Valve Introduces New Rules To Reduce “Fake” Discounts on Steam

Controller Master


Valve has recently announced a collection of new store discount policies to clamp down on fake sales and offers that currently plague the Steam store. The cooldown period for sales will be reduced from six to four weeks with exclusions for the major store-wide seasonal sales. The new rules prohibit publishers from discounting their game within 28 days following a price increase in any country and prices can no longer be adjusted during sales. The allowable discount range has also been restricted to between 10 and 90 percent while custom sales must now last for 1 to 14 days. These new policies will take effect starting March 28th, 2022 and will hopefully improve the user experience.

ValveSpecific Discounting Rules

  • You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days.
  • It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency.
  • Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events.
  • Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency.
  • You may not change your price while a promotion is live now or scheduled for the future.
  • It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%.
  • Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day.