At the end of March Valve does Changes to the way studios and publishers can offer their games at a discount on Steam, what sounds like a small administrative thing, is something even more so financially savvy Steam game buyers among you should keep an eye on it.
Released earlier this montha backend blog post called Changes in discount rules says Valve will “change some rules on discounts” starting March 28, with the most notable ones being a revised “discount cooldown” and removing the ability for developers and publishers to “discount a product by more than 90%” . or less than 10%.”
While it’s easy to look at a move like the latter and feel like it’s a little unfair to users, every change made is clearly made to stop those responsible for pricing a game – and we all speak from the shadiest little scam to the biggest AAA publishers – not only to play Steam’s algorithm to get their releases more popular, but also to trick users into believing that a sale is bigger than it is actually is by artificially increasing the original price before the discount.
The specifics of the changes are:
– You can give an introductory discount, but once your introductory discount ends, you cannot give any further discounts for 28 days.
– It is not possible to discount your product in any currency for 28 days after a price increase.
– Discounts cannot be applied within 28 days of your previous discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
– Discounts for seasonal sales events cannot be applied within 28 days of the release of your title, within 28 days of the expiration of your introductory discount, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
– You cannot change your price while a promotion is active now or planned for the future.
– It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
– Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks or shorter than 1 day.
Will this really work? Who knows! But it sure looks more robust, at least on paper.