Steam's Summer Sale date leaks, alongside loyalty program details

[Polycount]

In brief: We probably don't need to tell you that Steam's annual Summer Sale will take place again this year -- it's expected at this point, and Valve has never missed an opportunity to bombard its users with deals. Just as predictably, the sale's exact beginning and end dates have been leaked ahead of time courtesy of SteamDB.

SteamDB developer Pavel Djundik confirmed that 2020's Steam Summer Sale will kick off on June 25, with an end date scheduled for July 9. That's a pretty lengthy sale -- it'll run two weeks in total, which should give everyone plenty of time to take advantage of the many offers that it will undoubtedly bring.

We're not sure what sort of meta-event or minigames Valve might have planned for the Summer Sale, but lately, the company has been slacking off a bit in this department, so we hope it's something special this time around.

Confirmed now, Jun 25 to Jul 9

— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) May 8, 2020

In addition to discovering when the Summer Sale will begin and end, Djundik found some other interesting Steam details. For starters, he says Valve is working on some sort of loyalty awards program, complete with a point system, and the ability to redeem points for reward items, badge levels, and perhaps even game discounts.

Additionally, Valve is reportedly planning to expand upon its review reaction system. As it stands, users can rate user reviews as Helpful or Funny, but new reactions could include "deep thoughts," heartwarming, hilarious, "hot take," and poetry. Whether or not these reactions are necessary or even useful will probably be the topic of a debate or two among Steam fans.

Valve is working on loyalty awards/rewards. It has a point system, and a system to add reactions to user reviews.

Also includes reward items, redeeming points for badge levels, and possiblity game discounts.

— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) May 9, 2020

We'll likely need to wait a while before we see either of these features officially arrive on Steam (if they come at all -- Valve may choose to scrap them), but the rewards program sounds particularly interesting. I've been an avid Steam user and customer for well over a decade now, and I still shop there regularly -- if Valve wants to offer me freebies for doing so, I certainly won't say no.

We look forward to seeing what Valve has in store over the coming months.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/85185-steam-summer-sale-date-leaks-alongside-loyalty-program.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

DCS Modules Are probably all I am interested in

 

[psycros]

If they start letting people earn credit towards discounts or free games and its not a laughable rip-off like most such programs then I say bring it on. Nobody cares about their stupid game events so hopefully they'll skip that garbage entirely. But most of all we hope that the next sale isn't a complete joke like the last couple were.

 

[darkzelda]

Sadly, sales from Steam haven't been that awesome lately. In christmas I ended up spending a few bucks on Control and Star Wars Fallen Order from Epic Games Store

 

[MaitieS]

Sadly, sales from Steam haven't been that awesome lately. In christmas I ended up spending a few bucks on Control and Star Wars Fallen Order from Epic Games Store

Same. I am looking forward to what Epic vs. Steam will bring to customers but right now it is definitely much better for me to buy stuff from Epic than Steam especially from 3rd party sites.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Yawn, steam sales were good about 7 years ago. Since then it’s just the same old discounted crap we either already have or will never buy (payday, arma etc). Still no subscription service from steam and the app is so old it looks like software I used in school. Apparently they also take 30% of the money users pay for games on this crappy store, a lot steeper than other launchers who let developers take more of the profits.

 

[Flobberknock]

Same. I am looking forward to what Epic vs. Steam will bring to customers but right now it is definitely much better for me to buy stuff from Epic than Steam especially from 3rd party sites.

I'm still holding out on Control until it's launched on Steam this year - the #1 reason being the large feature set Steam provides, I use things like remote play to a Windows tablet from time to time and of course all my friends are in my Steam list.

I'm all for competition - it drives the market and keeps companies in check so I am interested in how Epic grows over the next few years, I'm not a fan of "Exclusives" so it's frustrating that they resorted to year long exclusives on their platform when they don't have feature parity (not even close) with Steam, but hopefully they'll get there at some point.

The other big issue I have with all these disparate platforms is that they all have their own ecosystem which makes finding what my friends are doing very painful at times, which I guess things like Discord tried to fix but without integrations to everything it just doesn't work very well. I'm really excited to see what GOG 2.0 can do for this issue as well, but again that's very clunky and not all platforms support all the things like friends list viewing or even chatting to them from the GOG 2.0 client.

One day I'd love to just see Steam, Origin, Epic, Uplay etc etc just be games stores, and then software like Discord or GOG are then used to access your friends list, games library in one cohesive manner, but let's face it that will never happen.

 

[ShagnWagn]

I agree with hoping different game stores compete in prices. There is only one game I am interested in at the moment. Waiting over 6 weeks for a sale may kill my desire to buy it. Hopefully not.

I hope there isn't some gimmick like a loyalty program/subscription or a bunch of hoops to jump through. Don't obscure the real price with smoke and mirrors. Just sell the game for the best price you can otherwise I will go to a competitor. Done and done.

I could really care less about "features" of a game client. Just give me my game, and without DRM (and without yet another client [gog]). Having all those features just cuts more money from the developer. Don't tie yourselves to a certain game client. Keep your friends connected outside of your game client so you are not tied down. This is what real gamers have done.

 

[Nobina]

Still no subscription service from steam.

Ah, subscriptions, my favorite.

 

[scavengerspc]

Subscription would be nice but Steam has over 31,000 games. I hate to think what they would have to charge.

 

[Ryan Barrett]

Steam sales haven't been good since they got rid of flash sales.