It is now day 10 of the Steam summer sale, leaving only 2 days left (including today) to participate in the sales and contest. Today I made up for the past few days of no purchases by buying a 4-pack of Terraria, Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum, and X3: Terran Conflict. I've heard good things about Terraria and have enjoyed it so far (and no, it's really not "2D Minecraft"). I've played Neverwinter Nights 2 before but have never played either expansion, so the good deal today gives me a chance to play all the way through. I bought X3: Terran Conflict after prodding from Propugnator, so we'll see how that goes.
The prize booth has 9 new tickets available. I've already earned tickets from Portal 2, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Altitude, and Steam, for commenting on a friend's screenshot. Added to a few more catch-up tickets, I'm at a total of 45. Those tickets have been redeemed for 15 prizes, and there is only one prize left for a game I actually own (some multiplayer skins for Serious Sam HD).
Below you can see today's list of daily deals, including five franchise sales. The games I mentioned above (Terraria*, Neverwinter Nights 2, X3: Terran Conflict) are worth checking out. Obviously, if you haven't yet played Portal 2, you should go purchase it right now and not stop playing until you complete it. The Hitman games are enjoyable but getting somewhat dated. Blood Money is probably the best choice if you only want to purchase one. I've also heard good things about both Dead Space games but haven't played either one yet. Duke Nukem Forever is already 50% off and still $24.99 too expensive. I would also avoid Supreme Commander 2, despite its very cheap price. I bought it at the same price in another sale and was generally disappointed with the game.
- Portal 2 - 50% off - $24.99
- Hitman: Blood Money - 75% off - $2.49 [Franchise Sale]
- Duke Nukem Forever - 50% off - $24.99
- Terraria - 50% off - $4.99*
- F1 2010 - 66% off - $10.19
- Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - 75% off - $8.74 [Franchise Sale]
- Prince of Persia - 75% off - $4.99 [Franchise Sale]
- Supreme Commander 2 - 75% off - $3.74
- Dead Space 2 - 50% off - $14.99 [Franchise Sale]
- X3: Terran Conflict - 75% off - $4.99 [Franchise Sale]
- Post Apocalyptic Mayhem - 75% off - $2.49
- Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum - 66% off - $6.79
*Initially, for approximately 5 hours, Terraria was listed as 75% off ($2.49 or $7.49 for a 4-pack). I bought the 4-pack at low price. The discount was then decreased to 50% off (doubling the price), even for those who had placed the game in their cart at its original discount. Whether this was a mistake on Valve's part or a change decided by the developers (Re-Logic), I feel that the change was not handled well.
If it was Valve's mistake, I'm fine with them fixing the price once they were made aware. But adjusting the price of copies already in users' shopping carts is a bad idea idea, especially with no real warning or notice given. I wouldn't be surprised if some users didn't notice the change and purchased copies at a higher price than expected.
If Re-Logic made a decision to change the price after the sale has already begun (is this even possible?), that would be incredibly sleazy. I think a communication screw-up between Valve and Re-Logic is the more likely cause, though. Similar price increases were made on a few other games during the summer sale.
Update: On Reddit, a Terraria developer explained that it was a mistake on Steam's part.
Update 2: In a post on the official Terraria forums, developer Blue gave a more detailed and extremely reasonable explanation/apology
Update: On Reddit, a Terraria developer explained that it was a mistake on Steam's part.
Update 2: In a post on the official Terraria forums, developer Blue gave a more detailed and extremely reasonable explanation/apology
"On a seperate note, I wanted to just make an apology about my not being around for the ‘situation’ with pricing on Steam this weekend. I was at Connecticon from Friday to Sunday. As for the issue itself, we did not intend the sale price to be 75% off at any time, so when the situation was noticed, it was corrected. Hence why it so quickly changed to 50% and caused so many so much grief. We’ve received many angry emails for people blaming us personally, and calling us greedy, but that is simply not the case here.
Poor Tiy has been dealing with it all weekend by his lonesome, and I give the guy credit for how well he’s handled the situation. When it comes to issues with pricing, purchasing and downloading, contacting Steam support would make more sense than contacting us. We do not handle distribution. It would be like blaming a food-product maker for a mistake a grocery store made in pricing. They just made the product, and besides telling the store what price they should use, they don’t control how it’s implemented by the sticker gun in the random stock persons hand.
We don’t feel Steam should get a bad rap for it either, as all it takes is a simple slip in human error to have a bad situation arise. And no one can be said to lead a mistake-less life. We appreciate our friends over at Valve and could not have brought the game to the world so readily without their help. So if you enjoy the game, and yet this situation has ‘upset you’. I would just have to say, please take it in stride and don’t let it put a sour taste in your mouth toward Re-Logic, or Steam. We’ve taken it in stride ourselves and to make it up to all of you will continue to do what we have been doing. Working towards bringing you an ever-increasingly enjoyable game to play."