Steam sale dates: When is the next Steam sale?
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(Image credit: Valve)
It’s never too early to plan your penny-saving with a Steam Sale schedule. In times past, predicting Steam sales was more soothsaying than science, but we’re in a beautiful new world of predictable price cuts. Nowadays, Valve reveals Steam Sale dates well in advance, major seasonal sales serve as reliable quarterly landmarks, and—best of all—there’s no messy augury required. Still, with Steam now rolling out frequent genre-specific sales, it can be helpful to have someone keeping the calendar. That’s where we come in. We’re tracking all the confirmed Steam Sale dates as they’re announced, so you can focus on curating your wishlist. You’re welcome.
The seasonal sales during Summer, Autumn, and Winter generally offer the widest and deepest selection of discounts, with a Spring sale joining the seasonal rotation this year to replace the place of the Lunar New Year sale of years past. Between seasonal sales, there are genre-specific “Fests” offering discounts on specific game categories.
Whether you’re looking for the best time for a genre-specific fix or marking your calendar for the tentpole seasonal sales, here’s your handbook for expanding your Steam library—without emptying your wallet.
When is the next Steam sale?
The Steam Summer Sale will run from June 29 to July 13, 2023. As one of the two-week seasonal sales, the Summer sale tends to offer some of the best savings, often including discounts on recent major titles. Before the Summer Sale’s return, we’ll have genre-specific Puzzle and Sports sales in April and May respectively.
Here are all the upcoming Steam sale dates we know so far:
Jan 23 – Jan 30, 2023:Base Builder FestFeb 20 – Feb 27, 2023: Mystery FestMar 16 – Mar 23, 2023:Steam Spring Sale- Apr 24 – May 1, 2023: Puzzle Fest
- May 15 – May 22, 2023: Sports Fest
- Jun 29 – Jul 13, 2023: Steam Summer Sale
- Jul 24 – Jul 31, 2023: Stealth Fest
- Aug 7 – Aug 14, 2023: Visual Novel Fest
- Aug 28 – Sep 4, 2023: Strategy Fest
- Sep 25 – Oct 2, 2023: SHMUP Fest
- Oct 26 – Nov 2, 2023: Scream Fest (Halloween)
- Nov 21 – Nov 28, 2023: Steam Autumn Sale
- Dec 21, 2023 – Jan 4, 2024: Steam Winter Sale
How long do Steam sales last?
The Summer and Winter sales are the big ones.
They tend to last two weeks (ish). The smaller Spring and Autumn sales, along with the genre Fests, all last about a week.
What times of the year does Steam have sales?
Steam now has sales nearly every month of the year, but the seasonal sales most folks look forward to are the Summer Sale and Winter Sale and to a lesser extent the Halloween Sale and Black Friday (Autumn) Sale.
As for which Steam sale is biggest, we tend to see the steepest discounts in the Summer and Winter sales, with the Summer sales offering the choicest selection. With Autumn and Winter sales following so close on the heels of Fall release season, there tend to be fewer big, recent titles with hefty discounts. By the following summer you can get great discounts on relatively new games. (Here’s how long it usually takes for games to get cheap on Steam.)
In the past, when we’ve rounded up the best Steam deals ever , we’ve seen some remarkable discounts. Valve’s Portal 2 went from $50 to $5 in the Summer Sale a year after release.
Don’t entirely ignore the smaller, genre-themed sales throughout the year, though. They might not offer as deep discounts on as wide a selection as the seasonal sales, but they’re still worth a look if you’ve been craving the kind of gameplay being highlighted and can’t wait until the next headliner sale.
(Image credit: Valve)
When is the next Steam Next Fest?
The next Steam Next Fest will run from June 19 – 26, 2023. These festivals usually happen close to Steam’s bigger yearly sales, and Valve has also confirmed another Next Fest for later this year in October of 2023.
Steam Festivals (now called Next Fest) aren’t sales, exactly, but they’re another way to play games for cheap. Since 2020, Steam has been running regular festival weeks where hundreds of upcoming games offer free demos for you to play. It can be a daunting list to sort through, like sales are, but it’s a great way to try something you’ve had your eye on.
Steam sale tips
Use your wishlist
Whenever you see a game you might want, add it to your wishlist.
You will receive notifications when wishlisted games are on sale and having a list makes it easier to resist buying unlisted games for the sake of it on impulse. If a game is not on your list, do you really want it?
Looking for a way to quickly fill up your wishlist? Check out our round up of the top 100 games you can play on PC today. Here are 100 other smaller games judged by algorithm to be the best hidden gems on Steam. And these are the best PC games we recommend right now.
Keep an eye on publisher bundles
Publisher bundles can knock lots of money off entire series or catalogues. If you want to buy an individual Hitman game then you might want to check for a series bundle—chances are you could get all of the games for not much more.
Snap up expansions and DLC
Expansions can often feel a little overpriced, especially if they’re only adding a few hours of new stuff to your game. In Steam sales you can pick up a lot of DLC for just a few bucks and reinvigorate games in your back catalogue.
Stock up on indie treats
You can get big percentage discounts on big budget games in the major Steam Sales, but even with a hefty trim those games can still cost 20 or 30 bucks. If you want to maximise the amount of play time you get out of a Steam sale, quality indie games go down to dollars, and even cents. If you need more storage to hold them all, these are the best SSDs for gaming right now.
You can always wait for another sale
If you’re not going to play a game before the next big Steam sale rolls around, you might as well wait. Chances are the discounts will increase as the annual sales roll by, all while you’re clearing your backlog.
It’s also much easier to wait on a purchase these days because there are no daily or flash deals. If you see a discount, you know that’s going to be stable until the end of the sale so you can wait a few days to make a decision. Maybe that’ll give you time to upgrade to one of the best gaming PCs, or pick out a new graphics card if you need to upgrade.
Check on weekends for publisher or themed sales
It’s not uncommon for a publisher to showcase all of its products on sale during a weekend, an event which is usually marked by a homepage takeover of sorts. Look out for these if you’re after a blockbuster game at a better price.
Consider Steam resellers if you don’t want to wait for a sale
Check out our guide on where to buy PC games , if you want more places to shop around.
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Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he’s been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings.
He’s also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he’s not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.
How long does it take games to be cheap on Steam?
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Seven months. That’s about how long it’ll take for this year’s biggest games to hit a 50 percent discount. Sometimes it happens faster; it took Deus Ex: Mankind Divided only about three months for a Steam sale to cut its price in half. For some games, it takes a bit longer—Grand Theft Auto 5 lasted nearly a year and a half. But if half price is your magic number for buying a new game, expect to wait about seven months for it to enter your sights.
How do we know this? By digging into the last few years of pricing data on Steam, we found a number of clear trends regarding the average time-to-discount across hundreds of games.
After grouping games according to price and popularity, consistent patterns emerged, and from these we calculated a few handy rules to keep in mind next time a new release threatens to drain your Steam Wallet.
This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated to correspond with the latest Steam Summer Sale.
What we learned
Popular big-budget AAA games get a 50% discount after an average of 7 months: expect to wait this long for your Witchers and your Fallouts.
Breakout indie games take a longer 9.2 months to hit 50%, on average: these include your Rocket Leagues and your Undertales, and typically launch at around $20.
The less popular a game is, the faster it will be discounted: for games in the $30+ category, the least commercially-successful dropped in price 60% faster than the bestsellers.
Those are just some quick facts from the data we gathered researching Steam’s discounts.
Below are charts showing those price changes over time and trends from the past three years as Steam sales have evolved. We’ve highlighted the most important takeaway from each section of the results.
$30+ games with 900,000+ owners on Steam
Games released in 2014
33% discount average: 58 days (median)
Fastest discount: 46 days | Mean average: 71 days | Slowest discount: 108 days
50% discount average: 192 days (median)
Fastest discount: 66 days | Mean average: 180 days | Slowest discount: 273 days
75% discount average: 435 days (median)
Fastest discount: 275 days | Mean average: 410 days | Slowest discount: 493 days
Conclusions: If we take a closer look at 2014’s data, we can see that both the 50% and 75% averages are skewed by a single game discounted much faster than the rest: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel in the case of 50%, and Thief in the case of 75%.
By removing these two from our calculations, we get slightly longer, but more consistent estimates that better serve our predictive purposes. For 50%, the mean and median converge at 199 days or 6.5 months. For 75%, our estimate hovers around 460 days, or approximately 15 months.
Games released in 2015
25% discount average: 61 days (mean)
Fastest discount: 47 days | Median average: 50 days | Slowest discount: 85 days
33% discount average: 106 days (median)
Fastest discount: 95 days | Mean average: 128 days | Slowest discount: 205 days
50% discount average: 223 days (median)
Fastest discount: 84 days | Mean average: 200 days | Slowest discount: 281 days
Conclusions: Moving onto 2015, our data follow a similar trend. We can again exclude an atypically swift discount to safeguard our estimate—in this case, it’s Football Manager 2016, which hit half price after just 84 days.
With it gone, both the mean and median approach a more stable figure of 220 days. Thus, we can expect to wait around 7 months for a top-tier 2015 game to drop from $60 to $30. The half-month (7.7%) difference from 2014’s estimate falls within the bounds of expectation, given the size of the data we’re working with.
Games released in 2016
Conclusions: We did the bulk of this analysis before the end of 2016, so we don’t have the same set of sales data for last year’s sales. But what we do have seems to align with previous years. The 33% tier currently sits at an average of 137 days, which isn’t too far from 2015’s average. Dark Souls 3 and The Division, for example, both hit 50% discounts about eight months after release, not far from the average. Other tiers display greater variance, but given the few data to go on, that’s not unexpected.
It’s also worth mentioning that, across all three years, the 50% tier is far and away the most popular discount among the highest-selling $30+ games.
This not particularly surprising, though, since half price is an immediately appealing and easily calculated selling point for most consumers.
$30+ games with 100K – 900K owners on Steam
Games released in 2014
50% discount average: 153 days (mean)
Fastest discount: 51 days | Median average: 155 days | Slowest discount: 280 days
66% discount average: 269 days (median)
Fastest discount: 45 days | Mean average: 249 days | Slowest discount: 407 days
75% discount average: 333 days (median)
Fastest discount: 171 days | Mean average: 342 days | Slowest discount: 686 days
Conclusions: Here we have a more even distribution among the discount tiers. Compared with the most popular games, we see the average time-to-discount dropping by days, weeks, and even months at the higher tiers.
2014’s data are less consistent in this category.
Discounts span a wider range of values, with no single value around which the others gravitate. Instead, we find sub-categories within the data that correspond to Steam’s Summer and Winter sales dates, and more importantly, to the dates of specific flash sales. These fleeting offers—removed in late 2015—make calculating a practical estimate difficult; nevertheless, as we’ll see, the averages support the stronger findings in 2015.
Games released in 2015
25% discount average: 67 days (median)
Fastest discount: 23 days | Mean average: 59 days | Slowest discount: 75 days
33% discount average: 110 days (median)
Fastest discount: 94 days | Mean average: 115 days | Slowest discount: 157 days
50% discount average: 189 days (median)
Fastest discount: 85 days | Mean average: 172 days | Slowest discount: 244 days
75% discount average: 353 days (median)
Fastest discount: 184 days | Mean average: 325 days | Slowest discount: 483 days
Conclusions: The removal of flash sales grants us a better distribution of data in 2015.
Again, the 50% tier provides the most consistent data, and by excluding Mad Max’s appealing yet anomalous average of 85 days, we get a safe estimate of around 200 days, or 6.5 months to reach half price.
Games released in 2016
Conclusions: While weak on their own, 2016’s discount data point to the trends of previous years remaining stable. A 110-day average for the 33% tier gels with the 2015 estimate, and a 140-day median for 50% falls within the bounds of reasonable variance.
On the next page: analyzing the sales data from games that cost less than $30.
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When discounts usually occur
Articles › Magnet › Magnet 20% discount on everything
Sales usually include 3 stages and can last up to 2 months.
Summer season starts in mid-June and ends in early August. Winter – from mid-December to early March. Sometimes the remaining assortment is left for a later date, allocating a special area for it on the trading floor.
- When does the 2022 sale start
- When Winter Sale 2022
- When Summer Sale 2022
- How to find out about discounts in stores
- When are the biggest discounts
- When the spring sale starts
- When there are discounts at dawn
- When there will be discounts at dawn
- What is Black Friday
- What is 11 11 sale
- How to get steam 3000
- When will there be discounts on Ali
- Which store is cheaper
- How to look for discounts
- What is the meaning of Edadil
- How long is Cyber Monday
- When is Black Friday this year
- How many days until Black Friday
- When there will be discounts for summer clothes
- What date is Magnit Cosmetic discount
- When is the sale on Wildberry 2022
- When will Steam discounts 2022
- When discounts in Poland 2022
- How long is Cyber Monday
When sales start 2022
Winter sales in Russia in 2022 will start on December 16 and will last until January 31, 2023.
The early start of the winter sale is due to high competition. Domestic brands usually like to announce discounts since mid-December, but they can also be found among international brands.
When Winter Sale 2022
The official dates for the Winter Sale worldwide are January 1-31, 2022. Until the end of February 2022 remnants will be sold, but discounts at this time are maximum. In the midst of the winter sale – this is mid-January 2022.
When Summer Sale 2022
The Steam Summer Sale 2022, called Steam 3000, will start on June 23rd at 10:00 PM BST, last exactly two weeks, and end on July 7th (also at 20:00 PM).
How to find out about discounts in stores
Discount aggregators:
- Tiendeo – Tiendeo offers. Price: Free
- Edadil – discounts at Intertech Services AG stores.
- Edadil: discounts at Edadil 9 stores0010
- Discount Online. Dmitry Lysohor.
- SkidkaOnline.ru. bscanner.
- Promotions of all stores in Russia ZIGZAG MOBILE.
- Shares of all stores in Russia Ptichka
- GILMON – free GILMON coupons.
When are the biggest discounts
Sales usually include 3 stages and can last up to 2 months. Summer season starts in mid-June and ends in early August. Winter – from mid-December to early March. Sometimes the remaining assortment is left for a later date, allocating a special area for it on the trading floor.
When will the spring sale start?
This is the most active period of discounts for spring collections. In some stores at this time there will even be the first summer discounts.
When there are discounts at dawn
From January 1, 2022 Russian ZARA will set discounts for the entire autumn-winter collection 2021-2022, which will increase gradually throughout January. The brand will “switch” to the maximum sale already from the middle of the month, and the rest of the things at favorable prices will be sold approximately until mid-February 2022.
When there will be discounts at dawn
June 21, 2022 The Russian ZARA app has warned shoppers of an impending sale. The company announced that the sale will begin on June 22, 2022.
What is Black Friday
Black Friday is a traditional sale day. Companies in various business areas use it as an informational occasion in their marketing strategy to increase sales, sell off inventory, convert potential buyers into customers and increase target audience loyalty.
What is 11 11 sale
World Shopping Day is an unofficial holiday, although it is celebrated today in almost all countries of the world. Every year, shops on November 11 arrange grandiose sales. Price cuts are comparable to what is happening on Black Friday or even more.
How to get Steam 3000
The Steam Trading Card can now be obtained by forging badges: The 2022 Summer Sale badge is called “Steam 3000”. It takes 10 trading cards to collect one badge. There is no word yet on what the icon levels look like.
When will there be discounts on Ali?
Which store is cheaper
The cheapest store was Pyaterochka. Four out of 10 products are sold there at the lowest price compared to the other two stores. In second place is the Perekrestok supermarket. The remaining six products are cheaper in it.
How to search for discounts
You can search for them in several ways:
- On the sites of the shops themselves. Offers are shown on a banner or in a pop-up window.
- In social networks. Brands cooperate with bloggers and provide them with promotional codes for discounts in their stores or services.
- In a search engine.
- On services with coupons and promo codes.
What is the meaning of Edadil
Edadil is an aggregator of discounts, special offers from retailers and cashbacks. The service is represented by free applications for iOS and Android, as well as a website. The head office of the company is located in Moscow, at the headquarters of Yandex.
How long is Cyber Monday
QUESTION: WHEN WILL CYBER MONDAY 2023 be? Answer: In 2023, Cyber Monday in Russia is scheduled for January 30th. The action will begin at exactly midnight and will last for three days.
When is Black Friday this year
In 2022, Black Friday will be held from 24 to 28 November. The sale starts on Friday night (on the border of the 24th and 25th), and its exact duration depends on the seller – you should check the terms of the promotion at the site where you plan to go shopping.
How many days until Black Friday
The official answer is that the promotion lasts one day and always falls on the last Friday of November. However, as in the whole world, the time limits of the action are blurred a little every year: for some services for 1-2 days, for others – for a whole month. And yet, the peak of sales in the States in 2022 will fall on November 24-26.
When will discounts on summer clothes be available? In August, the remnants are usually already sold out, but the discounts during this period are maximum.
At the end of August, School Bazaars usually start working.
What date is the discount in Magnit Cosmetic
20% discount on all goods is valid on the 15th day of each month in retail stores ”Magnit Cosmetic”. The 15th day of each month is the best day for shopping in the ”Magnit Cosmetic” network. Since on this day a 20% discount is offered on all goods presented on the shelves.
When does the Wildberry sale 2022
When does Wildberry Black Friday 2022 start and how long does the sale last?.11.2022. This means that you will have a week and a half to buy all your favorite items at discounted prices.
When will Steam discounts 2022
So, we are waiting for discounts and sales on Steam: Halloween Steam Sale 2022 – October 28 – November 1 Steam Fall Sale – November 24 – December 1 Steam Winter Sale – December 22 – January 5
When discounts in Poland 2022
When is Black Friday 2022 in Poland
In Poland, Czarny Piątek also falls on this date.
In 2022, Black Friday will be November 25th. However, many stores try not to limit themselves to just one day. Therefore, discounts can last longer.
How long is Cyber Monday
QUESTION: WHEN WILL CYBER MONDAY 2023 be? Answer: In 2023, Cyber Monday in Russia is scheduled for January 30th. The action will begin at exactly midnight and will last for three days.
Spring warming – discounts up to 50%
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