Valve gives devs tools to configure Steam discounts, sales

Valve has announced new tools that will allow developers to configure their own discounts for custom sale periods on Steam or opt in to take part in upcoming weeklong sales.

According to an image of the announcement sent out to developers and posted to Reddit, to participate in weeklong deals, a developer can select from the upcoming promotions, up to two months ahead of time, and just enter the desired discount percentage.

Custom discounts can be set up two months in advance, and can run for up to two weeks at most. Developers can set the percentage of the discount here as well.

Steam sales have been known to be hugely profitable for some developers. Q-Games, for example, doubled its lifetime income on the PC version of PixelJunk Eden after the game was featured in a flash sale as part of the 2013 Steam holiday sale.

However, indie developer Jason Rohrer recently argued that “sales screw fans” over the long-term, training them to wait for discounts rather than ever pay the full price for a game when it launches.

Either way, the new tools should at least give developers more control on when and by how much they discount their games, and might mean we’ll see more discounts throughout the year.