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Valve is giving developers the tools to set their own discounts and sales periods through Steam, Valve confirmed with Polygon today.
A developer by the username "Sharkiller" posted a screenshot of a page accessible by developers with games published through Valve's service. According to the page, a new Steamworks tool will allow developers to set their own discount amounts for custom periods, as well as choose to opt in to upcoming weekly Steam sales. Prior to this, Steam and developers had to work together to create individual Steam sales.
Valve's Doug Lombardi confirmed with Polygon that the page was real, and noted the addition of developer-controlled sales is part of the company's plan to bring them closer to their customers.
"As with the addition of a 'Recently Updated' section to Steam, this is another effort to shorten the distance between developers and customers," Lombardi said. "This new Steamworks tool allows developers to configure discounts for their own products, on their own schedules. They can define custom sale periods or opt in to regularly scheduled sales. This will enable developers to better coordinate their promotions with events, announcements, or major updates they are planning for their products."
Steam's week-long sales can be opted into up to two months ahead of time and self-created sales can also be set up to two months prior for up to a two-week maximum. Developers can pre-set these choices and they will automatically go live at the specified time.
Developers can set up these discounts by going to their product's landing page and navigating to a bar near the top that will list store packages. Developers then select the package they want to discount, open its detail page and select the "edit discounts" button to create a discount and set when it will run.
Valve hosts a number of sales throughout the year, including individual developer sales and weekly sales. The platform's main events are its seasonal sales, including its massive Spring, Summer, Autumn and Holiday sales.
