Yeah, it seems like a lot of stuff is appearing twice (thrice for Terraria, gods given how well its already sold how is it that there are people still who have yet to buy it?). Looks like no decent discount for Distant Worlds, Pandora: First Contact or EUIV’s latest expansion.
The next Community Choice options include an option for Creeper World 3. Anyone have an opinion on this game as it looks really interesting yet I’ve never heard of the series.
I like it. I was previously familiar with it from the flash game on Kongregate. CW3 was a deeper evolution of that game. It’s fun and frenetic tower defense. One of the better ones I’ve played. Try out the flash version if you have any doubts and if you like it then it would be a good purchase.
I haven’t tried III, but the first one is really great.
Anyone doing a 4 pack for Strike Vector? I have a ton for trade or can paypal $2.50 for a slot.
So today’s sale pretty much treated my wishlist like the loser of a Mortal Kombat bout, ripping out it’s spine while “Finish Him!” echoed through my speakers.
Rome 2 Total War $20
Fallen Enchantress : Legendary Heroes $8
Dishonored GOTY $10
Close to $40 on a single day, that’s unheard of for me and the Steam Sale. Up to now I’d spent all of $13 over all the days of the sale, nabbing $5 State of Decay, >$4 Shaodwrun and $2.50 Halo Spartan Assault along with a trio of games for $0.29-$0.79 (their Steam Trading Cards were worth as much as the games themselves).
The good news is that the remaining dozen games on my wishlist are unlikely to see steep enough discounts to merit me picking them up this sale. Gotta save something for the Winter Sale!
This looks interesting, but many of the Steam reviews are saying the MP is dead right now, as in 0 players across all servers. I suppose the 4-pack concepts lessens that issue by bringing your friends along though. I was considering it, but I have bought into enough dead multiplayer communities.
-Todd
Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of this sale. It’s definitely the most disappointing in my memory, but I’m not sure whether that’s an artifact of my current backlog (from previous sales), my particular tastes (perhaps I’m just less interested in many of the biggest 2013/2014 games?), or something else.
The fact that we keep seeing a few of the same games over and over (and–of course–there are hundreds of other games or bundles that we haven’t seen at all) has me leaning towards option #3: I think Valve has made some new decisions about the way they’re structuring their sales. It also seems like we’re seeing fewer bundles or ‘deluxe’/‘GotY’/‘Gold’ editions on the front page, and the associated DLC for featured games seems to be holding at a higher price.
Also: Is this the first sale where we’ve seen different ‘featured’ discounts for the same game (e.g., Borderlands 2 is currently 67% off in the community choice, but wasn’t it 75% off as a daily deal?)
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but my sense is that Valve has decided to start scaling back a bit on their discounts, and perhaps they’re intentionally excluding certain games/series, so they can start shifting consumer expectations.
E.g., In the past, I thought it was a given that I’d see a heavy discount on the whole X series during every seasonal sale (and I was hoping to pick up X3 Albion Prelude for >50% off), but so far we’ve only seen a flash discount on X: Rebirth. Whether it’s their intention or not, this could be a good business move because–if there’s less certainty for super-bargain prices in the next Steam sale–I’m more likely to jump on weekly sales and daily sales and anything else that comes along.
Probably taste. I’ve dropped more this time around since perhaps the first sales back in 2011.
BL2 was 66.6% off before. BL2 GOTY was the 75% off (which it is again). Just a different banner.
So now we have Civ V on the block. While I have that, I never got any DLC. there is Brave New World, God and Kings, Scrambled Continents Map Pack, and the Cradle of Civ Bundle (which looks like it has 4 more civs). Map pack runs at 50%, all others 75%. Up votes on any of these?
I guess it really depends on what you went into the sale looking for. The AAA/headliner deals have been pretty disappointing, but I’ve found some nice deals on indies and arcade games and picked up about 35 bucks in stuff including Gone Home, Risk of Rain, Papers Please, and SteamWorld Dig. Still waiting for Ikaruga and Double Dragon to show up since they lost their votes but I’ll probably end up around $60 by the time it’s all said and done.
Base Civ5 is pretty bad, so you’ll want the expansions.
For complete mechanics:
I really like the Explorer Map Pack (for Continents and Pangaea Plus map scripts which are superior to the original two - though I had to mod those map scripts to change their customized city state placement [onto islands] back to default [anywhere]). Then again, without that modding, I didn’t really like them.
The rest are civs. I don’t actually think I’ve played any of them despite owning all of them.
Civ V with G&K and BNW is a great game. If you like 4x’s or not overly complex strategy (say compared with Paradox titles) then you will get your money’s worth. Buy the complete edition.
The headliner deals are fine. What folks are seeing is the fact that an AAA game has gone from having a lifespan of 1 year to a lifespan of 2+ years. Just because a game came out last year doesn’t make it old and fodder for 75% off any more. Companies are looking to eke out that long tail return. The flip side of this is that the curve flattens at the front end too. Who buys a game for $60 these days between pre-sales, GMG, etc…?
There’s also some conditioning going on. I get the feeling that Assassin’s Creed IV is supposed to be good, so the $20 (or $30, depending on how you feel about DLC) price tage should be enticing. But when I can pick up things like Skyrim Legendary (which I never got before because this is the first year Skyrim + DLC in the form of the Legendary package has been > 50% off) for $13.50 and I have a huge backlog, I look and think “Eh… there’s always the Christmas sale.”
Were people realistically expecting Watch Dogs at 50% off? If so, they’re bound to remain disappointed until this time next Christmas. (And even then DLC will only be 30-40% off… WatchDogs GOTY should go on sale two years from now or so for 66-75% off, since we -might- see WatchDogs2 by Christmas 2016.)
So I grabbed that Steamworld Dig game, goodness is it fun. If it pops up on another flash sale everyone should get it!
I played it on 3DS and I’m a little tempted to double dip.
I didn’t expect Goat Simulator to be #1 when I looked at the best sellers list.
Ugh. My damage so far (I’m not even at home to install/play them) this sale:
Arcadecraft (gift)
Payday 2 (gift)
Civ V DLC Changing Worlds Map Pack: Continents
Civ V DLC Scrambled Nations Map Pack
Skullgirls DLC Squigly (forgot to get when it was free)
Skullgirls DLC Big Band
Super Amazing Wagon Adventure
LEGO The Hobbit
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
LEGO Movie Game
Unreal Tournament 2004
Lost Planet 3
Bully
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Pac-Man Museum
Nights: Into Dreams
State of Decay DLC: Lifeline
Astebreed
Powerpuff Girls
Penny Arcade: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 4
Borderlands 2 DLC: Headhunter 5: Son of Crawmerax
Endless Space: Disharmony
Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Complete Edition
Metro Last Light: Ranger Pack
PCMark 8
Age of Wonders 3: Deluxe
Damn. Just added Strike Vector and the remainder of Saint’s Row 3/4 DLC I didn’t have to appease my OCD.
You might be correct in general, but if you’re referring to my post you’re mistaken.
I’m not that keen on the latest AAA titles anyway (I’ve always been happy to play older games. I still haven’t bought Skyrim because I want to ‘finish’ Oblivion, Fo3, and Fo3:NV first).
I had no expectations for Watchdogs (because I know almost nothing about the game).
I’m just surprised to be seeing some games (e.g., Borderlands 2) more than once, while games I’ve seen in other sales (X3, From Dust, Crysis 2) are holding with quite modest discounts. (I think ‘From Dust’ has been at -40% = $8.99, and I’m pretty sure it’s been down to $2-3 in previous sales).
I was also surprised that Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion (an expansion for a 2008 game) was >$10 with its DLC. Anyway, I’m not complaining. I was just curious if anyone else was similarly surprised by what’s been featured. (I noticed a similar pattern with the GoG flash sales, wherein a relatively small slice of their library was cycled through on repeat. In that case, I think they deliberately left many of their most popular games out of the flash sales because they wanted to drive people to the bundles where you have to buy them all for the deep discount).
Everyone knew not to buy unless on flash sale, so now many things don’t go on flash sale. Interesting to know if Valve makes more cash and if developers do. I buy stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t when its dirt cheap, I’ve purchased nothing so far for the first Steam sale in a while.