The Steam Deals Thread v10

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Daily Deal:
Please check the Steam homepage.

Weeklong Deals:
Steam usually has week-long deals that change on Mondays at 6PM UTC. They mostly feature indie games, and may not run every week.

Sale summary lists:

Key:
⤷ indicates DLC, — specifies part of a pack, + shows alternative versions, ⚠ highlights things worth knowing, ♫ is obvious, and ... denotes a multi-pack.

Holiday Sale 2013 | 19/12/13 through 3/1/14:
Days 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-14.

Spring/Autumn Sale 2013 | 27/11/13 through 3/12/13:
All days.

Steam deals on other stores: (Related threads on CAG.)

Indie* bundle threads: (*Not always indie, nor always a bundle.)

Free stuff:
There are quite a few free games (mostly Free to Play) and mods available via the Steam platform, a comprehensive list of which can be found in this thread on the SPUF.
(NOTE: free games are not permanently attached to your Steam account like actual purchases would be. You'll need to manually download a game again from the website if you uninstall it.)

Past Steam Deals Threads:

 
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Bizzquik said:
Honestly the news that Steam is stopping the trading of Russian-bought games to other regions is a game-changer for me. Yes, it was probably inevitable.

But in going this route, Valve and publishers....

[1] Kill the thrill of the hunt. Finding the best price on a game I will never actually play is part of the appeal of Steam for me. Its not just about a backlog, its about having an enormous collection in my Inventory. I accomplish nothing by having a large Inventory - literally no one cares - but I take a weird joy in knowing how many options I could potentially choose from at any moment. Or find enjoyment in giving some fun games away, etc.

[2] Make me buy less games. That's a given.

[3] Start to act like the console makers. I love the openness of Steam. The more you curtail how I acquire games, the more you resemble Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. And that is not a good thing for PC gamers.

We'll see where this leads. But I am not amused.
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gotta agre with u it gonna hurt steam more than help the publisher cause now they will have les people buying inssteead wait for bundles or amazon big sale sad but true

and

As a bonus to start the sale, fans can also find discounts on Anno 2070, Rocksmith 2014 and Trials Evolution: Gold Edition! what?? so it only at the start fuck so it back one daily deal afteer this oh man

 
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Bizzquik said:
Honestly the news that Steam is stopping the trading of Russian-bought games to other regions is a game-changer for me. Yes, it was probably inevitable.

But in going this route, Valve and publishers....

[2] Make me buy less games. That's a given.
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Yup, and i'm fairly certain that a healthy majority of non-bundle games I own were purchased via cheaper overseas prices. I wouldn't even have considered some of them at their normal US sale prices.

 
louiedog said:
When I got mine yesterday I had to use a different browser (cahce/cookie issue?) and went through 3 before I got a working one. It's also possible they're still working on it. Multiple people have confirmed getting them in the last few minutes though.
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I went from "run out of codes" to 3 separate codes that give error messages. Progress? Maybe I'll try again later.

Thanks for the different browsers idea. Worked for whatever reason.

4th code worked, back in original browser.

 
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Bizzquik said:
[3] Start to act like the console makers. I love the openness of Steam. The more you curtail how I acquire games, the more you resemble Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. And that is not a good thing for PC gamers.
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Total over reaction, imo. There are plenty of dirt cheap sales without resorting to .RU sourced copies.

 
Just a friendly warning to anyone considering Dark Sector, on anything other than a 4:3 monitor it breaks the rendering. I'll be zoomed in to the extreme with the graphics rendered in the wrong ratio, depending on your setup you'll either see things stretched vertically or horizontally,

 
Nukkus said:
Just a friendly warning to anyone considering Dark Sector, on anything other than a 4:3 monitor it breaks the rendering. I'll be zoomed in to the extreme with the graphics rendered in the wrong ratio, depending on your setup you'll either see things stretched vertically or horizontally,
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Can the game be played windowed?

If so I can deal with that.

 
Nukkus said:
Just a friendly warning to anyone considering Dark Sector, on anything other than a 4:3 monitor it breaks the rendering. I'll be zoomed in to the extreme with the graphics rendered in the wrong ratio, depending on your setup you'll either see things stretched vertically or horizontally,
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y u no tell me dis months ago

 
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:

 
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:
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Definitely this.

 
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:
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Makes sense since in general, film is run at 24fps.
 
asheskitty said:
Total over reaction, imo. There are plenty of dirt cheap sales without resorting to .RU sourced copies.
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Here's my frustration: I'm a Washington State resident. I have to pay taxes to both Steam and Amazon. I pay 8.4% more than other people as a result. So "dirt cheap sales" is a relative term.

Consequently, I buy 85% of my games from JakeNome, Krugozor, CheapSteam, iHEO, etc.

I probably buy 10% of my games in bundles.

And the rest from Amazon / Steam.

 
So, cross-trade restrictions... does this apply to codes from 3rd party places as well? Does it apply to family sharing? With this now being enforced I'm trying to size up how far the rule goes.

Reason I ask is because a friend from my city moved to Japan about a year ago and he's setup to be able to play my games through family sharing when I'm not playing (and works out good due to time differences). However I'm always gifting his broke ass games to play in co-op. Trying to figure out how much he's basically fucked on receiving stuff from me.

 
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:
Click to expand...
Here's an article that tries to explain 30fps vs 60fps in games synonymously with cinematic frame rates.

Basically, the higher frame rate = the less the brain has to fill in between the frames, increasing the realism of the medium (like the soap opera effect you see in television and film.) At 30fps, your brain has to make up the difference between the frames (interpolating through imagination), increasing "cinematic feel".

 
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CarnivalMadness said:
Here's an article that tries to explain 30fps vs 60fps in games synonymously with cinematic frame rates.

Basically, the higher frame rate = the less the brain has to fill in between the frames, increasing the realism of the medium (like the soap opera effect you see in television and film.) At 30fps, your brain has to make up the difference between the frames (interpolating through imagination), increasing "cinematic feel".
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I read this before, and felt the guy was full of crap. Movies and games are two different things. Higher frame rate is always better in games, that's my view.

 
Bizzquik said:
Here's my frustration: I'm a Washington State resident. I have to pay taxes to both Steam and Amazon. I pay 8.4% more than other people as a result. So "dirt cheap sales" is a relative term.

Consequently, I buy 85% of my games from JakeNome, Krugozor, CheapSteam, iHEO, etc.

I probably buy 10% of my games in bundles.

And the rest from Amazon / Steam.
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I blame fuck ing Obama and fuck ing Gabe and fuck ing Nihilists....not exactly in that order.

 
Yes.  For actual games with action and not a billion cutscenes higher FPS is always better.  Of course there's another debate at which point the price-to-performance/results ratio is cutoff because it takes some serious hardware to be able to get a consistent 100+ FPS at 1080; so most people shoot for 60.

 
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I read this before, and felt the guy was full of crap. Movies and games are two different things. Higher frame rate is always better in games, that's my view.
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Yea, I'm not sure either way. I think it depends on the game. Playing a racing sim, sports game, or FPS you would probably want as much realism as possible so it feels like you're actually in the game, so I would prefer 60fps. Games that revolve around its visual story telling, something like The Last of Us, I think I would prefer a cinematic feel.

I think artistically, whether a game should run at 30 or 60 fps is up to how the developer wants their game to feel visually. Whether a game CAN run a 30 or 60fps due to hardware limitations is a different problem altogether. I can see your point that some may use this as an excuse to cover up a console's limitations.

 
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Naked Snake Eyes said:
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:
Click to expand...
In cinema (and CG-animation) the director/cameraman has a lot of leeway to make thing just the way they want. However shooting at higher framerate limits the maximum (per-frame) exposure to 1/frame-rate (e.g. 24 FPS -> 41.6 ms). The long you expose for the more moving objects move an blur. They don't have to expose for the full 1/framerate though, they can expose for less. Higher frame rates however force shorter exposures thus limiting the amount of motion blur... resulting in a quicker series of sharper images.

Game rendering/cameras don't have anywhere near that sort of attention (and motion blur approximated/faked).

There is no one is better than the other. This is subjective.

CarnivalMadness said:
Here's an article that tries to explain 30fps vs 60fps in games synonymously with cinematic frame rates.

Basically, the higher frame rate = the less the brain has to fill in between the frames, increasing the realism of the medium (like the soap opera effect you see in television and film.) At 30fps, your brain has to make up the difference between the frames (interpolating through imagination), increasing "cinematic feel".
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#Bullshit explanation

I have some background in CG and have been to a number of seminars with folks in the CG and Film Production and Broadcast industries.

There are no absolutes. It's creative vision.

Bizzquik said:
Here's my frustration: I'm a Washington State resident. I have to pay taxes to both Steam and Amazon. I pay 8.4% more than other people as a result. So "dirt cheap sales" is a relative term.

Consequently, I buy 85% of my games from JakeNome, Krugozor, CheapSteam, iHEO, etc.

I probably buy 10% of my games in bundles.

And the rest from Amazon / Steam.
Click to expand...
There's more than just Steam and Amazon...

And BooHoo... My sales tax is higher at 9% ...and there's 9.5% within a couple miles.

And importantly, in WA you don't have state income tax.

 
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asheskitty said:
In cinema (and CG-animation) the director/cameraman has a lot of leeway to make thing just the way they want. However shooting at higher framerate limits the maximum (per-frame) exposure to 1/frame-rate (e.g. 24 FPS -> 41.6 ms). The long you expose for the more moving objects move an blur. They don't have to expose for the full 1/framerate though, they can expose for less. Higher frame rates however force shorter exposures thus limiting the amount of motion blur... resulting in a quicker series of sharper images.

Game rendering/cameras don't have anywhere near that sort of attention (and motion blur approximated/faked).

There is no one is better than the other. This is subjective.

#Bullshit explanation

I have some background in CG and have been to a number of seminars with folks in the CG and Film Production and Broadcast industries.

There are no absolutes. It's creative vision.

There's more than just Steam and Amazon...

And BooHoo... My sales tax is higher at 9% ...and there's 9.5% within a couple miles.

And importantly, in WA you don't have state income tax.
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fuck tax it scam to nsa the corruption of each every govt including colraod american and every country

it for spying on us tax

 
Draekon said:
So, cross-trade restrictions... does this apply to codes from 3rd party places as well? Does it apply to family sharing? With this now being enforced I'm trying to size up how far the rule goes.

Reason I ask is because a friend from my city moved to Japan about a year ago and he's setup to be able to play my games through family sharing when I'm not playing (and works out good due to time differences). However I'm always gifting his broke ass games to play in co-op. Trying to figure out how much he's basically fucked on receiving stuff from me.
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Keys shouldn't be affected. Those usually already -have- restrictions on them already (RU, BR, ROW, Germany / Australia / Asia low violence) so there's no change in that regard.

The only companies that seem to region lock stuff in Japan are Japanese companies - and they usually only restrict purchases in Japan - so he's probably fine.

 
Neuro5i5 said:
Better and Cinematic are also two different things. It has to do with how your brain processes the images your eyes perceive.
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CarnivalMadness said:
I think artistically, whether a game should run at 30 or 60 fps is up to how the developer wants their game to feel visually.
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So why games like L.A. Noire which potentially should gain more immersive gameplay with 'cinematic' feel caused a big uproar by being 30fps locked?

Games can't run too 'fluid', otherwise capping them to 30fps would have been a standard several years ago.

 
Bizzquik said:
Here's my frustration: I'm a Washington State resident. I have to pay taxes to both Steam and Amazon. I pay 8.4% more than other people as a result. So "dirt cheap sales" is a relative term.

Consequently, I buy 85% of my games from JakeNome, Krugozor, CheapSteam, iHEO, etc.

I probably buy 10% of my games in bundles.

And the rest from Amazon / Steam.
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Your problem is you don't buy enough bundles. I'm in Seattle so my tax rate is higher, like 9.something. It's annoying. Basically 10% extra, but it is what it is.

 
Oh noes... the great frame rate debate... again! Keep in mind, too, that film is displayed differently than computer images. Movies flash complete frames on the screen. Games are drawn line by line. Your eyes can detect that refresh at low rates.

iSerra said:
Bundle Stars The Reboot Bundle 1.0 - 6 Steam games for $2 (first 48 hours)

  1. Dark Sector
  2. Space Pirates and Zombies
  3. GTR Evolution (includes Race 07)
  4. Dream Pinball 3D
  5. Dino D-Day
  6. SpaceChem
  7. BONUS: SpaceChem - 63 Corvi DLC

This bundle is a mixture of some games from the previous Atomic Indie Bundle and Quickfire Indie Bundle.
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If you have none of these, the bundle is not bad. SPAZ is good, SpaceChem is a good puzzler, and I hear good things about GTR:E . While Dark Sector isn't winning any awards, it's not garbage either. That's all okay at $2.

 
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poxi said:
So why games like L.A. Noire which potentially should gain more immersive gameplay with 'cinematic' feel caused a big uproar by being 30fps locked?
Games can't run too 'fluid', otherwise capping them to 30fps would have been a standard several years ago.
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Because people are confusing artistic license with technical prowess. Hardware preventing >24fps is different than a videographer (or other field equivalents) choosing to shoot/render at that frame rate. Fluid movement can cause a loss of dramatic effect by having to cheat motion blur. Which is why in some games it's in the options menu.

 
Mooby said:
Yes. For actual games with action and not a billion cutscenes higher FPS is always better. Of course there's another debate at which point the price-to-performance/results ratio is cutoff because it takes some serious hardware to be able to get a consistent 100+ FPS at 1080; so most people shoot for 60.
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Considering most every AAA game is a console port from hardware that has the specs of an 8 year old laptop, there's no reason most game shouldn't run at 100fps aside from that fact the developers are lazy as hell.

 
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I wanna ask you guys' opinions on this reasoning I've been reading all over all of a sudden, that "cinematic games" look better at 30fps, and look weird at 60. That they look too "fluid" and remind you that it's just a video game. I think this is bullshit and has only cropped up with the new generation of consoles failing to deliver 60 most of the time, and people rationalizing it... is there any merit to this argument, cause it makes no sense to me. :?:
Click to expand...
Stop going to IGN, Snake, it's not good for you.

Bizzquik said:
Here's my frustration: I'm a Washington State resident. I have to pay taxes to both Steam and Amazon. I pay 8.4% more than other people as a result. So "dirt cheap sales" is a relative term.

Consequently, I buy 85% of my games from JakeNome, Krugozor, CheapSteam, iHEO, etc.

I probably buy 10% of my games in bundles.

And the rest from Amazon / Steam.
Click to expand...
Find a friend in another state, paypal him funds when you want to buy a game, and have him send it as a gift; problem solved.

I have to pay 9.45% to Amazon now on all my purchases but you don't see me complaining :nottalking:

 
asheskitty said:
There's more than just Steam and Amazon...

And BooHoo... My sales tax is higher at 9% ...and there's 9.5% within a couple miles.

And importantly, in WA you don't have state income tax.
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Wow, man. And you live in a free world with the right to vote and live as you see fit.
But let's get back to our conversation about Steam.

See, my point is that taking measures to end our trading with Russia users is a big deal for several of us on CAG. It doesn't just impact me - though as I mentioned making us use Steam directly during Sales disincentivizes several of us due to taxes on Steam purchases.

But think about our other CAG members. If I can give money to JakeNome and Krugozor AND save money in the process, of course I want to do that. That helps the CAG community. But Steam wants to take that away. Its a double-whammy. It could end my financial relationship with several great CAGs AND I have to pay taxes to boot. If Valve's actions hurt the community, it takes away a part of my enjoyment of Steam as a whole. i.e. A Big Deal.

If its not an issue for you, that's fine; I'm happy for you. But it is to me.

 
Bizzquik said:
See, my point is that taking measures to end our trading with Russia users is a big deal for several of us on CAG. It doesn't just impact me...
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So, that's gotta be like 0.001% of Steam's US sales. I don't think it'll impact Steam in a negative way in the slightest.

Will it impact me, sure. Will I do anything about it, nope.

 
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