Steam+ Deals Mega Thread (All PC Gaming Deals)

Neuro5i5

Neuro5i5

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This thread will attempt to provide a place to discuss past/present/future PC gaming deals. While mainly focusing on Steam games, any standout sales may also be presented. I will not be updating every Daily/Weekly/etc. sale. The tools to help individuals become a smarter shopper will be provided below.

See this POST for links to store sale pages, threads of interest and other tools to help you become a more informed PC game shopper.
 
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I hear it's more fun if you sit around your house idling games like OotP Baseball 18 and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

 
Chrono is back up.

Also, I, for one, did not mind, the "simpler" "puzzles" in Telltale Games' "games."  Pixel "hunting" for a clue, or lever, or button, was never, my idea of fun.  Putting a "chicken" into a door knob so it'll lay an egg and crack it and lube up the keyhole so I can open the door was never my idea of a clever puzzle.  Sure, there's something in between and games have done it better, but the TTG games had some charm to them.

 
Sad to see TellTale Games go under, especially for all those employees that lost their jobs without severance. I loved Sam & Max, Walking Dead, and Wolf Among Us. Really bummed out about the second season of Wolf Among Us. They would be in a better situation if they focused more on fixing their buggy game engine and changed up the formula a bit. All those expensive licensed properties killing their profit margins didn't help either. 

 
FoxAssGamer said:
Chrono is back up.

Also, I, for one, did not mind, the "simpler" "puzzles" in Telltale Games' "games." Pixel "hunting" for a clue, or lever, or button, was never, my idea of fun. Putting a "chicken" into a door knob so it'll lay an egg and crack it and lube up the keyhole so I can open the door was never my idea of a clever puzzle. Sure, there's something in between and games have done it better, but the TTG games had some charm to them.
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Agree with the Fox on this one. I'm old enough to remember the Babel fish puzzle in Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that was just the beginning of this sort of nonsense. I've stopped and started Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened two or three times because I had trouble getting past the first "level," and then when I got to the asylum, it got even more ridiculous from there. Personally, I favor the side of putting relatively-straightforward puzzles that don't require the most circuitous of video-game logics to solve and/or massive quantities of backtracking in your game so that players can enjoy an entertaining story (which that game promised to have) instead of just serving as the electronic equivalent of a discipline [this one]). The experience has made me shy away from any Frogwares games, even though I am a big SH fan.

 
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warreni said:
Agree with the Fox on this one. I'm old enough to remember the Babel fish puzzle in Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and that was just the beginning of this sort of nonsense.
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There were certainly text adventure puzzles prior to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though the puzzles in that one were rather, er, convoluted for a very good reason.

 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:
"Telltale hit with class-action lawsuit for breaking labor laws"

https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/25/17901106/telltale-layoffs-lawsuit-warn-act
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escalated.gif
 
Hundreds of employees? How many Telltale employees does it take to design a crappy visual novel puzzle? 100. 1 to design the puzzle and 99 to go OOOOOOOOOWWWW DEEEEP EMOSHUNALZ CHOIZZZEZZZZ!!!!

If you want to know the problem with a lot of modern games and gaming look no further than Telltale. It basically had a AAA type attitude/model the last several years and look where it got them. Shallow not-games that somehow require hundreds of employees to develop. Meanwhile Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, that looks like an amazing spiritual successor to Privateer or Freelancer took three people to develop.

None of my sleepless nights or long hours on weekends trying to ship a game on time got me severance today. Don’t work overtime unless you’re paid for it, y’all. Protect your health. Companies don’t care about you.— Brandon Cebenka (@Binkysaur)
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How did this company have hundreds of employees working such long hours and produced so very little? First, since Telltale produced episodic games... none of them really shipped on time. Second, even excusing the episodic nature... they tended to be long delays between episodes. Third... what takes so long to design? The 'mash A to escape the zombie bite' part of the game?

 
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Another gem: they were based in the Bay Area. Why do all of these developers set up shop in the most expensive place to live/rent office space in US? You can develop a computer game anywhere there are computers and electricity!

 
Mooby said:
How did this company have hundreds of employees working such long hours and produced so very little? First, since Telltale produced episodic games... none of them really shipped on time. Second, even excusing the episodic nature... they tended to be long delays between episodes. Third... what takes so long to design? The 'mash A to escape the zombie bite' part of the game?
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Probably their own propriety Telltale Engine for their games:

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/pg5k9n/telltales-ancient-technology-is-now-badly-hurting-their-games

It's littered w/ bugs, performance issues, animation issues, doesn't come w/ physics tools (so they have to actually animate and roll the ball itself by hand or drop a book from a shelf, which takes lots of resource w/out tools), have save issues sometimes (with importing your choices from episode-to-episode), etc etc.

 
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Mooby said:
Another gem: they were based in the Bay Area. Why do all of these developers set up shop in the most expensive place to live/rent office space in US? You can develop a computer game anywhere there are computers and electricity!
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Yeah I've never gotten that. I get if you want it in a city or whatever, but why a bunch of developers do this in one of the priciest locations I don't know

 
pasports31 said:
Yeah I've never gotten that. I get if you want it in a city or whatever, but why a bunch of developers do this in one of the priciest locations I don't know
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Its this self perpetuating cycle. Companies believe they need to be in SF in order to find and attract the best talent. Devs then think they have to be in SF in order to get the good jobs and have good prospects at job hopping. Neither of which is true. Any time a HR person contacts me from a company in SF I immediately tell them no. I know what devs of my experience level make there, and in order to keep the same standard of living they would have to double my salary of what I make now, which they wouldn't even come close to doing, let alone a raise on top to sweeten the deal. It's just not worth it unless you are young, dumb, and looking to job hop for 5 years

Its the same reason the company I work for insists on having their offices in the center of downtown for devs, thinking it attracts better talent, when really they could be in the 'tech center' suburb and everyone could have an easier commute, cost of living, etc.

 
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On a similar note they also got caught in the cycle of hiring more and more people requiring them to take on more and more licensed titles or they took on more and more people to keep up with agreeing to do all of these licensed titles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fordPXp06h4

Sort of reminds me of what happened with Gas Powered Games -- you need to curb your growth and not just hire people based on ambition/speculation. The common trend these days is the number of people working on a video game is inversely proportional to the quality of the game itself.

When you hire so many people you stop worrying about the quality of your games and more about marketing and making a profit or, at the least, selling enough to make payroll. You cease being a game developer and become some privatized form of social security -- that you're 'obligated' to make sure your employees still have jobs and health insurance even when the market dictates you probably should not have used fifty people to work on cell shading.

 
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What I can't wrap my mind around is how Mooby keeps praising a game that isn't even out yet, let alone isn't a European RPG over ten years old. Or a skin.

Did his account get hacked?
 
Souffrir said:
What I can't wrap my mind around is how Mooby keeps praising a game that isn't even out yet, let alone isn't a European RPG over ten years old. Or a skin.

Did his account get hacked?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTt667dTPbU

Seriously, 'doe... when you have a three-man developer team that has responsiveness like this versus a crew of two hundred character artists who go 'muh benefits' when their 'takes-a-year-to-release-the-entire-game-in-episodic-format' not-game studio crumbles... you can see why I'd be prone to hype the former and disparage the latter.

Travis Baldree and Eric Schaefer have been around a long time and the only relative 'flop' they had was Helllgate London. Note I'm fairly critical of Max Schaefer staying in bed with Perfect World for what will probably be a P2W MMO version of Torchlight so the old Blizzard North guys don't get a complete pass.

At the least I think the demise of Telltale should be a 'teaching moment' to young and/or aspiring game designers. Sometimes it's better to focus on smaller projects where the pay might not be as high and you work in Bellevue, WA or some obscure suburb of California versus living the hipster-dream life in San Fran where you have allusions of making $250,000/yr. and banging supermodels. Especially when inevitably your skill-set/experience is limited to painting the eyebrows on zombies.

And, really, that applies to all walks of life. I'm sure tons of people are driven by the charm of living in a major population hub for no other reason than... the charm of living in a major population hub. They'll take what are effectively lesser/menial jobs just for the sake of location versus going a bit off the beaten path to pursue something more intellectually fulfilling that gives better experience.

 
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sasquatc4 said:
Its this self perpetuating cycle. Companies believe they need to be in SF in order to find and attract the best talent. Devs then think they have to be in SF in order to get the good jobs and have good prospects at job hopping.
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Well, when you treat your staff like migrant farm workers, you need a ready supply of local talent. Hard to convince people to move to Lincoln, Nebraska so they can work on your game for 14 months, get fired after launch and enter the exciting world of part-time office tech support while waiting for the one game studio in town to start hiring again.

 
Syntax Error said:
Well, when you treat your staff like migrant farm workers, you need a ready supply of local talent. Hard to convince people to move to Lincoln, Nebraska so they can work on your game for 14 months, get fired after launch and enter the exciting world of part-time office tech support while waiting for the one game studio in town to start hiring again.
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This goes to long-term career goals/choices. These jobs with places like Telltale are a trap. I think a lot of younger professionals think they are a path to stability or making it big in the industry. If you have some big name company on your resume surely you will get tons of job offers in the future, right?!?! The reality is most of these positions are disposable and you're just a cog in the machine. When you get too costly you'll be replaced with someone younger willing to work 80 hours a week for less pay.

And the problem is you're only focusing on one particular aspect versus getting a macro view of development like you would at a smaller studio. Stuff like that would help you in the future if you ever wanted to launch your own small/solo studio. High immediate 'prestige' jobs don't translate into long-term stability in the game industry.

 
Somewhere in the Groupees torture basement, Motoki was just given this news.

I'll just say I have no clue WTF this actually means though, as I had no idea Big Fish did anything BUT casino and casual games: “We are sharpening our focus to only develop social casino and casual games — genres where we have earned the right to lead the market.”  

Also the guy comes from EA and Zynga so I expect Match 3 games with lootboxes soon.  And yes I know these most likely exist already on some shit mobile game.

 
I, for one, am going to miss those Big Fish developed competitive first person shooters.

Credit to Big Fish for having one of the only "pay up front" Match-3 games on Android.  Jeers to Big Fish for barely having any "pay up front" Match-3 games on Android and the rest being the usual microtransaction bullshit.

Also they never made an Android version of Kitten Sanctuary so screw those guys.

 
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sasquatc4 said:
Its this self perpetuating cycle. Companies believe they need to be in SF in order to find and attract the best talent. Devs then think they have to be in SF in order to get the good jobs and have good prospects at job hopping. Neither of which is true.
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Yea, but then you have a different problem. Tellltale games and 38 Studios (Amalur) relocated people and immediately went defunct. For Telltale, at least they have hundreds of places to be employed by, since they're in SF. If you're in like Oklahoma, it'd be that much harder to not have to immediately relocate, especially if there's no severance.

Edit: Should have read on before replying, since Syntax already said what I said.

 
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INMATEofARKHAM said:
That didn't take long... Guessing sales are not as good as they hoped. An Alpha and two betas and I can honestly say the game is trash. Don't waste your time downloading it. You're not going to play it.

The first one I still approve of... The story/cutscene are so bad good!

https://youtu.be/YERFOx_3-R8
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I would guess masterful open-world racers like Forza Horizon 3 and probably the upcoming FH4 are killing them.

FH4 is getting great reviews, BTW.

 
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Sorry to interrupt the general gaming forum with deals, but here goes...

I've been playing Pillars of Eternity a lot lately. Lots of people got it in the Humble. On my second playthrough, I started wishing I had more to explore -- i.e. The White March 1 and 2 expansions. They're well-regarded.

Green Man Gaming has the White March Expansion Pass (WM1, WM2, and Royal Edition Upgrade) for $14.99, but if you add NORDIC15 at checkout it drops to $12.74

The regular price is annoyingly high, good sales are infrequent, and the lowest it's been is $9.99... back in 2016.

 
It's annoying when DLC ends up being more expensive than the base game. Wish more publishers offered complete your collection bundles on Steam. Deus Ex Mankind Divided makes it quite cheap and convenient to buy the Season Pass DLC, especially if you own all of the Deus Ex games. Witcher 3 should have a similar offer for those who have all the Witcher games but are missing Witcher 3's Season Pass DLC. It's not that expensive but a slightly better discount would be nice, especially for a game where Steam owners are at the mercy of the Steam store. 

And having gone through a decent amount of Lego City Undercover, definitely ranking it as my favourite Lego game. PC port isn't the best, but I have things smoothed out with Special K fixes. Great open world with a great amount of density and some of the mechanics, like combat, are pretty easy but deeper than some of the other Lego games. Vehicles are better and more meaningful than in Lego Marvel Superheroes, and the open world is more interesting too. Some technical aspects, such as the lack of an explorable subway network under the second island, betray the Wii U roots. Also enjoying Lego Jurassic World so far. 

 
That Nordic15 coupon also makes the Cities Skylines DLC for Green Cities & Mass Transit $5.52 each which are historic lows by a dollar or so. Paradox hates running those DLC at a decent sale price.
 
MysterD said:
I would guess masterful open-world racers like Forza Horizon 3 and probably the upcoming FH4 are killing them.
FH4 is getting great reviews, BTW.
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I'm ready. I turned in all my bing points and emptied out my Microsoft wallet and got the ultimate Edition for 23 or 28 bucks. Dont remember which.

Anyhow, need to get back into doing bing searches for next years game.
 
weretable said:
Somewhere in the Groupees torture basement, Motoki was just given this news.

I'll just say I have no clue WTF this actually means though, as I had no idea Big Fish did anything BUT casino and casual games: “We are sharpening our focus to only develop social casino and casual games — genres where we have earned the right to lead the market.”

Also the guy comes from EA and Zynga so I expect Match 3 games with lootboxes soon. And yes I know these most likely exist already on some shit mobile game.
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I'm just fascinated by the fact that the president of "Big Fish Games" is a dude named "Karp".

 
So I went a bit too high end on my new monitor and card in winter so I had to wait a while to go back to working on my new system.  I'm back to that now since prices of a few things are a bit lower at the moment and who knows what prices will do in regards to tariffs, whether the tariffs are actually to blame or sellers just use them as an excuse to raise prices.

I bought 16gb of memory, a new SSD and a new PSU and I know which motherboard and CPU I want (Rog Maximus X Hero AC WI-FI and 8700k) so the main things I have left to decide on is the CPU cooler and case.    I am leaning towards a couple high-rated but inexpensive coolers since I want to do a custom loop (mostly because I have never did that and it sounds like something fun to do in winter, tbh) and do not want to spend a lot on something I am going to replace soonish anyway.

I also think I have decided on the case I want and naturally it is a new one that is out of stock everywhere.  

Still considering other options but I just like how much you can do with that one, especially the myriad drive placement possibilities and the friendliness for water cooling.  

I kinda like the looks of the Corsair 570x but it has too many drawbacks that have convinced me to avoid it.  I could get something like a View 71 right now and not have to wait for someone to have the Evolv X in stock and I would have plenty of room to work with but it is another super heavy case and while I like the looks of it for the most part they overdid the glass a bit.  Most of the other popular cases just do not have the space I want, or are even more expensive than the Evolv and $200 for a case is already ridiculous.

I even considered full on insanity and getting a Tower 900 or something, but that completely defeats the purpose of trying to get a smaller case than I currently have since it is basically an aquarium for your PC.

tldr - Anybody have any other case suggestions that would give me plenty of room to work with without costing even more or being large enough to hold a large quantity of fish?

 
Yeah that's a classy Phanteks case.  The swinging tempered glass doors are especially nice.  I'm not sure how good the airflow is on that one though, I'd have to see it in person. 

Personally, I've been waiting for a flash sale on the NZXT 700.   It's normally $149.99 and rarely goes on sale.  But I'm hoping to find one for ~$100 by Black Friday. 

large_c505af5ead6f95ea.jpg


I'm still considering getting a case that has space for an optical drive though, and I'm sick of the nerds at microcenter telling me that optical drives are outdated and that I don't need one.  TBH, that's the one thing that really bugs me with all of the new age cases;  none of them have optical drive bays.  As if going full unicorn slaughterhouse RGB is more practical or something.  They all prioritize style and sleak, tight-fitting form factor; many of the expensive cases are completely smothered in tempered glass and can't breathe properly.     That's why a lot of people still buy something like the one hostly posted.

 
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weretable said:
tldr - Anybody have any other case suggestions that would give me plenty of room to work with without costing even more or being large enough to hold a large quantity of fish?
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Anything fractal design. I have a R5 blackout and love it. All of their bigger cases come standard with sound dampening foam, so I never hear anything out of the case. Usual fan screens on anywhere you can put a fan, cable routing holes everywhere, modular drive areas.

Just all around great cases, always recommend them to friends and everyone I know who's gotten one has been happy. They are not flashy though, so if you're looking for something to stand out fractal is not it. Your choice is basically window or no window.

http://www.fractal-design.com/home/definer5landingpage

They are also up to an R6 now, though Im not sure whats different, and have a bunch of other options. The r5's at least are pretty well priced IMHO usually like 100-150$

 
Some of those newer cases are mighty pretty but my computer lives under my desk and, even if I put it up top, the only ones to look at it are me, my wife, our kids and the cat.  None of them are likely to be super impressed by the glowing glass box.  So I rank function over form and go with a decent looking but functional mesh front case.

 
Nothing371 said:
I'm still considering getting a case that has space for an optical drive though, and I'm sick of the nerds at microcenter telling me that optical drives are outdated and that I don't need one. TBH, that's the one thing that really bugs me with all of the new age cases; none of them have optical drive bays. As if going full unicorn slaughterhouse RGB is more practical or something. They all prioritize style and sleak, tight-fitting form factor; many of the expensive cases are completely smothered in tempered glass and can't breathe properly. That's why a lot of people still buy something like the one hostly posted.
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External enclosures for optical drives are the easy solution there.

Syntax Error said:
Some of those newer cases are mighty pretty but my computer lives under my desk and, even if I put it up top, the only ones to look at it are me, my wife, our kids and the cat. None of them are likely to be super impressed by the glowing glass box. So I rank function over form and go with a decent looking but functional mesh front case.
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Sure. Though if you're setting up something in a main living area I can see with wanting to go all-in on looks.

 
gilby said:
Sure. Though if you're setting up something in a main living area I can see with wanting to go all-in on looks.
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Oh, sure. I don't blame anyone for wanting a nice case, just saying that I have to tell myself that it's not practical for my use case versus a more function if less artsy looking glass box.

 
My desk is in front of my window which gives me a nice view of Japanese maples and other things in my front gardens when the blinds are open and my setup is part of my "view" so I like having something nice to look at.  Obviously I care less when gaming since I am focused on nothing but my monitor, but I sit here a lot doing other stuff and since moving my setup around when I bought a much larger monitor, I have realized that having an ugly case in my vision is a constant irritant.  ::shrug::

I liked my Thermaltake Armor case fine when it was in the floor but now that it is on the corner of a glass desk and constantly in my sight, whew it is ugly.  But I do put usability and ease of adding things to the build over aesthetics.  I just want something that is easy to build in and is also at least nice looking, even if it isn't going to exactly turn heads.  I've seen "prettier" cases for higher prices than anything I am looking at and since they offered nothing other than fancier looks over what I already had in mind, I marked them off the list right off the bat.

Anywho, I ordered my cpu/mobo.  Not insanely good prices but as good as any deals I have seen in the last few months outside of Microcenter, the closest of which is over six hours from here.  I am still debating on getting a case today rather than waiting on the Evolv X since anything else I am looking at is cheaper and the demand for the Evolv is high enough that even if Newegg or someone else gets some in in a week, there is no guarantee they will not sell out before I can get one anyway.  And I don't want to sit on parts for a month waiting to get a case.

 
Syntax Error said:
Oh, sure. I don't blame anyone for wanting a nice case, just saying that I have to tell myself that it's not practical for my use case versus a more function if less artsy looking glass box.
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My PC sits on my desk in view, but in a side room. Basic and black is fine. A window, if I had one, would face a bookshelf full of boardgames.

My HTPC is in a case designed to fit in the footprint of, say, a stereo receiver. It's the only case I bought specifically because of size and looks. It's clean and functional. I also hate working with it. Gonna replace it with something that gives me more room to maneuver, and make sure to hide it away a bit.

I have an old case from 18-20 years ago in my closet (with the components of an old build in it.) Beige with blue accents. The beige has the yellowing that old PCs and components from the 90s always seem to. I've toyed with the idea of overhauling it for better airflow and going with a retro look.

weretable said:
Anywho, I ordered my cpu/mobo. Not insanely good prices but as good as any deals I have seen in the last few months outside of Microcenter, the closest of which is over six hours from here. I am still debating on getting a case today rather than waiting on the Evolv X since anything else I am looking at is cheaper and the demand for the Evolv is high enough that even if Newegg or someone else gets some in in a week, there is no guarantee they will not sell out before I can get one anyway. And I don't want to sit on parts for a month waiting to get a case.
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I mean, you could just take a look on slickdeals or /r/buildapcsales and grab whatever's decent and on sale. You can probably get something good enough for easily less than $50, probably less than $30. If you really like the look of the Evolv X I'd say go with something that works for now and plan on watching for a future sale. (Always nice to have a backup case around, really. PSU, too. Not so much on the GPU these days, though.)

 
Amusingly the Evolv was in stock this morning at Newegg briefly but I didn't notice the auto-notify email until after it was sold out.  They were estimating more stock on 10/5 so I wasn't really expecting anything this week.  It did have the backorder option though instead of just auto-notify this time so I went ahead and ordered one for whenever they do get them in again.  I can always cancel if I decide another case will work as well for me.  If there is no update on estimated stock arrival in a week or so I might get a cheap temporary case or even empty this one and use it to check everything out.

I do not mind waiting even a couple of weeks to put everything together, I just do not want to wait so long that I might run into hassles if anything is DOA.

 
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