The Gadget Blog » Steam discounts

How to Save Money on Steam

Rico Mossesgeld — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:30:57 +0000

Ironically, despite the low prices of PC games on Steam, I’ve ended up spending more than I budgeted over the last few months. Those discounts are very tempting, and the fact that Steam is coming out with more games every week—especially classic titles like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic— isn’t really helping.

Recently however, I’ve realized my compulsion to buy stems from the slick marketing process built into Steam’s interface. By default, you are presented with the home page of Steam store once you load the client. Sometimes a pop-up appears, upon start-up or after exiting a game, detailing all the latest games and promos available from Steam. Both are designed to keep you aware of what’s new, subtly pushing you to open up your wallet and make Valve (and its partner publishers) richer.

Luckily, you can change the Steam client settings and lessen temptations to buy. It’s a simple matter of clicking on the File Menu of the Steam client and selecting Settings. Once the dialog pops-up, all you have to do is set your Favorite Window to anything other than “Steam”, and unchecking Notify me (with Steam instant messages) about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases. Then click OK to save the new settings.

What this does is minimize the temptations to buy new games. Now when you start up Steam, you’re brought directly to your games; you don’t get to see the store until you intentionally choose to go there, saving you from the skillfully crafted “buy now” messages plastered all over Steam’s home page. The same applies to disabling Steam’s notifications, as there are now less opportunities for Valve to ply its wares on your impressionable gaming mind.

With fewer temptations to buy, you indirectly save more money, and continue maximizing the advantage that attracted you to Steam in the first place: low-priced legit copies of PC games.

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Fallout 3 50% Off on Steam for This Weekend

Rico Mossesgeld — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:00:10 +0000

Thanks for punishing the early adopters once again Valve! I kid of course, but I imagine those who bought Fallout 3 at $50 (when it first came out) are probably cringing at today’s $20 price, available under Steam’s Weekend Deal program.

What’s Fallout 3 you ask? Are you ok? It’s the best solo RPG to come out in recent memory, features a relatively massive gameplay world worth weeks of losing sleep over. Owners of the game will also enjoy free access to current or future downloadable content packs. Over five have been released or are about to be released, and they all represent additional gameplay and new ways to waste time.

Get Fallout 3 for only $20 at Steam. Today’s the last day this Weekend Deal lasts, so you’d better get going!

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A Must-Bookmark for Steam Users

Rico Mossesgeld — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:30:59 +0000

Part of Steam’s appeal must be its regular discounts and price drops. But with so many titles in the catalog, it can be easy to miss out on some of them.

Yet that should now be practically impossible, thanks to the efforts of Steam forum user sciss0rz, who’s taken it upon himself to update other forum members with information on—you guessed it—the latest discounts and price drops on Steam! The list (found here) also includes information on Steam game packs, compilations of multiple titles that are usually available at a lower total price (sciss0rz does not list packs that represent no savings).

Even more important however is region availability. Lots of Steam customers have complained about the inconsistent availability of games worldwide. Specific games aren’t available in certain regions and countries, and you can see who misses out on what.

Nevertheless, the “Price Reduction and Sales!” thread is a very useful resource that any Steam user should bookmark. Heck, I’d even suggest making it your browser homepage, if only not to miss out on any new promos cooked up by Valve’s sales team.

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