% do eventually sell.

 

Your purchase did nothing on its own, sure. Steam holds a history of your purchases through the sale and every $10 you spend gets you a card. If you were to buy more, it would contribute to you getting that free card.

 

Just now I bought GhostControl Inc. and System Shock 2 (I have the CD, but I am $1.50 too lazy to install it.) so now I have two cards to sell and get back some of my money and dignity...

 

...or I'm only eight cards away from crafting another badge!

[JonCole]

A big part of it is dumb luck of the draw. I got a steal points token which I turned around for $5-ish the other day, and today I got a foil card which I'll probably sell for $2. I also got a rare item in Battleblock Theatre, which I'll probably sell for like $.30, give to a friend, or actually use if I play that game any time soon.

[eot]

Every Steam sale, I think "Oh I should look into this thing with points and cards and crafting or whatever", then glaze over within a few lines and think "Fuck this shit".

Same here.

I don't even sell my cards because I don't want to get tricked in playing more games to make a few cents. Fuck that indeed.

 

It's similar to a problem I had with EVE-Online. Since you can pay in-game money for your subscription, or the reverse and get in-game money for real money, it's easy to treat the game like work. It's tempting to think "if I grind for five hours I don't have to pay the sub!", but then you realise you essentially spent five hours as a gold farmer earning $3 / hr. The problem doesn't go away if you pay with real money, because in a way that's buying in-game currency, since that's 500m ISK you didn't spend on game time. You paid real money to keep that in-game money.

[Twig]

I'm convinced that people who dislike the cards put more effort into learning about the ways they hate them than people who like the cards put effort into just passively enjoying them.

[Gormongous]

I'm convinced that people who dislike the cards put more effort into learning about the ways they hate them than people who like the cards put effort into just passively enjoying them.

 

I hate the cards mostly because we spend every Steam sale talking about how awful the cards are, rather than what games are on sale or how we like what we bought.

[Bjorn]

I hate the cards mostly because we spend every Steam sale talking about how awful the cards are, rather than what games are on sale or how we like what we bought.

 

To be fair though, it doesn't feel like people are buying as much this sale, nor does it feel like people are gaming a ton this week anyways (not a lot of activity in the gaming threads in general).  But it's easy to talk about the weirdness of this promotion, because we're all at least checking Steam everyday.

 

I haven't played anything I've bought on sale yet.  The only games I've played this week are Capsule (fucking great!) and Rock of Ages (wish it would have been better). 

[Professor Video Games]

Personally, these sales have allowed me to accumulate enough of a backlog that even when I see some great deal I'm interested in, I'll often pass it up. I remember the heady days of the first Steam sales when people were buying up entire publisher catalogs on a whim. I think/hope most people are a lot more restrained these days and so while the prices are great, there isn't as much excitement around them.

 

It's not so much that I hate cards (though the current sale's thing is kinda lame) but that the evolution of Steam from annoying Half Life 2 delivery mechanism to the monster it is now, with it's own economic ecosystem, is really insane and fun to talk about.

[undermind9]

my last thought to the cards - i like the cards and badge idea...i do not like having to buy/trade to finish a badge.  if it was an 8-card badge i wouldnt mind if you earned say (4) for finishing the game, 1 extra for each 25% of the achievos you completed.  so if you got an actual Binding of Isaac badge you were a platinum god...not someone who bought all 8 cards for $.10 each

 

Back to topic though -

 

this sale I've bought -

Call of Juarez - daily deal

Stanley Parable - daily deal

Battle Block - daily deal, should have waited for 90% flash sale =/

Strike Vector - flash sale

 

im +$2.73 on summer sale cards, and another 2-3 dollars on other games i've sold cards from to take advantage of the inflated card prices earlier this week.  i'll run the numbers at the end of the sale if i should put towards compendium points or direct immortal purchases (c'mon fish hex)

 

The only other titles i was hoping to buy were/are Speed Runners or Towerfall.  But it will have to be a deep discount, i don't have my living room rig setup yet so couch multiplayer is really "hang out in my office"

 

 

it has felt like a less exciting steam sale, but i attribute that to my past purchases and the frequency and quality of bundles in the last year or 2.  Also, i get this feeling of repetition of games on sale, like they had 50 or so titles to put on sale...and just rotating in and out of daily & flash sales.

[Twig]

I hate the cards mostly because we spend every Steam sale talking about how awful the cards are, rather than what games are on sale or how we like what we bought.

That's 'cause you don't hang out in IRC where I complain every time there's a new flash sale about the lack of a bigger Dark Souls 2 discount.

[Gormongous]

That's 'cause you don't hang out in IRC where I complain every time there's a new flash sale about the lack of a bigger Dark Souls 2 discount.

 

I keep forgetting about IRC! I'm doing rare books archive work in front of a computer, too, so it would be perfect!

[Dewar]

I bought Euro Truck Simulator 2, State of Decay, and Kentucky Route Zero.

 

The first two have paid for themselves already in fun, while the third I've always intended to buy and I'd feel a little guilty buying it for any cheaper than the 50% off sale anyway.

 

State of Decay is really good by the way. A little bit of interface clean up and clarity in the systems and it could be truely epic. Hopefully that bodes well for their upcoming multiplayer game.

[sclpls]

Personally, these sales have allowed me to accumulate enough of a backlog that even when I see some great deal I'm interested in, I'll often pass it up. I remember the heady days of the first Steam sales when people were buying up entire publisher catalogs on a whim. I think/hope most people are a lot more restrained these days and so while the prices are great, there isn't as much excitement around them.

 

It's not so much that I hate cards (though the current sale's thing is kinda lame) but that the evolution of Steam from annoying Half Life 2 delivery mechanism to the monster it is now, with it's own economic ecosystem, is really insane and fun to talk about.

 

I have many friends that are complaining about how the Steam sales just aren't as good anymore, which I personally think is silly. It doesn't seem that good because you've already bought a ton of games in past sales!

 

I'm really happy with the equilibrium I've hit at this point where it used to be I would consider kind of mediocre games because like they were only $3 or something so why not? But now I've moved on to really only making a few discrete purchases of titles I've had my eye on for awhile. This way I also don't have the problem of "oh, what game do I play first?"

 

I have no opinion about Valve's meta-games.