Other than the Half Life series and few other games, I didn't bother with Steam much. However now there are a few games not available on GOG that I'm thinking of buying. None of them are so urgent that I want to play immediately, so I'd rather cacth them on a sale, even if it means waiting a few months.

Could anyone who uses that site more often, give me a quick overview of what their sales look like? How often? What's the maximum % I should aim for?
Also, is there a way to automatically get a notification when a particular game goes on sale?

Aside from Steam, there is also Starcraft 2. Is the Blizzard website the only way to get this one? Does it go on sale there? Are the DLCs of Heart of the Swarm (I mean the extras from the Deluxe Edition) any good? Do they affect the single-player campaign?

Re: Steam

You can often get 66% or 75% off if you are willing to wait for it. I've kind of gotten used to only buying stuff that reaches that level of discount.

If you have a steam account, you can add the game to your wishlist, and it (usually) will send you an email when it goes on sale.

Re: Blizzard

No idea.

I'm not sure if wishlisting a game on Steam sends you a notification, but you can use isthereanydeal to mark a game from a specific platform, so that it can notify you when a game is discounted. In addition, you can use the site to get a look on when and how much a game has been discounted in the past.

HotS has DLCs? News to me. Regardless, no they shouldn't affect SP. But that's crap, anyway. If you want a SP strategy, StarCraft 2 isn't it. Once Legacy of the Void comes out, ask again. It's going to be standalone, so if any part of SC2 is worth getting, that may be it. Maybe.

As for sales, Blizzard's are rare. You may want to keep an eye on Amazon, they might offer a good deal around the sales season - Boxing Day, Black Friday, Amazon's own seasonal sales. I don't think you'll find anything over 50-off, but I may be wrong (speaking just for Blizzard, of course)

For Steam, wait on a summer/autumn/Xmas sale. Or their daily flash sales. Also, it's best to consult a site like http://isthereanydeal.com/, which should tell you how low the price could go, and how frequently it does so. Look for 75, 80, even 90 off. There are very few publishers that won't go that low. You could put games on your wishlist, then set it to send you emails when they go on sale, but that will count any discount, not just the ones you'd ideally want. Best to just keep an eye on our Gaming deals thread.

Oh, it;s a serious thread.

Shit, I probably could have found some funny pics for this.

There is some Deluxe Edition, with some extras:
https://us.battle.net/shop/en/product/starcraft-ii-heart-of-the-swarm

That's what I meant by the DLCs Where do I see those? They'll just be there on the front page?

Next upcoming Steam sale is probably the summer sale - probably mid to late June. It lasts a week or two with daily specials and ongoing deals.

It's not 100% dependable, but I do get emails when items on my wishlist go on sale. % discounts really depends on the game. If you don't have many games you'll probably see tons of stuff that looks like great deals. If you have a backlog of 500+ (like me), you probably already have most of what you want. ;-)

Wishlisting a game on Steam will cause Steam to send you an e-mail when the game goes on sale.

It also becomes listed on your games wishlist which is viewable as part of your profile. (You can set it to be private, though.)

Steam sales were of course the first to make a huge splash with digital distribution discounts as a thing. In general, wait for things to be discounted to -66% or lower. -75% is usually the max discount observed on most games, but some lesser-known games may go even lower.

Generally speaking such discounts will not happen within the first half-year or year of a game's release. -50% is the usual max there. So basically, it's a matter of the your impatience vs. your wallet -- as with all sales.

Steam has major sales events every summer and winter. One occurs around May/June/July, and the other occurs around Christmas/New Year, respectively (or vice versa if you live in the southern hemisphere). Other smaller sales events usually occur around Halloween, U.S. Thanksgiving, some other holidays, and other random periods. Also, there are usually "midweek madness" deals, weekend deals, and weeklong deals.

Note that some Steam games are actually DRM-free. You can't tell by looking at them, though. Usually this applies to older indie games, but not always. The only way to tell is to ask someone who has it to try running the game without Steam running. Also, buying from bundles often gives Steam keys, but many bundles also give DRM-free along with the Steam key. This is usually the case at Humble Bundle, Indie Royale, and Groupees -- Indie Gala, however, usually gives either or, and goes with Steam if the game's on Steam. One Gala bundle even had a GOG key, curiously.

The two big Steam sales often have some sort of (distracting) social feature to them as well. Several kinds have been done in the past, but it seems the general pattern now is this:
* There are trading cards associated with the sales event. The cards expire at the end of the sales event, but can be used to "craft" badges that have Steam user experience points (XP) and a few other minor benefits.
* Every $10 spent in the Steam store, every time you craft a set of trading cards associated with a game (not a sale), and every day (or every three 8-hour blocks) that you vote for a sale, you get one of these cards. (To get cards from voting you need to have a minimum Steam user level.)
* There are "community choice" sales that users can vote on, on the store's frontpage. Usually, a choice of three games, one of which will be on a deeper discount the next day or next 8-hour block. Generally speaking, the "losers" of the vote still go on sale later at the deeper discount. (Note that this does NOT always happen; most infamously, Ikaruga lost a bid to get a -50% sale and has never gone down to that discount level since.)

Note that making full use of Steam's community features (trading, adding friends, community market) takes both money and time. There is now a $5 minimum purchase to get a basic fully-featured account (where you can add friends), and then there are timeouts based on new funding source or using a new computer before one can trade or use the market. The community market (a thing that lets people buy/sell certain in-game or Steam-account commodities) also requires people to have made a purchase over 30 days but less than a year ago.

In short, the social features are complicated (and made that way to discourage scammers/phishers), so don't bet on Steam being anything other than a digital game store.

TL;DR, regarding Steam
1. wishlist games to get e-mailed on discounts
2. wait for -75% or deeper during the big sales events (sometimes stated as "never buy anything that's not a daily deal, flash sale, or on the last day")
3. big sales events twice a year plus other random sales periods
4. ignore the social features unless you really want to get into them (or have friends guiding you along)
5. impatience is the enemy of the wallet

Is a skin, some decals, and some icons worth $15 to you? Assuming you don't play the other two games - which get more cosmetic stuff, anyway. You tell me. Scroll down, on the right under Specials. Right now should be Volgarr the Viking.

Depending on the game, they might end up here at some not-too-distant point. Depends. What are you eyeing?

Thanks for the replies everyone! Ah, I didn't read properly. I thought that second "Baneling Pet" was an extra unit and was wondering whether it'd be available in single player campign. Now I see it's something for World of Warcraft. Nevermind then. Not paying 15$ for cosmetic stuff.

At the moment I'm thinking about Serious Sam 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Max Payne 3 and American McGee's Alice 2.

It does, I've gotten a ton of e-mails from them since every sale sends you an e-mail instead of the Isthereanydeal which will only send you an e-mail if certain criteria are met.

>Yes, run! Yes, a Gamer's strength flows from the fun. But beware of the dark side. DRM, DLC, Clients; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in your library. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did The Elder Scrolls' and Fallout's heirs.<
<Steam... Is the dark side stronger?>
>No, no, no. Quicker, cheaper, more seductive.<
<But how am I to know the good side from the bad?>
>You will know... when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Gamer uses the games for freedom and joy, NEVER for third party control.<
<But tell my why I can't...>
>No, no! There is no "why".<

<I won't fail you. I'm not afraid.>
>You will be. You... will... be.<

Sam might very well come here, DNF is crap, and Max Payne has annoying extra DRM. Just FYI ;)

Most people have already covered the key points. Just a few things to add/emphasize/expand on:

1. Not all Steam games have DRM or require the client in order to launch/reinstall after initial download. There's a running list of these here:
http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

2. Definitely make use of isthereanydeal.com. It also keeps historic pricing charts across multiple sales platforms and bundle information and lets you know historic lows, so you can get a better idea targeting a particular purchase price threshold.

3. In addition to the other major sales mentioned, every Monday Steam puts several dozen games on sale in their Weeklong Deals promotion. As the name implies, these sale prices run for a week and usually always have a handful of games on steep discount like 90-97% off. Most of the titles on steep discount have been bundled before (some not), but sometimes the discount is so steep that it's actually cheaper to buy it individually on Steam for like $0.19 then it is to get it in a bundle. Quality of titles varies, of course, but sometimes you can find some real gems for next to nothing.

4. While I abhor many of Steam's policies and its Vader-like deathgrip on the PC gaming industry, I also recognize that ignoring them completely is to sell yourself short as a PC gamer. However, I basically never promote the use of Steam with people unless I'm sure they fully understand the benefits of DRM-Free titles (which most here at GOG do).

Then i'll be short on PC games, i don't care... I have more than enough games to keep me going until i die.

I don't care how important steam is, i won't use it ever again.