🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2017-06-22, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
> Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
> about this news?

I miss their old hourly lightning sales. They were exciting and would
have me logging in throughout the day and making snap purchasing
decisions.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On 6/22/2017 12:19 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
> Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
> about this news?
> 
> In part, it is because I feel a bit "saled out". Between GOG, Humble
> Bundle and BundleStars (not to mention the occasional specials on
> UPlay and Origin), it feels not a week has gone by in the past few
> months that there hasn't been one or more seasonal sales. I suppose
> all this competition for my hard-earned cash is a good thing, but the
> main emotion I feel these days when I learn of another sale is "Oh
> god, another one?" and not "Oooh, I wonder what goodies I can get this
> time!".
> 
> But it doesn't help that Steam sales have been so disappointing over
> the past few years. Back when Steam was still working to position
> itself as the premier PC gaming storefront, they would offer some
> significant discounts to draw people in. You'd find games for
> outrageously low prices that you'd only see during these seasonal
> sales. These days, the discounts aren't any better than you'd find
> during their regular weekly sales - there are just more games
> discounted. This means there is no driving need for me to buy during
> the summer sale; I can just wait until that game gets the same
> discount five or six weeks later.
> 
> And honestly, Steam's prices - even when discounted - just aren't that
> competitive anymore.  A 10% sale on a $60 game isn't that impressive,
> not when I might find that same game for 75% off at BundleStars.
> While my Steam library continues to grow, I almost never buy directly
> from Valve anymore; it's almost always through a key-reseller like
> HumbleBundle. They don't even put the same effort and excitement into
> the sale either; no daily discounts, no fun games; it's dull and
> barely worth opening the steam client. Back in the day, I'd visit the
> storefront almost hourly; now I can barely be bothered to visit once
> or twice during the whole sale.
> 
> Of course, the quality of games is an issue too. The Summer Sale was
> never the time to get the hot new games - summer is the dry season for
> game releases after all - but it was an opportunity to grab the
> exciting titles from last season that you missed out on. But the Steam
> storefront is so cluttered with early access and indie titles that
> it's a chore to wade through the hundreds of crappy 99-cent titles in
> hopes of finding the one or two worthy games.
> 
> I wonder how much of this is a concern to Valve, though. Do they worry
> that they are losing their grip on their customers, or are they secure
> in their Walmart-ian dominance of PC game sales? I guess if we get
> another uninspired sale, it's evidence of the latter.
> 
> Well, who knows; maybe I'll pick up one or two games this sale. But
> I've no expectations in that direction.
> 
> 
> 

Wanted to ask about Dreamfall/The Longest Journey...don't play many 
adventure games, but read about this title.

I think the full suite is 24.99 or 29.99 regularly. Does this one 
normally go on sale on Steam and is it worth the investment? I have so 
many uncompleted games either because I lost interest or something else 
caught my attention, that my desktop icons are like a minefield. TIA

Diane

On 2017-06-22, DMP <D...@mungemaid.com> wrote:
>
> Wanted to ask about Dreamfall/The Longest Journey...don't play many 
> adventure games, but read about this title.
>
> I think the full suite is 24.99 or 29.99 regularly. Does this one 
> normally go on sale on Steam and is it worth the investment? I have so 
> many uncompleted games either because I lost interest or something else 
> caught my attention, that my desktop icons are like a minefield. TIA

https://www.steamprices.com

This website will show you price history for products on Steam.

Also this one:
https://steamdb.info


-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On 6/22/2017 7:55 AM, Toby Newman wrote:
> On 2017-06-22, DMP <D...@mungemaid.com> wrote:
>>
>> Wanted to ask about Dreamfall/The Longest Journey...don't play many
>> adventure games, but read about this title.
>>
>> I think the full suite is 24.99 or 29.99 regularly. Does this one
>> normally go on sale on Steam and is it worth the investment? I have so
>> many uncompleted games either because I lost interest or something else
>> caught my attention, that my desktop icons are like a minefield. TIA
> 
> https://www.steamprices.com
> 
> This website will show you price history for products on Steam.
> 
> Also this one:
> https://steamdb.info
> 
> 
Thanks for the info. I never knew of these sites.

D.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 10:52:39 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:

>I miss their old hourly lightning sales. They were exciting and would
>have me logging in throughout the day and making snap purchasing
>decisions.

By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
for one hour and only one hour?

> This website will show you price history for products on Steam.

    http://www.cheapshark.com    also has lowest price ever shown for each 
game

rms 

On 2017-06-22, Mike S <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 10:52:39 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
> wrote:
>
>>I miss their old hourly lightning sales. They were exciting and would
>>have me logging in throughout the day and making snap purchasing
>>decisions.
>
> By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
> for one hour and only one hour?

Yes.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On 6/22/2017 3:37 PM, rms wrote:
>> This website will show you price history for products on Steam.
> 
>     http://www.cheapshark.com    also has lowest price ever shown for 
> each game
> 
> rms

That's very helpful. I like the setup. Thanks.

D.

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:36:08 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:

>> By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
>> for one hour and only one hour?
>
>Yes.

That doesn't sound exciting to me. It sounds extremely annoying. I'm
glad they stopped doing it. I'd rather check a couple times a week for
20 percent off then every freaking hour for 80 percent off. Not worth
it. Not for a $40-$60 product.

On 2017-06-23, Mike S <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:36:08 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
>>> for one hour and only one hour?
>>
>>Yes.
>
> That doesn't sound exciting to me. It sounds extremely annoying. I'm
> glad they stopped doing it. I'd rather check a couple times a week for
> 20 percent off then every freaking hour for 80 percent off. Not worth
> it. Not for a $40-$60 product.

I guess the difference is with the current way you have one sit-down
browse of the shop and one purchase at some point during the sale. The
old way was a fun week of checking for deals and making snap
judgements on whether to buy something or not, always waiting for the
next stonker deal.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

Mike S <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
> for one hour and only one hour?

Toby Newman  <goo...@asktoby.com> wrote:
> Yes.

Hourly though?  I remember they had daily sales and 8 hour flash sales,
but 1 hour sales must be before my time.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 14:19:24 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:

>On 2017-06-23, Mike S <Mik...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:36:08 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> By hourly lighting sales, do you mean games that are literally on sale
>>>> for one hour and only one hour?
>>>
>>>Yes.
>>
>> That doesn't sound exciting to me. It sounds extremely annoying. I'm
>> glad they stopped doing it. I'd rather check a couple times a week for
>> 20 percent off then every freaking hour for 80 percent off. Not worth
>> it. Not for a $40-$60 product.
>
>I guess the difference is with the current way you have one sit-down
>browse of the shop and one purchase at some point during the sale. The
>old way was a fun week of checking for deals and making snap
>judgements on whether to buy something or not, always waiting for the
>next stonker deal.

The idea was that with lightning sales was that it would draw people
in for a specific game. This would create word-of-mouth for the
product (either by people talking about how the game was on sale or
because they were playing it and discussing it with friends), which
would spur further purchases after the super-discount was over (also,
some people might visit Steam in hopes of getting the discount,
arriving too late, and decide to purchase it anyway). However, after a
few years the publishers crunched the numbers and realized the bump in
the number of purchases didn't actually make up for the loss in
revenue from the discount (there wasn't a significant loss; it was
mostly a wash) and they asked Steam to stop it. And that was the end
of the lightning sales.


Still, it would suprise me if VALVE didn't see more advantage from the
flash sales. You would have people checking and re-checking Steam and
- even if they didn't buy the item on super-discount - the mere fact
that they were in the store again made it more likely that they would
be swayed by temptation to buy another product (the loss-leader method
of getting people into the store). But once Valve achieved
near-monopoly on PC game sales, they probably decided it wasn't worth
the hassle - annoying the publishers, the added server load, the
marketing - since gamers were inevitably coming to Steam anyway.

So financially it might make sense for the sellers, but as a customer
it makes for a lot less interesting sale. 

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes:

> Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
> Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
> about this news?
>
> In part, it is because I feel a bit "saled out". Between GOG, Humble
> Bundle and BundleStars (not to mention the occasional specials on
> UPlay and Origin), it feels not a week has gone by in the past few
> months that there hasn't been one or more seasonal sales. I suppose
> all this competition for my hard-earned cash is a good thing, but the

> main emotion I feel these days when I learn of another sale is "Oh
> god, another one?" and not "Oooh, I wonder what goodies I can get this
> time!".

My thoughts exactly, I thought. And then the Steam sale started and I
got an email from Steam saying "5 items from your Steam wishlist are on
sale!". So much for those thoughts :-P

I don't know about all five but I've been itching to play NieR:Automata.
The other four are Flashback, Fallout 4 season pass, The Witness and
House of the Dying Sun.

The Fallout 4 season pass is something I'm kinda interested in. I've
been thinking about FO4 a lot, planning character builds and such. With
my first try with FO4 I got as far as building the first
settlement. After that ho hum experience I just quit and didn't come
back. If I do a play through I think it'll be quite sans any settlement
building no matter what I might lose... Still, I think I'll pick up the
DLC much later, when I've actually played the main game.

The other three have significant discounts and aren't full price
anyways. Might as well snap them up but we'll see.

Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
>Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
>about this news?
>
>In part, it is because I feel a bit "saled out". Between GOG, Humble
>Bundle and BundleStars (not to mention the occasional specials on
>UPlay and Origin), it feels not a week has gone by in the past few
>months that there hasn't been one or more seasonal sales. I suppose
>all this competition for my hard-earned cash is a good thing, but the
>main emotion I feel these days when I learn of another sale is "Oh
>god, another one?" and not "Oooh, I wonder what goodies I can get this
>time!".

I not very excited but more for different reasons.  While I did drop $90
on GOG.com during their summer sale, it's my huge backlog of games that
keep from getting too excited by any sale.

>But it doesn't help that Steam sales have been so disappointing over
>the past few years. Back when Steam was still working to position
>itself as the premier PC gaming storefront, they would offer some
>significant discounts to draw people in. You'd find games for
>outrageously low prices that you'd only see during these seasonal
>sales. These days, the discounts aren't any better than you'd find
>during their regular weekly sales - there are just more games
>discounted.

I don't really notice any difference in the discount percentages, but
I think the base prices they're being discounted from aren't as low as
they used to be.  It's taking longer for games to reach a $20 regular
price, that after a 75% discount becomes $5 during a sale.  I think
even I've seen a few games creep up in price, like the Falout Vegas:
Ultimate Edition.  You're right that the discounts that the games get
from time to time during the rest of the year are the same as during
the sale, but I think that's mostly because the discounts outside the
big sales have gotten bigger to match.

>I wonder how much of this is a concern to Valve, though. Do they worry
>that they are losing their grip on their customers, or are they secure
>in their Walmart-ian dominance of PC game sales? I guess if we get
>another uninspired sale, it's evidence of the latter.

I think this is going to be model for at least the near term.  My guess is
that Valve determined the flash sales and activities and things weren't
really working.  Also, for some reason this year's summer sale seemed
to have gotten more press coverage than the summer sales usually do,
so the hype around the sales doesn't seem to have died down.

>Well, who knows; maybe I'll pick up one or two games this sale. But
>I've no expectations in that direction.

I might get Shadow of Mordor: Game of the Year Edition, but chances are
I wouldn't get around it playing it before the next Steam summer sale.

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>I think this is going to be model for at least the near term.  My guess is
>that Valve determined the flash sales and activities and things weren't
>really working. 

Not working or simply not making maximized profit to fund Gabe's
Cheeseburger addiction?

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 06:22:51 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:

>rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) looked up from reading the
>entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
>say:
>
>>I think this is going to be model for at least the near term.  My guess is
>>that Valve determined the flash sales and activities and things weren't
>>really working. 
>
>Not working or simply not making maximized profit to fund Gabe's
>Cheeseburger addiction?

They weren't working for the publishers. The flash sales got them more
purchases, but with less profit from each. Crunching the numbers, they
realized that they regular price or smaller discounts - while
garnering fewer sales - resulted in (slightly) more dosh. So they
petitioned Steam and, well, no more flash sales.

The flash sales were probably far more beneficial to Valve, if only
because it attracted more attention to their storefront. Now that
everybody and his dog buys from Steam, there's little need to offer
such steep financial incentive to potential customers; they're coming
regardless if the discount is 5% or 95%. 

Then again, Steam's competitors are fast becoming viable alternatives
- I buy a lot more from key-resellers (BundleStars, HumbleBundle, et
al) or other storefronts (GOG, Origin) than I do from Steam these
days. I use the Steam client for its functionality - game launcher,
social media, quick way to get reviews on potential purchases - but
rarely spend money through Valve's storefront.  While I may at the
moment be in the minority, I have little doubt that the number of
people looking to cheaper games will grow, and that Valve will
eventually start offering sharper discounts again in hopes of luring
back lost customers.

Personally I also think that the initial assumptions on the benefits
(or lack thereof) of flash sales to the publisher were also short
sighted. Yes, the sale itself didn't drag vastly enrich their coffers
for that game, but the sale did enable more people to buy the
product... which meant more people were talking about it, which
prompted other people to buy even when the game wasn't at a
substantial discount. A Flash sale of game "A" probably also spurred
purchases of related games "B","C", and "D", though those too might
not have been on significant discount (e.g., "Well, while I'm grabbing
GTA5 at a huge mark-down, I might as well pick up GTA3,VC,SA and GTA4
just to round out my collection.") It's also an easy to way for a
publisher to generate good will from his customer base. Unfortunately,
these sorts of benefits are really hard to graph on a spreadsheet.

On 6/21/2017 9:19 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
> Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
> about this news?
> 
> In part, it is because I feel a bit "saled out". Between GOG, Humble
> Bundle and BundleStars (not to mention the occasional specials on
> UPlay and Origin), it feels not a week has gone by in the past few
> months that there hasn't been one or more seasonal sales. I suppose
> all this competition for my hard-earned cash is a good thing, but the
> main emotion I feel these days when I learn of another sale is "Oh
> god, another one?" and not "Oooh, I wonder what goodies I can get this
> time!".

> Well, who knows; maybe I'll pick up one or two games this sale. But
> I've no expectations in that direction.

I'm feeling pretty saled out too.  I've got all those Star Wars titles 
from the last sale I haven't touched more than a couple of, and some of 
the borderlands prequel games.

I was tempted by Doom and Dark Souls 2 which are at both at half price, 
but just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Also saw GTA V on sale which I've been wondering about, I finally 
started getting into it on the Xbox 360, but it looks like a lot of the 
action is in the online game, but I'm not paying micro$oft an additional 
$15 a month to play someone else's game online.  I might try it for a 
month to see if I like it (if the xbox 360 stuff even works online), but 
I'd have to up M$ gold again.

GTA V is having some backlash right now from a decision to ban 
single-player mods in favor of it's online game, which has apparently 
become a cash cow, so it's overall rating looks dismal on steam.

I did pick up a couple sub $1 games off my wishlist - Westerado and 
Death Skid marks, but haven't played them yet either.

I proably need to clean up my wishlist, I've got 100 titles on it. 
There's stuff on there I went through again this time that was now cheap 
that I just went 'meh' looking at them.

- Justisaur

On Mon, 26 Jun 2017 11:00:51 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 6/21/2017 9:19 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> Apparently tomorrow (June 22nd) we'll see the start of the annual
>> Steam Summer Sale. Am I the only one who feels a lack of excitement
>> about this news?


>I'm feeling pretty saled out too.  I've got all those Star Wars titles 
>from the last sale I haven't touched more than a couple of, and some of 
>the borderlands prequel games.
>
>I was tempted by Doom and Dark Souls 2 which are at both at half price, 
>but just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I did grab the Heretic/Hexen bundle on Steam, but that wasn't because
it was on sale. I'm rebuilding my DOSBox and my Hexen disks were
unreadable (I've imaged most of my old floppy-based DOS games but I
guess I missed these disks; sloppy, sloppy!). No problem, I thought;
I'll just use the files from GOG, but apparently not only didn't I
have a copy of Hexen on GOG, but GOG doesn't even sell Hexen. So I had
to go to Steam. But I would have bought the game even if it wasn't on
sale.

But so far that's the only purchase I've made.


>GTA V is having some backlash right now from a decision to ban 
>single-player mods in favor of it's online game, which has apparently 
>become a cash cow, so it's overall rating looks dismal on steam.

In fairness, Take Two and Rockstar backed down rather quickly and are
now working with OpenIV. So if that's the primary reason for not
buying, well then it's time to pony up the cash.

Myself, I thought GTA5 was an okay game but I didn't enjoy it half as
much as the earlier games. In part, this was because it was placed in
Los Angeles, which an ugly city (in character, visuals and layout) and
for all the high-res textures and high-poly models, I got no enjoyment
driving down its streets. Its characters were completely unappealing,
even when compared to the shallow stereotypes that were the
protagonists of the earlier games. The gameplay was run-of-the-mill
open-world stuff; not really bad but it didn't stand out. Honestly,
the most fun I had with the game was playing the TENNIS mini-game.
It's not that the title was bad, but at best it felt so completely
average (the multiplayer is different, but that's just my scene).

I picked up Far Cry Primal at $25.  

Once you get past the directed intro, the outdoor environment is nice,
and there is a refreshing minimalist vibe that goes with playing a
game with no guns or technology to speak of.  I'm not very far into
the game, but the initial couple of hours has found me just wanting to
walk around, forget about missions for a while, and just look around.
That's rare for me.  Morrowind and to some extent Skyrim were like
that for me, not many other SP titles come to mind.

Based on what I've seen so far I'd highly recommend if you want
something immersive and different.  

>maybe I'll pick up one or two games this sale.

    Here are mine:
Titans of Space 2.0  http://store.steampowered.com/app/468820
Thirst VR  http://store.steampowered.com/app/510930
The Room Two  http://store.steampowered.com/app/425580
Doom VFR  http://store.steampowered.com/app/650000   (actually got from GMG 
at discount)
The Uncertain: Episode 1 - The Last Quiet Day 
http://store.steampowered.com/app/406970
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth 
http://store.steampowered.com/app/22340

There are other more desirable choices like Nier Automata, but I was looking 
for heavy discounts and well under $10

rms 

On 2017-07-02, rms <rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:
>>maybe I'll pick up one or two games this sale.
> Titans of Space 2.0  http://store.steampowered.com/app/468820
> Thirst VR  http://store.steampowered.com/app/510930

Just picked up those two. So cheap, seemed rude not to.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.