Steam Winter Sale 2012

It's the end of the sale as we know it (and I feel fine). Today is the last full day of sales.

The latest flash deals with ~7 hours left are:

• Left 4 Dead 1 + 2 $7.49 (75% off). Or $4.99 each.
• Symphony $3.39 (66% off). 'You must battle through your own music collection'. Man, I feel like that every time Dream Theater comes up on shuffle. What was I thinking?
• Ace of Spades $4.99 (50% off). Cube-based team-oriented FPS with construction/building. Sort of a Minecraft Goes to War.

Welp, unless Steam rocks socks today, I guess tonight I'll pick up Book of Unwritten Tales and Yesterday, just to get them for the standard discount. Actually, Yesterday's standard discount of 75% is pretty good, though its standard price of $29.99 is stupid.

This is kind of where I am. I finally free'd up some spending money, and what I want most is Arkham City, but its not on a special sale anymore, and it almost seems like I am wasting dollars to buy it for "just" 40% off...

Maybe it (or something else I want) will pop up in flash sale or the "best of" sale that they sometimes do the final day.

I'm a sucker for games that involve actively playing with your own music library, so I'll give this Symphony thing a whirl. I'm pretty much biased to giving a "I have played with Beat Hazard and you, sir are no Beat Hazard." But I'm always hoping for a heartwarming scene where I learn my prejudices are ill-founded, and I learn a little something about using more of my heart and that all this time, I wasn't teaching Symphony but Symphony was teaching me.

Favorite games haven't been on sale enough times this fortnight? Have no fear, it's the encore weekend!

http://store.steampowered.com/news/9690/

Max Payne 3 is the community choice right now, $14.99 (75% off). Same goes for all the DLC, including the Rockstar Pass.

I'm tempted to get it at this price, but I'm a bit thrown off by the download size, which is around 29 GB.

That's as large as Shogun 2, Rise of the Samurai, and Fall of the Samurai combined.


Is Rage worth $5? I redbox'd it for PS3 and was just blown away by how little it grabbed me that I returned it the next day.

I wouldn't even pay $5. I wanted it to be a more action focused Fallout but it just really fell flat for me. Steam says I played it for 12 hours and I got almost nowhere and had almost zero fun. It's too on rails at the beginning and I gave up and put it in my "Stinkers" category in my games library :P

Cool! The last day of my new weekly budget is Sunday, so if I can save up I might get something else! Yay!

Thanks!

Late again!

The daily deals for January 4th will be available for the weekend, on top of the Official Repeats™. They are:

• Forge $9.99 (50% off). Still an online multiplayer shooter.
• Crysis Collection $17.49 (75% off) or individually:
  • Crysis $4.99
  • Crysis Warhead $4.99
  • Crysis 2 Maximum Edition $9.99
• Sleeping Dogs $16.99 (66% off). Note: Not about actual dogs.
• Trine Complete Collection $8.74 (75% off). 1, 2 and the DLC for 2.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent $4.99 (75% off). Coward Simulator.
• RAGE $4.99 (75% off). Help fund Doom 4.

Flash deals with ~15 hours left:

The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition $7.49 (75% off). Repeat.
The Witcher $2.49 (75% off). Repeat prequel.
RUSE $4.99 (75% off. RTS in which deception is encouraged.
Hell Yeah! $3.74 (75% off). 'Humorous' platformer.

Max Payne 3 for $14.99 (75% off) ends in ~1.5 hours. Hopefully Terraria will win the next community vote and finally go on sale!

Is it true it doesn't involve much sleeping either?

How is The Witcher series? Both worthwhile, or does one shine above and beyond?

They are both good but the second is considered better. If you like RPGs you should own them both.

I haven't played the second one, so I can't give much feedback for that one, but The Witcher, although wonderful for people seeking a solid story experience, isn't so hot for those that play RPGs to loot whore. There's very little in the way of useful gear upgrades for your character, as most of your improvements are done through spending skill points. That isn't to say your bags won't be chock full of random shit though, most of which is really only useful if you're playing a difficulty level that requires the use of alchemy. You'll spend a lot of time plundering drawers and whatnot, but an epic lootfest this is not.

It's a great game, and they do a great job of character building; well worth the money if you can enjoy that type thing without finding +50 MDK Battleaxes all over the place.

Welp, more to add onto the backlog. At this rate, I'll have enough to last me til the next Steam Winter sale.

Thank you, Sarkus and Elyscape. :)

EDIT: I am a bit of a packrat in RPGs, but if the story's strong enough, I can live with it. And at a third of the cost of the second one, I don't feel like I'm overspending... much. Thanks, kerzain.

The final set of flash deals are up, good until 10 a.m. Pacific Saturday:

• LEGO Lord of the Rings $20.09 (33% off). 'Cartoon violence'.
• Dishonored $29.99 (50% off). Stabbing Simulator.
• The Walking Dead $12.49 (50% off). Zombie Simulator.

Terraria only nabbed 27% of the vote, so Torchlight II is the last community choice pick with 52% of the vote. It is now $9.99 (50% off).

Ah, the climax of the Steam sale. Grabbing up the games you were waiting for daily deals on (just in case) as well as a handful of interesting-looking cheap knickknacks. The repeats in the middle really made the sale drag but they had a strong last couple of days with some one time only deals. And, as with every Steam sale for the last five years, there was plenty of complaining that Steam had once again put on the worst sale ever.

Final haul: 1000 Amps, A Game Of Dwarves + beer DLC, Adventures of Shuggy, Anno 2070 DLC, AVSEQ, Awesomenauts, Binary Domain, Colo(u)r Bind, Coniclysm, Crusader Kings 2 + expansions, Dead Island, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, English Country Tune (received as gift), Gateways, Half Minute Hero, Hell Yeah, Home, Hotline Miami (received as gift), Little Inferno, Magnetis (received as gift), Mark of the Ninja, Perimeter 2, Rage, Rotastic, Serious Sam 3 DLC, Simcity 4 Deluxe, Symphony, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, They Bleed Pixels, To The Moon, Towns, Tropico 4 + DLC, Unmechanical.

Spent about $135. Also I grabbed the humble bundle (first one ever!) because it had several games I was about to buy on Steam anyway.

My final haul: zero :| New hobby time?

You should be proud of yourself. When the Winter sale started, I sneered at it and convinced myself that I'[d grown out of chasing $4.99 games around the interwebs. Didn't work out so well. :(

It's not that hard to do, but you do have to convince yourself that you will never play those $5 purchases. I still have a backlog of $5 games that I may never get to.

It helps to look at one of those games and think "I'll never do that again, and to never do that again I have to raise the bar of what I define as quality entertainment/time." For me, that game is Deus Ex: Invisible War, sitting in my library and reminding me not to be such a dumbass as to think "hey, it's only $2.50, right?"

If you can use adding things to your wishlist to satisfy the collector in you, that helps :) My backlog lives in my wishlist. It's a wishlog.

Hey, every time you buy a $50 game for $5, you just saved $45. If you don't buy it, you're practically losing money!

Can he really afford not to buy it? Sounds like an expensive proposition!

The concept of a backlog is a dangerous fantasy. I don't believe in it. I'm buying games, not a to-do list.

The Encore Sale is now up. Around 48 hours left for the following titles. I will edit in pricing and more shortly, I wanted to get the games listed first for any twitchy buyers:

• Torchlight $3.74 (75% off)
• Torchlight II $9.99 (50% off). Blazing Pillar!
• Chivalry: Medieval Warfare $12.49 (50% off)
• Darksiders Franchise Pack $13.59 (66% off). Includes 1 and 2. Cheaper than buying II on its own.
• Darksiders $4.99 (75% off).
• Dead Island GOTY Edition $6.79 (66% off)
• The Witcher $2.49 (75% off)
• The Witcher II $7.49 (75% off)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown $33.49 (33% off)
• The Walking Dead $12.49 (50% off)
• Arma II Combined Operations $14.99 (50% off). Includes Operation Arrowhead.
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive $7.49 (50% off)
• Football Manager 2013 $19.99 (50% off)
• ANNO 2070 $19.99 (60% off)
• THQ Collection $24.99. Includes: Company of Heroes, CoH: Opposing Forces, Darksiders, Darksiders II, Dawn of War II: Retribution, Homefront, Metro 2033, MX vs ATV Reflex, Nexuiz, Red Faction, Red Faction II, Red Faction: Armageddon, Saints Row 2, Saints Row: The Third, Supreme Commander and expansion, Titan Quest + Immortal Throne, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, Dawn of War II, Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising and possibly more DoW II I missed.
• Hitman Absolution $24.99 (50% off). The Hitman looks a bit like a human Grumpy Cat. Think about it.
• DARK SOULS $19.99 (50% off)
• Skyrim $29.99 (50% off). DLC is also 50% off.
• Morrowind and Oblivion are $4.99 each (75% off)
• Ace of Spades $4.99 (50% off)
• Dishonored $29.99 (50% off)
• Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition $4.99 (75% off)
• Batman Arkham City GOTY Edition $7.49 (75% off)
• Natural Selection II $9.99 (50% off)
• The Sims 3 $10.19 (66% off). All expansions are also 66% off.
• Borderlands 2 $29.99 (50% off)
• Borderlands GOTY Edition $7.49 (75% off)
• Saints Row The Third $7.49 (75% off)
• Portal 1 + 2 $6.24 (75% off) or $2.49/$4.99 each.
• Civilization franchise. Everything 75% off, such as Civilization V for $7.49.

More edits coming soon™.

HOLEEE SHIT Sleeping Dogs is currently 91% off. Get it for $5!

edit: looks like it's been changed to 66% off. :(

Yeah, they are making adjustments live. It adds to the excitement! I have made a few more edits -- Torchlight is now listing correctly on Steam at 75% off and I'm combing through to see if there's anything else noteworthy that I've missed.

I knew a lot of the prices without even looking, which is equal parts funny and sad.

Musical hacking?

Thank you, Creole Ned, for the careful and methodical campaign against our wallets.

Looks like Steam raised the prices on everyhting thats NOT an encore deal back to normal. If, like in past Steam Sales, you were waiting to purchase non-daily deal stuff at 50-75% off until the last day, you got screwed.

Yesterday was the last day. Why would you wait until after the sale ended?

Um, no. The banner during the whole sale clearly stated "...through January 5th". Also, Steam Sales are notorious for doing "encore" deals the final day of the sale, and that's when most people wait to purchase anything that was marked down but hadn't come along as a daily or flash deal. This time they did it different, hosting a weekend long encore event, but without the rest of the markdowns.

Steam sales usually end at 10 a.m. Pacific on the last day listed. Yesterday was the last full day of the sale.

Valve could definitely do a better job of messaging about their sales, especially with how they're so secretive about the sale dates even though they're set in stone far enough ahead that random indie devs can leak them before Thanksgiving. But the sale ended on the day they said it would and all the stuff on regular sale discount had a timer counting down to the end of the sale.

Man I want Chivalry, Natural Selection, and Anno so badly.

But I don't need any more games. A conundrum.

If I could gift you my activated copies of Chivalry and Natural Selection 2 I would.

Well the only thing on the weekend list I was waiting to come around again was ARMAII and I bought it the other day before they announced the weekend thing. Looks like that move cost me $3. I'm not that worked up over that fact. :)

Today's deals:

None!

I expect daily updates.