14 DAY TRIAL // The launch of the Steam Summer Sale has been a reason for joy for the PC gaming community in the past few years, but now a community effort seems to show that some video game publishers have used the occasion to cheat a little when it comes to the prices for their titles and the price cuts applied.
On the official Reddit community for the Steam digital distribution service, gamers have banded together to check information about the cost of titles right before the debut of the promotional period and the current full price and cut.
The organizer of the community effort acknowledges that some of the user-submitted data might be wrong, but he believes that such a movement is required to keep publishers honest in the long term.
At the moment, titles like XCOM: Enemy Within from 2K Games, Wolfenstein: The New Order from Bethesda, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag from Ubisoft, and GTA V from 2K Games are considered suspect.
The list is being updated all through the day with more details, and those who are considering picking up content that is part of the Steam Summer Sale should take a look before making a decision.
No video game publisher has issued an official response to the accusations that they have increased prices just so that they can then slash them.
Sales might be detrimental to the gaming industry
If it's confirmed that they pushed up game prices, companies will be forced to apologize, but their alleged actions only show that the concept of sales might be problematic for the gaming industry in the long term.
They tend to create an expectation that everything will be cheaper in the future, which might deflate income for companies in the present.
Valve has made Steam the leader of the PC digital distribution market in part because of its solid sales, both the weekly and the seasonal ones.
The practice also has a positive side because it allows gamers to discover new titles that they might have otherwise ignored and can help a company gauge interest in its titles even years after they were originally launched.
Valve has attached an interesting actual game to its current Steam Summer Sale in order to make it more interesting for the community.