steam

Except in reality, checking my bank account like...

Okay, how do we get the mini-golf/doughnut feast mode combo going? And will there be a VR beverage cart? Because those both look highly entertaining and best enjoyed simultaneously.

OLOOLOOLOOLOOLOO!!!

You've got between now and January 4th to get in on the Steam Sale. Disregard Christmas, acquire games.

Go go go go!

Don't forget, daily and flash deals are a thing of the past, so there's no more waiting for the perfect moment; just get it or don't. If you're wondering why, you can most likely thank the refund system. With refunds in place, people would be able to return a sale item they already bought if they caught it at a lower price later, and that's just bad for business.

SteamDB has reportedly found a treasure trove of games coming to Steam, including Half Life 3. It's been a while since anyone has had an excuse to use a "Half Life 3 confirmed" meme, so now seems as good a time as any.

The leak comes from a minor change Valve made to Steam that revealed a bunch of package info:

Valve recently implemented functionality to automate some frequently asked Steam support questions such as permanently hiding a game from your Steam account and these package names being exposed are a result of them not hiding them when they added this. A similar issue occurred with app names as well.

The full list of games that may or may not be coming soon to Steam includes not only HL3, but Bad Rats Show. Check it out:

• Half-Life 3
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
• Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster
• Final Fantasy VI
• Bad Rats Show
• Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-
• Little King’s Story
• STEINS;GATE
• Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
• Sonic Boom
• Earth Defense Force 4.1
• Criminal Girls
• Stranger of Sword City

Believe if you want to, but it seems unlikely that Valve would be this careless. Third party developers are apparently able to name their packages whatever they want, so someone may have just been making a joke. 

The autumn Steam sale is supposed to start this Wednesday, but apparently there's no need to panic anymore; Steam sales will no longer feature flash and daily sales, but instead just flat discounted prices for the duration of the sale. Valve sent out a message explaining the change to developers and publishers:

We'll still be highlighting your top games on the front page for 24-48 hour spans, but those products will stay at their most competitive discount, before and after being featured

It's not a major change, but it does make the sale a lot more valuable for customers, and it allows us to build sale features that recommend your product all sale long, instead of just during its front page feature.

For a brand new release, if you can't get approval for your best discount for the full length of the sale, that's OK and we can work on a plan for that game. But the vast majority of your catalog should be running its best discount for the duration of the sale.

I guess that means this isn't relevant anymore. RIP, Lord of the Sales.