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Valve targets dodgy discounts in new rules for Steam game sales
Valve provided more information on upcoming changes to game sales and discounting rules. These new rules affect how often developers and publishers discount games, as well as the percentage of discounts.
The rule changes were originally announced earlier this month, but Valve only provided details on changes to the “cooling off” period between discounts, and shared plans to reduce that period from six weeks to 28 days. Now, Valve has announced the full list of rule changes, which you can see below:
- You can run a start-up discount, but once the start-up discount ends, you won’t be able to run any other discounts for 28 days.
- Your product cannot be discounted for 28 days after the price of any currency has increased.
- Discounts cannot run within 28 days of your previous discount, except for Steam-wide seasonal events.
- Discounts for seasonal sales events cannot run within 28 days of your game’s launch, 28 days after launch discounts end, or 28 days after any currency price increase.
- You may not change the price while the promotion is running or planned in the future.
- Product discounts cannot exceed 90% or fall below 10%.
- Custom discounts cannot last more than two weeks or less than 1 day.
The result of these changes is basically that developers can run discounts more often. But one change seems more geared toward cracking down on anti-consumer behavior. This is outlined in the sixth bullet point, “It is impossible to discount a product more than 90% or less than 10%”.
Previously, the rules simply said, “It’s not possible to have a 100% discount on a product.” This has resulted in unscrupulous game sellers offering 1% discounts to get their games on sale lists without offering meaningful price cuts. The new rules restrict developers and bars from offering a minimum discount of 10%, meaning all discounts should now be offered in good faith.
You can read Valve’s full announcement here. The new rules take effect on March 28. The newly implemented cool-off period will apply to all Steam sales, except for the platform’s “four seasonal sales”, namely summer, autumn, winter, and the most famous season, Chinese New Year.