Valve has revealed dates for all of its Steam discounts for the first half of 2022, including its big summer sale in July, and it’s also making some changes to its discount promotion policy that it hopes will make life easier for developers — and for gamers Provide more consumption opportunities.
The major promotion dates are as follows:
- Steam Next Fest: Focus on upcoming releases and playable demos – February 21-28 (22-29 domestically)
- Steam Next Fest: More upcoming games, more demos – June, no specific date announced
- Steam Summer Sale: Massive All-Steam Summer Banquet – June 23-July 7 (Domestic June 24-July 8)
Themed promotion dates are as follows:
Remote Play Together: This event showcases games with cooperative play modes, including the online, split-screen or shared screen. Any game that supports the Remote Play Together feature is eligible. (28 February to 7 March)
- JRPG (Japanese RPG): This event showcases Japanese RPG games. You know if you qualify. (March 14-21)
- SimFest (Simulator Festival) – Hobby Edition: For games that make work fun. Want to try out new careers and hobbies without years of training or a lot of expensive gear? These are your games. (28 March to 4 April)
Die-a-lot: Die, repeat, die again. Usually, this also involves some progress, but not always. Games with key game mechanics like Roguelike, Rougelite, Metroidvania, and Souls-like (May 2-9)
- Racing: Mercedes-Benz, Flying, Drifting. Race to be the fastest on wheels, on water or in the air. (May 23-30)
- Survive: Conquer territory, find food, and fend off merciless death. This event is for games that focus on surviving as long as possible. (July 18-25)
These are not the full list of events on Steam for the first half of the year. Valve says it will hold more theme sales throughout 2022 to showcase the many interesting (game) themes and genres that are popular on Steam, as well as regional sales and events organized by other third parties, such as PAX and Gamescom.
Valve is also making changes on the developer side, hoping to make discount eligibility more predictable and provide more engagement opportunities throughout the year. Under current rules, there must be a 6-week cool-off between game discounts, except for the big seasonal sale. The new policy reduces the cooldown to 28 days from March 28, excluding seasonal promotions.
Here’s a full rundown of the new rules:
- You can choose to activate the discount, but once the activation discount ends, you will not be able to activate any other discounts for 28 days.
- Your product cannot be discounted for 28 days after the price of any currency has increased.
- Discounts cannot run within 28 days of your previous discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
- Discounts for seasonal promotions cannot be opened within 28 days of your game’s release, 28 days after release discounts end, or 28 days after any currency price increase.
- You may not change the price while the promotion is running or planned in the future.
- Product discounts cannot exceed 90% or fall below 10%.
- Custom discounts cannot last more than two weeks or less than 1 day.