Steam’s Xmas Sale ’12 – Inevitable illogical investments

[The JG Man]

Sale rules:
1. Leave it to the last day of the sale to buy something you want unless it is a daily or flash deal. This reduces the chances of you missing out on further savings.
2. Before you buy a game, ask yourself if you’ll actually play the game. A game that is bought for 75% off but never played is a waste of 100%.
3. Make sure the game matches your value, not necessarily the price given. Remember, a game will always be cheaper in the future, or at the very least the same price. Given how long it takes to get to these prices, what are a few more months of potential waiting?

Also consider this incredibly important point:
Do you have a backlog? How about how many active games? Chances are yes and “quite a few”. With that in mind, are you actually going to be playing the games you get any time soon? If not, it’s not really worth getting them right away when you have other things you’ve already invested in (which in turn could shape what you want to purchase).

Useful links:
How Long To Beat – Users of the site enter the time it took them to complete and the time is then averaged. It can be used as a rough guide to let you know how long it’d take to complete a potential game if you’re concerned about length.

Steam Game Sales – Compares prices between various sites and Steam to find the best price. Also lets you see the games heavily discounted that are otherwise not on a time-determined sale.

CheapShark - Alternative to Steam Game Sales. I quite like the presentation of this. Also, it has a shark, which surely makes it stand-out above the rest.

RPS’s Advent Calendar – A potential buying guide for the best games of the year, as determined by the rulers of Castle Shotgun.

If you think there are other useful links, please let me know and I’ll add them in here.

General thread stuff:
1. Please ask about games you’re interested in. There’s a whole forum out there of people, many of whom are likely to have played the game you’re thinking of getting.
2. Feel free to post impressions of games that are on sale so that people can see what they’re getting involved with.
3. Keep general bargains from other sites in the bargains thread.
3a. Unless it’s because they’re doing a better offer than something on Steam. Amazon US seem to be attempting to price-match (or beat) Steam, so look out for that too.

[Velko]

An interesting technical point: Steam says that "We'll Tell You When Games on Your Wishlist are Daily Deals".

...how? By email? Or what?

[F. Lynx Pardinus]

...how? By email? Or what?

GabeN flies to your house on his sleigh.

[Velko]

GabeN flies to your house on his sleigh.

.....whoa.

[TheDreamlord]

I was not expecting it to start until xmas day.

[Tritagonist]

The sale is quite long this year, running through to January 5th; more than two weeks!

Fable III is one of those games I want to try despite it being quite negatively reviewed. But even with the 50% flash deal it's still €20,-, so I think I'll wait a while longer before getting this.

Of today's sales, Mirror's Edge should probably be in everybody's collection. I imagine it probably is at this point, but if you somehow managed to avoid it, €2,50 is a great price to get it. Wargame: European Escalation for €10,- is also quite interesting, though I wouldn't unreservedly recommend it to everybody; check some gameplay videos first.

As for the current flash sales; I'd avoid the Codemaster Operation Flashpoint games due to them being generally seen as terrible. Batman: Arkham City is kinda fun, though I never finished it due to getting rather bored of the, for me, impenetrable combat mechanics.

The THQ Collection - bankruptcy be damned, this is probably one of the best bangs-for-your-buck you'll get. For £20, it's a ridiculous steal. It's only exclusion appears to be Darksiders 2, which will no doubt be obtainable for cheap anyhow.

Agreed.

[The JG Man]

I believe it is by e-mail, possibly by notification after existing a game.

Whilst I'm posting, my run-down of things:
Mirror's Edge - wonderful and original first person platformer. Love it or hate it, but definitely worth trying. Note that you can't get the time trials DLC, that's Origin only. Phenomenal audio and visual design.
Hitman: Blood Money - great stealth game with well designed levels. Quite challenging, but not prohibitively so. Looks great.
Borderlands - if you're going to get 1, get the GOTY edition. Fun FPS-loot-a-thon, arguably better in co-op. 2 is more of the same, but some things tidied up. I was a little disappointed by it not really being significantly better than 1, but it's probably a better candidate to jump into and perhaps justifies skipping 1 if you haven't played any BL.
Scribblenauts Unlimited - I haven't played SU, but I have played Super Scribblenauts on my DS. I think it's fun. I think it's perhaps challenging to come up with variety after some time, but it's a suitably different game that's more relaxing and creative. I'm sure SU continues upon a good foundation and with a keyboard, probably makes it the best version.

The THQ Collection - bankruptcy be damned, this is probably one of the best bangs-for-your-buck you'll get. For £20, it's a ridiculous steal. It's only exclusion appears to be Darksiders 2, which will no doubt be obtainable for cheap anyhow.

[Roufuss]

Jagged Alliance 2 is 80% off and $4 -- I really doubt its getting any cheaper and its absolutely worth that price.

Sacred Gold is also 80% off and only $2. Pretty decent deal also.

A lot of these other sales, including the daily sales, seem like not as steep discounts as we've seen in the past at least to me.

[Similar]

Well, so far the thing I mainly notice is Scribblenauts Unlimited at 33% off and then the "This game will unlock in approximately 2 months, 1 day and 0 hours" message.

They have got to be kidding.

[Flint]

An interesting technical point: Steam says that "We'll Tell You When Games on Your Wishlist are Daily Deals".

...how? By email? Or what?

You get an email. I had one of these a few days back.

[gundato]

I would consider grabbing JA2 at GoG instead of Steam. I am not sure if they ever fixed the infinite money glitch.

Also a shame that the Borderlands 2 DLC isn't on sale.

[Unaco]

Dammit... I'll probably buy Bantam AC, because I've been meaning to get it the last 2 sales or so. And it's £5. Of course, that also means that I'll go and spend another £5 on something, to bring the total up to £10, so I don't have the spare 5 or so quid floating in my account.

[TechnicalBen]

I will not buy anything. I will not buy anything. (I got a game last weekend!) So I will not buy anything!

[airtekh]

Natural Selection 2 is 60% off on one of the first flash sales, and in my totally, not-at-all biased opinion, it is one of the best games of the year.

As to whether you should buy it:

1) Do you like multiplayer games?
2) Do you like games which require teamplay?
3) Do you like first person shooters?
4) Do you like a purpose or strategy to the aforementioned shooting?
5) Can you follow orders from someone (or take the initiative yourself)?
6) Are you willing to communicate with your team?

If you answered yes to all these questions, then what the hell are you reading this for!? Buy NS2!

[The JG Man]

They have got to be kidding.

On the plus side, 33% discounted pre-order! That's really lame. The game exists in Steam, why the hell can it not just be released over here? What a joke.

[Roufuss]

I would consider grabbing JA2 at GoG instead of Steam. I am not sure if they ever fixed the infinite money glitch.

That's been fixed for awhile now. I played it through on Steam last year and had no problems whatsoever.

[Faldrath]

On the plus side, 33% discounted pre-order! That's really lame. The game exists in Steam, why the hell can it not just be released over here? What a joke.

The game is available in the Americas, hence the offer, I guess. Either that or that "the game isn't available in your region" crap.

[Kiril]

The THQ Collection - bankruptcy be damned, this is probably one of the best bangs-for-your-buck you'll get. For £20, it's a ridiculous steal. It's only exclusion appears to be Darksiders 2, which will no doubt be obtainable for cheap anyhow.

I see Darksiders 2 in the THQ pack €25 in Ireland - http://store.steampowered.com/sub/18778/​

[SirKicksalot]

5Hitman's a bit cheaper for UK folks here

[gundato]

That's been fixed for awhile now. I played it through on Steam last year and had no problems whatsoever.

Ah, cool. Then get it wherever