Steam Flash Sales Are Reportedly Returning

Flash sales are reportedly coming back to Steam soon, the quick sales that offer steep discounts before Valve ended the promotions years ago.

Just like flash sales for other platforms – such as the PlayStation flash sale that's going on right now – offer various discounts for a short time, may of the sales typically offering the games for less than half of their original price. Steam used to do so quite often, a trend that helped result in so many Steam players having huge backlogs of games, but Valve ended the practice back in 2016. That decision may soon be reversed, according to recent reports, albeit with some changes compared to the previous versions.

Tyler McVicker of Valve News Network (via PC Gamer) reported on Twitter that the PC game platform's flash sales will once again be returning with a few adjustments that allow Steam game developers to have more control over how long their titles are on sale. According to McVicker, the new flash sales will let developers set time limits for their sales that last as short a duration as six hours to double that with sales lasting 12 hours instead. This kind of limitation would likely add to the urgency of a flash sale, a change that developers will likely hope get more gamers in there to make their purchases before the deals end.

I've just been informed that @steam_games Flash Sales are returning, with a twist. Devs can chose for the sales to last 6, 8, 10 or 12 hours, shaking up sales almost every hour, and making sales feel more like an event again. pic.twitter.com/zbGtKYQBCt

— Tyler McVicker (@ValveNewsNetwor) August 3, 2018

McVicker also shared the image above as evidence of the upcoming return of the flash sales. The head of the Valve News Network YouTube channel said elsewhere that he's "sent this stuff all the time" and has a history of accurately reporting on changes that affect Steam.

The flash sales were previously a time when many Steam users would elect to buy their games instead of waiting for any other type of discount since these types of sales were usually the best possible time to get the games at low prices. There was always some uncertainty about when you should buy a game since people couldn't know for sure when a flash sale would happen, but even though the premise of the promotion is the suddenness of the sale, perhaps Valve will change them slightly to make it not feel as bad if you purchase a game before a flash sale, if they are indeed planning on bringing back the flash sales after all.