For all young padawans, back in the day we got legit 90% off brand new games. I’d spend $100 and get 2, 4 month old games and the rest would be sweet under $5 deals. And deals were every hour. So if you missed a sale you could miss out on a massive sale. It was a legit event that earned the hype. Then they brought in refunds and people abused it. But sales back in the day were fun
Refunds came about because of EU laws. Those flash sales would have resulted in a bunch of refunds so they stopped doing them at the same time. They actively encouraged (and still do) people to refund & rebuy for cheaper at any time whether any steam sale is involved or not as long as within the refund terms.
Personally, I only miss the mini games they had during those sales but I hated the flash sales themselves. Had to waste time researching when the games wanted were going to be the cheapest during the flash sale. Then had to hope it was during some free point of the day, notification/alarm worked, or that didn’t forget to create the notification/alarm. Then had to hope the store wasn’t overloaded because everyone else was also trying to get in on time limited sales.
When was the last time we even had a discount bigger than 50% on a good game?
For all young padawans, back in the day we got legit 90% off brand new games. I’d spend $100 and get 2, 4 month old games and the rest would be sweet under $5 deals. And deals were every hour. So if you missed a sale you could miss out on a massive sale. It was a legit event that earned the hype. Then they brought in refunds and people abused it. But sales back in the day were fun
Refunds came about because of EU laws. Those flash sales would have resulted in a bunch of refunds so they stopped doing them at the same time. They actively encouraged (and still do) people to refund & rebuy for cheaper at any time whether any steam sale is involved or not as long as within the refund terms.
Personally, I only miss the mini games they had during those sales but I hated the flash sales themselves. Had to waste time researching when the games wanted were going to be the cheapest during the flash sale. Then had to hope it was during some free point of the day, notification/alarm worked, or that didn’t forget to create the notification/alarm. Then had to hope the store wasn’t overloaded because everyone else was also trying to get in on time limited sales.
I think this one was Australia, not the EU. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission rekt them a bit https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/valve-to-pay-3-million-in-penalties-for-misrepresenting-gamers-consumer-guarantee-rights
I just picked up the civ5 bundle for 90% off about a month ago. It is a 13 year old game, but it’s still a great game.