Flash sales were ended because people would end up missing out on deals through no fault of their own i.e at work or sleeping. With the introduction of the refund policy, it would have just caused absolute mayhem.

Originally posted by JMBURNZY:

I miss the old school Steam Summer Sales.

I miss the old school Steam Summer Sales. Each day you would get new sales. No creativity anymore just get it all out there and sell, sell, sell. Now you get all your swag on the first day. Humans have become lazy lol

The world has changed in the past decade, yes.

I like that I can take my time to sort my cart out and do my purchase.

Also, any kind of flash or daily deals on a larger sale means that people will either wait until the end to see if one of the things they wanted to get goes on a special deal, or there will be a lot of refunding to instead get the better deal.

There are a whole lot more users now than there's ever been. Trying to promote flash sales now would essentially cripple Steam. And not everyone was a fan of them.

I do wish the events would come back, though. The mini games were always adding some excitement to the sales. Kept things interesting.

The old sales were rubbish, 12 days of not buying anything to wait for the final two days when all the best deals were on at the same time. And then the servers struggling because the entire sale was concentrated into two days for anyone with any sense.

Nah the old sales were much better imho. My son and I would love checking each day. Of course everything was ALL on sale the last day, however getting it on the DAY was the thing.Yea creativity went out the window with Valve. just look at the stickers you get now. Everything is feminized. If I see that chick on a scooter again! ;) LOL

I don’t really get the point of anything regarding the sale that isn’t purchasing games at reduced prices.

I miss having games to purchase in the sales, all I got is pre-orders these days.

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Flash sales were ended because people would end up missing out on deals through no fault of their own i.e at work or sleeping. With the introduction of the refund policy, it would have just caused absolute mayhem.

They stopped being 'flashy' before they were gone anyway. They became obsolete even before refunds happened.

Originally posted by JMBURNZY:

Nah the old sales were much better imho.

The world they happened in doesn't exist anymore.

Originally posted by Kargor:

Also, any kind of flash or daily deals on a larger sale means that people will either wait until the end to see if one of the things they wanted to get goes on a special deal, or there will be a lot of refunding to instead get the better deal.

"Don't purchase unless it's on a flash sale or over 75% off" was part of the Steam Sale 101 course.

That spawned behaviors like the "Flash sale price is base price" leading to devs noticing that deeply discounting games cheapened the perceived value of their games.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

I do wish the events would come back, though. The mini games were always adding some excitement to the sales. Kept things interesting.

It really kept the forums lively during sales...
"THE EVENT IS RIGGED"
"STEAM IS CHEATING THE EVENT"
And that sort of threads.

Steam has tightened its monopoly quite a bit over the past few years so they don’t need to give the discounts they once did, when you have price parity clauses in contracts with devs you don’t need to offer heavy discounts since you literally set the price for other games distributors removing any meaningful competition.

That won’t stop sycophants from defending them though, some people will go so far as to say steam can’t afford it any more when they make 19 million dollars per staff member….

Originally posted by Shreddy:

Steam has tightened its monopoly quite a bit over the past few years so they don’t need to give the discounts they once did, when you have price parity clauses in contracts with devs you don’t need to offer heavy discounts since you literally set the price for other games distributors removing any meaningful competition.

That won’t stop sycophants from defending them though, some people will go so far as to say steam can’t afford it any more when they make 19 million dollars per staff member….

Steam don’t give discounts - it’s the publishers and developers that set the prices and controlled dynamic discounts. Flash sales were abolished partly because developers were getting annoyed with users playing the waiting game in the hope of landing a better discount.

These one and done sale prices may be boring but at least what you see is what you get throughout and the devs receive consistent sales rather then everyone stalling and playing some mini game in the meantime which further distracted users from store pages.

I suppose this is what comes of taunting console players, and convincing them to come to the dark side of gaming. We clued them into what happened in this dark side alley, and they came here in droves dragging main street along with them.

If you bragged about the ridiculous prices, about not have to buy subscriptions, about having full backwards compatibility, and how easy everything had become. You are part of the reason that quirky outlet mall has now become a regular mall. You only have yourself to blame for your loss.

Originally posted by Dodece:

I suppose this is what comes of taunting console players, and convincing them to come to the dark side of gaming. We clued them into what happened in this dark side alley, and they came here in droves dragging main street along with them.

If you bragged about the ridiculous prices, about not have to buy subscriptions, about having full backwards compatibility, and how easy everything had become. You are part of the reason that quirky outlet mall has now become a regular mall. You only have yourself to blame for your loss.

That's an interesting take. I don't think people who once mainly played games on console getting pc's is the reason publishers raised their prices on Steam. The variables leading up to sales that aren't as deep hasn't been significantly impacted by pc users "taunting console players" about the benefits of pc gaming.

The sales of yesteryear were great, but that's long gone. There are still great games with great sales. Greed is rampant across the gaming industry and gamers are some of the most disrespected consumers out there. If gamers were to change their spending habits things could change, but I digress. Everybody is never going to be happy with what's offered in a given sale. "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little".