Prices & sales
When Steam games get cheaper, by how much, and how long a new release stays at full price.
These are the only charts here that reach years into the past. Price changes were backfilled day by day from the change log of IsThereAnyDeal, while review counts could only be recovered by month and player numbers only as monthly averages. Where the other pages start at our own first measurement, this one does not.
The base is not every game on Steam: history was only collected for titles with at least 50 reviews, and only games with a known paid price count. Every share below is a share of those tracked games, and a day only enters the series once at least a thousand of them were being watched. Free-to-play titles are excluded throughout — a game that costs nothing cannot be discounted.
How much of the store is on sale
Share of tracked games discounted, week by week
Sampled every Monday. The second line is the average depth of those discounts and uses the right axis.
Based on 111,657 games with price history.
The spikes are the seasonal sales. They are not subtle: outside them a few percent of the catalogue is reduced, during them a large part of it at once.
Sale calendar
Every day of the last three years, one row per year. The same weeks light up every time.
Darker means a larger share of tracked games was discounted that day. Peak: 79.2%.
How deep the cuts go
Distribution of discount depths
Counted per campaign, not per day — a week at -50% counts once. Note how few values are actually used.
Based on 1,136,757 discount campaigns.
What is discounted right now
Current state across the whole catalogue, not just tracked games.
Based on 10,680 games on sale.
Is it worth waiting?
The question every buyer has and no store page answers. Two medians per release year: how long until a game was reduced at all, and how long until it was at least half off.
Starting at 2015 on purpose. For older years the first observed discount is not necessarily the first discount — the price log does not reach back far enough, and a chart cannot tell the difference between "never discounted" and "not watched yet". Re-releases whose store page carries a newer release date than their price history are dropped rather than counted as discounted on day zero.
Days at full price after release
Median days until the first discount and until the first 50% cut. The line is the share of that year's games discounted within twelve months (right axis).
Based on 30,450 games with a recorded discount.
Looking for a specific game's price history? Every game page carries its own price chart and all-time low →