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October 2025

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[Berath]

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/07/the-psychology-behind-steams-summer-sale/

(I've gotta check if Awesomenauts made the community vote yesterday....)

[DeadlyAvenger]

Very interesting article - heard of quite a few of these psychological tricks/nuances before - a lot of them also apply to F2P games and getting you to part with your money which I've read quite a few articles about.

Valve's economist and psychologists must be having a great time working out these sales (down the last tiny details) and analysing the results!

[discordance]

they ought to fire that economist. the sales are increasingly less fun and more money orientated. And creating trading cards solely to create an artificially scarce virtual product they can place a transaction tax on is practically a financial crime, only legislators are too old to get it, they still havent understood that stuff like tf2 crates is ought to be regulated under gaming/gambling laws (EA in BF heroes and other F2Ps are way worse than TF2 about ripping you off for a chance at a good item). They should hire someone to make the sales into fun events instead.

[Brahms]

Yeah sales were originally invented as fun events.

[discordance]

Yeah sales suck and are so hollow and corporate but lets keep doing them like that because its traditional and something about money.

Toning down the snark, christmas and other traditional festivals have been heavily commercialised fairly successfully, and I still feel they do a better job at both sales and being slightly fun for people involved.

[Berath]

How would you make them fun though?

[discordance]

i enjoyed the summer camp sale, when you could actually win prizes like games and small dlcs. Participation prizes that were fun themselves, instead of stuff like trading cards, which just feeds into desire for status or collecting stuff and requires 0 effort from the companies involved besides grab a few screenshots or bits of concept art.

And achievements for tickets was fun (for me, might need some work to make it more fun for everyone, but its still better than 1 card drop every 20 mins). This time I might as well just idle every trading card game I own and then spend hours trying to trade it all.

[DeadlyAvenger]

It's a sale...it's an exercise in generating hype/excitement and manipulating you so you part with cash. Valve (nor any other business) doesn't give a shit about how much 'fun' you are having.

to create an artificially scarce virtual product

...see just about any 'artificial currency' (poker chips, RP in LoL, station cash, any kind of in-game currency...) in the world ever?!

Also, why would they give you games (usually shit games that you've never heard of nor care about) for free when they can give you trading cards that have the same effect ("A reward - yay!") - to get more trading cards though, you have to spend more money!

If I wanted to avoid subliminal messaging / psychological effects / consumerism...I'd probably have to avoid shopping for or buying anything ever again - it's everywhere from shops, supermarkets, tv adverts, web adverts.

I find it all fascinating - but I tend to avoid getting completely suckered into sales and will only buy one or two things that I'm actually interested in, rather than buying it because it's on sale (and probably still cheaper elsewhere).

[CruelCow]

The economists job is not to make the sale fun.

And looking at people's reaction to cards... Well he's doing a great job

[Leftism]

SALES SUCK

I hate getting games for a 1/4 of their intended price!

[Karthus]

Entitlement

[discordance]

Not seeing any credible counter-point to why valve shouldn't try to make things fun just "derp but money", which doesn't really provide an answer as to why profit seeking should trump fun in a games company. Try harder.

Theres no reason why you can't pursue capitalist goals without being a total amoral bastard in the process. You can get people to part with their money whilst making things fun at the same time thats the whole point of games. They tried before it clearly worked and it was a successful sale (summer camp sale), now they've moved the focus onto money instead, which is lame. They might have made slightly less money focusing on fun but as a games company thats the whole point of their existence. Not to suck all the fun out of games in a downward spiral of profit seeking.

[CruelCow]

Well, the point of a sale is not to have fun, the point is to cheaply buy stuff to have fun with. And on that front, the sale delivers very much.

Can it be fun? Sure, but demanding it seems weird, especially since Valve did and does more than anybody else in the industry in that direction.
Also, I'm not sure if we had different experiences, or it's nostalgia, but I don't remember the last summer sale as that much fun. Back then it was doing achievements which ranked from stupidly easy to frustratingly hard (some of them even against the spirit of the game) so you got shitty DLC. I think the best thing I got out of it were the ugly-ass TF2 glasses. Now it is idling in games so you can sell your cards and spend the money on good games. For me, that's an improvement.

And call me a cynic, I'd say the point of a games company is making money by selling fun.

[discordance]

The majority of sales not being fun is no reason not to try. Consumer culture is depressing but it could be a bit more lively selling its tat to people. Valve are still a private company they don't answer to a bunch of rich stockholders with no opinion on anything but money. Nor do they suffer under that most terrible US law that a company with stockholders must never choose to make less money, even if the choice to make more money is probably illegal and immoral, and definitely shady.

Its not really better to be idling games, now we aren't even playing them. The achievements was just a series of challenges in lots of different types of gameplay with small rewards. It wasn't perfect and i'd want valve to work on something much more fun, but at least we were playing games instead of wasting electricity idling them. Thats far from an improvement.

For any respectable games company fun is the primary goal, followed by money. We'd be much better off if the ones only interested in money closed down.

[Karthus]

"The Steam Sales" are embedded in Pc gamer culture now, with all the funny may-mays (lefrytakemymoneyfacexD.jpg etc.) why should they try to go out of their way? People are gonna get crazy about it anyway now, the thing that matters foremost is that therell be good sales and this year theyve been really good (Couldnt say I was expecting New Vegas Ultimate to be 5 fricking euros).

For any respectable games company fun is the primary goal, followed by money. We'd be much better off if the ones only interested in money closed down.

Thats very delusional tbh.