Valve Replaces Steam's Lunar Sale With a Spring Sale in March
Valve announced that its regular Lunar New Year Sale on Steam is being replaced with a Spring Sale in March.
Steam already runs four major seasonal sales (Lunar, Summer, Autumn, Winter), but developers and publishers have been asking Valve for a Spring Sale. In response, the Lunar Sale which is usually held in late January is being replaced with a Spring Sale in March.
Valve explains(Opens in a new window) how making this change allows more time between its four major seasonal sales, and therefore, "more opportunities throughout the year for developers to expand and execute their discounting calendar."
The new calendar breaks down as follows:
Spring Sale - March
Summer Sale - June
Autumn Sale - November
Winter Sale - December
Other sale events and fests will continue to run, but the seasonal sales are always the biggest. Valve completely changes the layout of the Steam store front page to highlight promotional deals during these periods, which significantly reduces the visibility of new releases. More time between the seasonal sales should make it easier to plan new game launches around them.
It also makes sense to rename the Lunar New Year Sale because Valve originally introduced it in 2016 to celebrate developers and customers from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and South Korea gaining access to Steam. The feedback from publishers recently is that it's a bit too close to the December holiday period, hence the Spring Sale moving to March.
The next seasonal Steam sale on the calendar is the Autumn Sale, which runs from Nov. 22-29 this year. A month later the Winter Sale kicks off (Dec. 22 to Jan. 5). As ever, expect some very deep discounts on hundreds of popular games during these periods.
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