How to Spend Your Money on Steam

For those that have used it, Steam is a great service that leads the way among its digital distribution service competitors with all its whistles and bells. Despite its great features it offers a slew of promotions throughout the year that can save you big money. Promotions on well-known titles can be seen even as high as 90 percent on the right day. Since there is really no reason to spend your money frivolously, it best to know when and how much to use to get the greatest possible benefit. The rest of this article will guide you through this process.

Steam promotions can be broken down into three main categories: every week deals, publisher week long deals, and special once-in-a-blue-moon sales. Every week deals include daily deals, midweek deals, and weekend deals. These are the most frequent deals that Steam offers and they vary quite wildly in discount. Sometimes the discount is just 33 percent and sometimes it is 75 percent or more. Publisher week long deals come in streaks throughout the year. Each day they will offer a game a really discounted price and their other games at a lesser discount. All week long the publisher's catalog will be offered at an even better deal if you purchase all of their games at once. Lastly, there are the once-in-a-blue-moon sales. They consist of the summer sale and the winter sale. These are by far the best sales during the year. The majority of titles will be offered at a discount. Publisher's catalogs will be offered at one price during the duration of the sales period at a heavily discounted price. This is when you most likely get the most value out of your purchase during the year. Then there are also daily deals which will offer the best price during the sales period if you just want to purchase a single title or a franchise of games.

As an inexact rule of thumb, the greater the frequency of the sale, the lower the discount; conversely, the smaller the frequency of the sale, the higher the discount. In other words, the daily deals are on the lower end on the spectrum and since the summer and winter sales promotions are offered once a year they offer greatest opportunity for the biggest bang for your buck.

There are usually three ways to purchase games: individually, franchise packages, and publisher catalogs. If you eventually are going to purchase all the games that a publisher offers in their catalog, then purchase the publisher's catalog. If you really only want a franchise or two from a publisher, then determine if it is more cost effective to purchase the franchise bundle(s) individually or purchase the publisher's catalog(sometimes it is actually cheaper to purchase the publisher's catalog believe it or not). If you really just want a single game and nothing else, wait for a deal and then buy it. It really doesn't matter that much what promotion it is since the price won't vary that much. To make sure that you aren't missing out by purchasing a game individually and another one individually when they might be bundled together, click on a title and school down on the title's webpage. Any related bundles will be there.

To sum up, try to hold for the summer and winter sales, buy in bulk, and plan ahead so you know what titles you want now and in the future so achieve the greatest cost efficiency.