Getting to the front page on Steam is a win for every developer, as millions of players will see his game. But the algorithm selects new titles and discounted ones. And this is where the mess arises, with smaller creators in particular abusing discounts so that their game does not fit into the thousands of other projects. This happens especially during seasonal events, which are very popular on Steam. In these, you can come across, for example, 1% discounts, which last only a few days.
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END TO ONE PERCENT DISCOUNTS
Valve does not like this “peeing” of the system and the new rules have to prevent it. These will be valid from March 28 this year and instruct developers and publishers that discounts must be at least 10% and at most 90%. They also prohibit the discount from lasting less than a day and more than two weeks (unless it is part of the seasonal Sale of Steam). To developers and publishers as well prohibited from changing the price of your discounted product.
Valve still makes one concession. New conditions will allow you to run another discount after four weeks (28 days), while under current conditions there is six weeks between the end of one discount and the beginning of another discount. However, this does not apply to the four main seasonal sales of Steam: the Lunar New Year’s Sale, the Summer Sale, the Autumn Sale and the Winter Sale.
Developers and publishers can continue to take advantage misleading discount, ie put your game at a discount on the day of issue, or during pre-orders. But even here it is true that another discount is not possible for 28 days from the previous one.
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Source: ValveSteam Awards: Players selected the best games of 2021
NO LONGER AVAILABLE AND THEN REDUCED
28 days also applies to price increases. From time to time, the price of the game was deliberately increased and then discounted to make the discount higher. If someone makes their product more expensive, they cannot discount it for three weeks. The restriction applies to all currencies.
As for new games, they can be part of seasonal sales up to 28 days after release.
For time-limited offers on free games and free weekends, nothing changes. Both can still be.
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