Valve is changing how discounts work on Steam to let creators put their games on sale more often.
After March 28, 2022, the cooldown time between discounts on Steam will be reduced to four weeks from six weeks, meaning there must be a minimum of 28 days between the end of one discount and the start of another.
The new rule will apply to all types of promotions and discounts across Steam, with the only exceptions being Valve's own four major store-wide seasonal sales: Lunar New Year Sale, Summer Sale, Autumn Sale, and Winter Sale.
The company explained the new rules are intended to make discount eligibility more predictable while providing more participation opportunities throughout the year. The addition of new bulk discounting tools (now in open beta) will also let Steam developers view all of the promotions for which their titles qualify for in one place.
The toolkit will offer options to filter for specific games and events, register for participation, and set discounts. It will also flag when a game is eligible for promotional events that are within the cooldown period.
For more information on Valve's new approach to discounts, be sure to check out the full blog post. Anybody after a more immediate rundown can find Valve's latest specific discounting rules below.
Specific Discounting Rules
- You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
- It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
- Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
- Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
- You may not change your price while a promotion is live.
- It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
- Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day