Game Sales, Deals, and Giveaways

[Moonface]

Skyrim is in the horror category because it's absolutely horrific how poorly that game is optimized still.

What games did you want to pick up and did you get any yet? I checked the game purchases thread in case you put it there but saw it was just for a new monitor.

Also for everyone who does enjoy Steam discounts (which is surely everyone right?) I just saw that Steam has announced they are reducing the time frame that must pass between discounts on a game. The previous rules required between 30-42 days to pass between discounts, depending on the type of discount; the new rules now reduces that window to a universal 28-day time frame. However, prices can't be changed while a promo is live and a product can't be discounted for 28 days after a price increase in any currency. Source
This should be nice since it means discounts will probably become more frequent now. I'm curious to find out what type of discount resulted in a 42 day waiting period to see if they were the bigger ones or not, since if they are that means we'll potentially see bigger discounts more often now rather than just smaller ones.

[Dragon Lord]

I'm waiting until payday (Friday) to buy the games I want. I believe the sale goes until Saturday (the 5th), so I'll have time to do my purchasing on Friday when I get home from work.

As for what I plan on buying, so far I have these on my list:

Ara Fell (Loved this game when I played it on PS4, so definitely picking it up on Steam to play through again)
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (fourth time getting 100% in this game lezgoooo)
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Grandia HD Remaster

Those are the ones I'm picking up for sure, and yes, all but Grandia HD Remaster are games I've platinum'd on PS3/PS4/Vita. Gonna go for that sweet, sweet double dip on Steam now. I will be adding a few more games to this list most likely, just now sure which ones yet.

[Moonface]

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (fourth time getting 100% in this game lezgoooo)

I've been thinking about this game a lot more lately and wondering if I should pick it up. I know it's good, but I don't know if I'd like it or how much time I'd need to put aside for it. I know it isn't short but I can't decide if I should hold off on it until I clear out some more of my backlog. XD

Also they're not giveaways per say but for anyone curious about it, a free demo was released yesterday for Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and I think it's only on PC for now but there's also a demo out for the remake of Kao, which is basically another old school platformer that seems to take a lot of inspiration from and parody other notable platformers. I kinda wish the Kao demo would come to console because I am curious about it, especially since it's nice to see platformers making a comeback and I don't want to write any of them off nowadays after playing A Hat in Time.

[Maniakkid25]

IDK if anyone has anything they want from the Nintendo eShop, but Amazon is selling the $50 gift cards for $45, so now's the time to grab them. No, I don't know when this sale will end.

[Moonface]

I'm trying to think if there's any games that are digital only on Switch that I want to get my hands on. That's not a super crazy deal but free money is free money.

[Maniakkid25]

Yeah, I only found out because I'm trying to keep ahead of the 3DS store servers shutting down next year. I basically stumbled on this deal by accident.

[Moonface]

Yeah, I only found out because I'm trying to keep ahead of the 3DS store servers shutting down next year. I basically stumbled on this deal by accident.

Do you need to use gift cards now for it? Just wondering why you looked them up instead of just using your card directly on the eShop.

[Maniakkid25]

No. I just don't want to deal with subscriptions or any potential random "purchases" that Nintendo wants to take that I didn't actually make. Xbox has this problem all the time: you check your bank balance, and find Microsoft has been charging your card for no goddamn reason, and when you try to fight it, they say "no refunds". The only reason I have my card plugged in with Microsoft is because I have to if I want to buy backwards compatible stuff on the Xbone (for whatever reason, you cannot use your Xbox Wallet to buy 360 or Xbox Original games). Well. That and the Office 365 subscription that I need to use Word, because all my scripts, stories, and other nonsense are Word docs.

Plus, there's the added benefit of the gift cards being tax free, where as your card can be charged for additional taxes, if they apply.

[Moonface]

Is it like one of those $1 charges to check the card is valid? I know Google does that for the Play store but it's one time when you add a card and it gets immediately refunded and that's the last you deal with it.

I never considered the tax thing though. I actually didn't know gift cards were all exempt from taxes.

[Maniakkid25]

Yeah, gift cards are tax free, but the general purpose ones from, like, Visa or Mastercard have purchase fees on them. Never fails to piss off a customer if they aren't warned in advance because they can't f***ing read!

NOOOOO, it is not a single dollar that is refunded; it's 20 or 30, and when you call customer support, they say you bought shit and "sorry, no refunds lol". It's happened to my friends, I'm sure it's happened to me, and that's why I don't like giving my card to places on a permanent basis. That and it's a single point of failure for your identity and having it not stolen.

[Moonface]

Eww, I've never heard of any online storefront doing that before. I'm actually surprised I've never seen any backlash about it around the internet if the unrefunded fees are that egregious.

[Maniakkid25]

Yeah, it's never been enough to make headlines, but you'll find PLENTY of people complaining if you actually search "unauthorized charges microsoft" on google. You'll actually find a bunch for other services as well, but Microsoft seems to be the big one.

[Moonface]

So I never really check Humble Bundle because I just forget it exists, but they have a Spring Sale going on right now with a lot of neat games on there at good discounts: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo...sale-2022/

Not sure why some games are in that list though with zero discount. Kinda defeats the point of the Spring Sale page to be putting non-sale games on it.

[Moonface]

Anyone here planning to grab anything from this year's Summer Steam Sale? @Karo just made me aware it starts today in about 30 minutes.

I'm not sure if it's on sale but if it is I might grab Deep Rock Galactic, since @ShiraNoMai has been playing that recently and she told me it was a really good L4D style game but with elements of Minecraft, so I'm intrigued about it.

[Karo]

I'm probably going to grab some small things I was thinking about there being like two big releases I want to get this year being Digimon Survive and Pokemon I'm thinking I should try to save some money for them and I find myself buying new games, but a lot of the time they just tend to sit like I got the new RE but it been sitting on my table unopened for quite a while now, but when I do play it I am pretty sure I'll enjoy it so I think I should start playing my backlog instead of purchasing too many shiny things.

But if there anything under $10 that I think will be a good deal I'll probably grab it. XD