Valve Introduces New Rules To Reduce "Fake" Discounts on Steam

[Uskompuf]

Valve has recently announced a collection of new store discount policies to clamp down on fake sales and offers that currently plague the Steam store. The cooldown period for sales will be reduced from six to four weeks with exclusions for the major store-wide seasonal sales. The new rules prohibit publishers from discounting their game within 28 days following a price increase in any country and prices can no longer be adjusted during sales. The allowable discount range has also been restricted to between 10 and 90 percent while custom sales must now last for 1 to 14 days. These new policies will take effect starting March 28th, 2022 and will hopefully improve the user experience.

Specific Discounting Rules

• You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
• It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
• Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
• Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
• You may not change your price while a promotion is live now or scheduled 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 run for shorter than 1 day.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I am extremely happy you have done this Valve, for too long some of these publishers have taken advantage of this and as a result, we got extremely crappy "deals"

 

[lexluthermiester]

I am extremely happy you have done this Valve, for too long some of these publishers have taken advantage of this and as a result, we got extremely crappy "deals"

I have to agree, this is a quality move from Valve for Steam.

 

[spnidel]

I am extremely happy you have done this Valve, for too long some of these publishers have taken advantage of this and as a result, we got extremely crappy "deals"

uhhh the cooldown period following a price change has always been there as far as I can remember, the only real change here is the reduction of cooldown between sales from 6 weeks to 4 weeks
the "can't enter a discount" period following a price change used to be 30 days, now it's 28, so I don't really understand how any of this helps combat "fake" reviews - valve has actually made it easier to discount your game(s) more often

misleading article title, these cooldown periods and rules were there always, the cooldowns are now shorter - some much shorter, some by just a bit

edit: wtf is this article? it just lists rules and cooldown periods that were always there and presents the rules, which were there for years, as if it's something new
the only new thing, as per Steam's own announcement, is that the discount cooldown period is now 4 weeks instead of 6

 

[Testsubject01]

uhhh the cooldown period following a price change has always been there as far as I can remember, the only real change here is the reduction of cooldown between sales from 6 weeks to 4 weeks
the "can't enter a discount" period following a price change used to be 30 days, now it's 28, so I don't really understand how any of this helps combat "fake" reviews - valve has actually made it easier to discount your game(s) more often

misleading article title, these cooldown periods and rules were there always, the cooldowns are now shorter - some much shorter, some by just a bit

edit: wtf is this article? it just lists rules and cooldown periods that were always there and presents the rules, which were there for years, as if it's something new
the only new thing, as per Steam's own announcement, is that the discount cooldown period is now 4 weeks instead of 6

Another new thing is the limitation to >10% - <=90%, no more 94% or 98% Discounts, not sure if they also exclude 100% time limited freebies now.

 

[spnidel]

Another new thing is the limitation to >10% - <=90%, no more 94% or 98% Discounts, not sure if they also exclude 100% time limited freebies now.

last time I set a custom discount for one of my games a 10% was minimum, no idea whether there was a maximum discount (as I've never got that far to 90%), but I've never seen a >90% discount in my entire life on Steam

 

[Testsubject01]

Well then, see your first one right now: Xcom 2 - 94% Discount, ends in 26h from the time of posting thou.

 

[skizzo]

XCOM2 which is on my wishlist for quite a while is still on sale right now for 94% off. for a grand total of $3 and some change lol

I don't think I see stuff marked off that much, if ever before, but wanted to point out it exists

ah crap sorry I missed the post above me somehow. I'm just regurgitating the same info here. still, I never noticed this is a problem. how were sellers taking advantage of this stuff? doing something like raising the cost of the game and then "discounting" it down to the same price as it was before or something like that? stuff like people on ebay who get suckers who go "oh it's $10 cheaper at this buyer I'll go with them" and then they realize it's because they are charging $10+ for shipping to make up that difference lol

 

[PapaTaipei]

Once again Valve proves why they are the best.

 

[qlum]

Kind of curious that they changed it to 28 days, as doing some may run into issues with the new EU regulations on the matter.
Where if you say something is discounted by from € 50 to € 25, the € 50 must be the lowest price in the last 30 days.
So if a € 50 game had a 50% discount and 28 days later it gets a 40% discount, the second discount should not advertise itself as a discount at all.
They really should have added the two days and removed the exception for other steam sales.
For reference: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52021XC1229(06)&qid=1640961745514

 

[ZeppMan217]

Another new thing is the limitation to >10% - <=90%, no more 94% or 98% Discounts, not sure if they also exclude 100% time limited freebies now.

The new rules do not apply to progressive bundles, so you could still get an over 90% discount on a bundle if you're eligible.

 

[Gungar]

Once again Valve proves why they are the best.

They are the best by a HUGE margin

 

[lexluthermiester]

Once again Valve proves why they are the best.

They are the best by a HUGE margin

This is a good move from them. That is a far cry from being the "best".

GOG is the best, hands down, full fraking stop.