Valve will soon change the Steam Store's sales and discounts rules

Many of us already have active Steam accounts and are somewhat familiar with how purchasing works on this ultra-popular Windows PC gaming platform.

The Steam store is supposedly getting some changes for its famed sales, as revealed on the official website.

However, this won’t happen now, these changes will come into effect on March 28 and will alter the ways in which retailers can engage with sales and create discount promotions for their games.

New sales rules coming to the Steam Store in march

As we previously mentioned, many of us are no strangers to the highly sought-after Steam Store discounts, which often have titles discounted from anywhere between 10% and 90% off.

But the way that things happen now is soon about to change, due to some people thinking they are smarter than everyone. Spoiler alert, they weren’t.

In recent years, some developers and publishers have attempted to trick the system by using some pretty simple, yet unconventional methods.

These companies started offering small discounts of 1% for a couple of days, just enough to manipulate Valve’s store algorithm and potentially get featured during sales periods.

We all know what they say about crime and how it doesn’t pay, so Valve decided to make some changes that will put a stop to these attempts.

The new rules should circumvent manipulations of the system, with discounts now mandated to start at 10%, with new restrictions on the length of time discounts can run to stave off fake discounts.

Valve’s upcoming rule changes should lead to a healthier and more transparent market for Steam and its upcoming Steam Deck, and probably represent things other retailers like Amazon should look into adopting.

Here are the changes that the company is planning on implementing on March 28:

• You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
  
• It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
  
• Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
  
• Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
  
• You may not change your price while a promotion is live now or scheduled for the future.
  
• It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
  
• Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day.

This is all that will actually change in terms of sales and discounts rules, so don’t worry about anything else, as it will stay basically the same.

What are your thoughts on these new rules Vale will introduce to the Steam Store? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.