Why are there no flash sales anymore?

[minibois]

Over these last two days I have heard a lot of people say there wont be any flash sales on Steam anymore. Why? They often say it has to do with refunds, but never go further into detail.. So why?

[typographie]

If they did Flash Sales, they'd have a huge rush of refunds every eight hours when the Flash Sales changed. A huge number of people who recently bought those games would likely request refunds so they could buy it at the reduced price.

[imreloadin]

4 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Over these last two days I have heard a lot of people say there wont be any flash sales on Steam anymore. Why? They often say it has to do with refunds, but never go further into detail.. So why?

I believe the last big sale they did they said they'd stop them and just have the lowest price the entire time.

 

Apparently too many people were complaining about buying a game at a smaller discount and then having it be on a flash sale for cheaper a day later.

[minibois]

10 minutes ago, typographie said:

If they did Flash Sales, they'd have a huge rush of refunds every eight hours when the Flash Sales changed. A huge number of people who recently bought those games would likely request refunds so they could buy it at the reduced price.

9 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

I believe the last big sale they did they said they'd stop them and just have the lowest price the entire time.

 

Apparently too many people were complaining about buying a game at a smaller discount and then having it be on a flash sale for cheaper a day later.

Oooooh, that makes so much sense..

Thanks guys

 

[ShadowCaptain]

11 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Over these last two days I have heard a lot of people say there wont be any flash sales on Steam anymore. Why? They often say it has to do with refunds, but never go further into detail.. So why?

 

Because people would buy the game for $20, then it would go on flash sale for $5 and everybody would get a refund and rebuy the game

[never_here]

huh... didn't know you could refund games.... other than the one zombie game that false advertised... lol

[minibois]

32 minutes ago, never_here said:

huh... didn't know you could refund games.... other than the one zombie game that false advertised... lol

You can return a game you have bought in the last 14 days and played less than 2 hours (if I remember correctly)

[Brandonsr]

Yeah the whole refund thing put an end to it. I can understand that people want to refund a game that doesn't work properly, but now its mostly refunds because people either change their mind, or want a cheaper price.

 

I liked it way better without the refund system in place.

[minibois]

6 minutes ago, Brandonsr said:

Yeah the whole refund thing put an end to it. I can understand that people want to refund a game that doesn't work properly, but now its mostly refunds because people either change their mind, or want a cheaper price.

 

I liked it way better without the refund system in place.

They should make it so you cannot buy a game in the next 14 days after you have returned it 

eg, I buy CSGO, I return it, want to buy it again, but Steam tells me "you cannot purchase CSGO for 14 more days". Something like that. Although you will have some trouble with Steam maybe not seeing the difference between a game and the GOTY version or whatever other version of it.

[typographie]

58 minutes ago, never_here said:

huh... didn't know you could refund games.... other than the one zombie game that false advertised... lol

Yup, Valve introduced a refund policy a few months ago. It's actually quite generous.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/
^^ For specifics.

[never_here]

3 hours ago, Brandonsr said:

I liked it way better without the refund system in place.

I think the refund policy is good.  But instead of withdrawing the sales, what they should do is what retailers do, price match.  If a game was purchased, but within 14 days, theres a sale of that exact game, you can post a request to refund you the difference. 

 

Personally, i think something like this can even be automated, so wouldn't require much work from valve, other than updating the store to allow that.  And it helps because its kinda unfair for some people to buy a game now, and next day, it goes 50% sale.  Its happened to me too, so it kinda sucks at times.  Plus, with that in mind, i think its better as more people will buy games, they know they will buy it at a good price.  

 

Lastly, to remove the refund policy would be terrible.  Refunds are great for many reasons.  But most importantly, for mistakes, sales, and idiotic siblings who hijack your pc in the 30 seconds you go take a piss to buy their games, or just games that plainly dont work as advertised.  

 

Also, this will work well with a policy that mention by @Minibois where you cannot purchase a game you just refunded.  This is good for people who just buy the game to play with a friend temporarily, or w/e the reason.  Price matching will work as long as its within the steam store, theres a sale, its within the 14 day period(or 30 days), and doesn't matter how many hours you put into it.  Sounds like it be a good policy at least... what you guys think.