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A comment on Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license. Parent comment

Re:Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative ... by legitster on Wednesday May 06, 2026 @02:18PM (#48039649)
50-75% off of AAA games from that year were not uncommon. I don't think the sales have ever really been comparable ever since. There are people who have put together Wayback machine compilations to compare - I just took a look at the 2014 and 2015 deals (refunds were ~ 2015) and there was a remarkable drop-off in the sales and variety of games at deep discount.

I think more importantly for Valve though - the daily flash sales were incredibly important to drive engagement and grow their presence.

I think the "why didn't Valve offer refunds before" is kind of revisionist. It wasn't clear that refunds were even a necessary component of cheaper digital games at the time.

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Re:Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative ... by lexicality on Wednesday May 06, 2026 @05:38PM (#48042217)
You could get entire publisher catalogues for peanuts. I think at least half my steam library is useless filler because I bought every game WB ever published for $40 to get the new batman game or similar.
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Re:Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative ... by mghackerlady on Wednesday May 06, 2026 @06:18PM (#48042646)
I payed like 100 bucks (probably less, i don't remember the exact amount) for everything valves ever published, which isn't as good of a deal but shows it can still be done
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Re:Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative ... by keyringlight on Wednesday May 06, 2026 @06:33PM (#48042791)
I think one precursor could have been EA's debacle with Sim City in 2013, when they apparently had a huge wave of disappointed customers doing chargebacks. I'm not aware of any public statement/evidence of this, but it really wouldn't surprise me if their payment processor leaned on them to provide a better means of accomplishing that, and it gave them a way to portray their store as customer friendly.
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