Spot's Comprehensive Guide to Playing the Steam Market!

Welcome to Spot's guide to playing the steam market!

This guide will tell you how to effectively play the steam market for maximum gaming at minimum price. This guide will list several tricks to getting the most out of steam.

The reason I am releasing this now is because I feel most people don't realize the steam market is something you can easily save money doing. Also, the potentially upcoming summer sale will give people an opportunity to put these tactics into practice with minimum starting risk.

It is currently a draft, and will be revised and updated as I see fit. This is currently version 1.0, and as such not the most eloquent composition. This first version is essentially a stream of consciousness, and I realize some sections may not be explained as clearly as I intended. This is a long, but free guide I'm doing in my spare time. Feel free to post or contact me individually to discuss these topics further, or to recommend areas to be revised.

Reposting information:

I do not plan to personally repost this guide to other sites. The less people who read it, the more effective its strategies are. However, I really can't stop anyone from doing so. If you are going to repost this guide, please copy ALL OF IT. Keep the title and links out of respect.

What should I know before beginning?

Before you begin, you should know that some of these tips come with a financial risk. Its like playing the stock market. You want to buy low, and sell high. Some games are also more volatile than others. With a good knowledge of steam's financial trends, you can minimize your risk for maximum returns.

How do I judge how volatile a game's price is?

The first thing you should do when judging if a game is worth investing in, is check to see how long it has been since the game has been released. More recently released games are more likely to have a price drop. You then check to see if the game has ever gone on sale, and at what prices. Using this information you can make an educated guess on if you should buy the game now or wait. You can also compare the game to others in the series, or games by the same publisher to see what their steam pricing habits are.

As an example, lets analyze Bioshock 2's price

We can pull up its pricing chart here: http://www.steamprices.com/us/app/8850/bioshock-2. By September 2010, the game was already $29.99. The game then got its price reduced again in December 2010 to $19.99. This price has been pretty constant since, and seems to almost mirror the price of the original bioshock. For comparison, you can pull up the price chart for bioshock here: http://www.steamprices.com/us/app/7670/bioshock.

Bioshock's price seems to be at a plateau. It is very unlikely to have a permanent price drop. However it has gone on sale several times for $5. This is very similar to Bioshock 2 which has also been on sale for $5 since reaching a $19.99 price point. Looking at the trends for these two products, we can assume that Bioshock 2 will go on sale again - potentially for $5 - in the future. We can even further assume that Bioshock will go on sale again for $5 in the future. With this knowledge we know that bioshock right now is not a good investment. We know it will probably go on sale in the future.

Region Restrictions

Its a known fact that some games are more expensive in other regions. Its also known that some games are only offered to specific regions. For example, at the time of writing the Dreamcast Collection is $30USD for Americans. However, it costs roughly $15USD in Europe. Also all the games in the Grand Theft Auto Complete Pack are not offered in Germany. It is sometimes to your benefit to purchase games from abroad. This can be easy if you have friends in other countries. I personally have friends in four other steam regions. Otherwise, you can offer on sites to trade for these particular games with a small premium. You can trade a $6.50 game for a region restricted $5 game. You could also offer to pay a user a small premium to do the transaction via paypal. You can also use this method to get the censored or uncensored version of a game. For example, Australia has L4D2 censored. However in the United States, the game is uncensored. If I gift L4D2 to one of my Australian friends, they will receive the uncensored version of the game.

!!WARNING!!

Steam for the most part turns a blind eye to these practices. As long as you don't abuse the system, they don't care. They understand that users wish to gift games to friends overseas. If you send too many games with a region discounted price to other regions in a period of time, they will warn you.

http://i.imgur.com/r6zVW.png

I would recommend you only bypass Region Restrictions on steam for personal use, or the occasional favor. Every once in awhile doing a favor for a friend overseas is not what they are concerned with. They are concerned about one user mass gifting overseas with the specific intent to bypass region restrictions/pricing. Sending a German friend the "Grand Theft Auto Complete Pack" will not get you warned. Sending 15-20 "Grand Theft Auto Complete Packs" to German users in a week will probably get you warned. More on this in the theorycrafting section.

Purchasing Games Off Steam, For Steam

You may be aware that you are able to activate certain games on steam with an activation code or CD-Key. Sometimes it is cheaper for you to buy the code or cd-key from another source. The most important thing is to be careful who you are buying from. There are several legitimate sellers online who sell CD-Keys for steam. Examples of this are the "Humble Indie Bundle" or "Green Man Games". They get their keys directly from the publishers, and sometimes have their own discounts for games you can add to steam. For example, "Super Meat Boy" is currently on sale for $7 on Green Man Games while its $15 on steam. All you'd have to do is purchase the game from their site, and they provide you with a key. You can then activate it directly in steam.

There are also some more shady resellers that are legitimate, but are more of a risk to discover their legitimacy. They usually get their keys from physical copies in reduced priced regions. Long ago I purchased Left 4 Dead from one of these retailers, and later found out my CD Key was from a physical copy purchased in Poland. These stores can be legitimate, and I've never had a problem so far. Its also possible to purchase a new copy of a game yourself and activate it through steam for some titles. This means if amazon is having a special, you may be able to get a great deal for the same product. Here is an incomprehensive but long list of keys that steam accepts: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-wusf-3601

Basics of Trading

If you don't want to trade steam games, skip this section.

Now that we have gone over the basics of purchasing games for steam, we will cover trading. Trading can be done on various forums or sites. You should always practice safe trading habits. Usually a site will have something like reputation for its users. If a user has positive reputation, its likely the trade will go smoothly and there is less risk they are going to rip you off. If you have reputation and the other user does not, ask them to go first on the grounds you do have reputation. Avoid trading with users with no reputation if possible. Also look through a user's account history to see if there have been any recent complaints against the user. It may be worthwhile to make "fair trades" to establish reputation.

Getting the most from steam sales

Usually games that have a large discount on them are timed sales. For the vast majority of cases you are looking out for three types of sales.
Daily Deal
2-3 Day Limited Sale (only one heavily discounted item for 2-3 days)
Steam-wide Sale (Like the Summer Sale)

The Daily Deal and Limited sales should be approached with the same scrutiny as any other purchase. Steam-wide sales however last several days, with "Daily Deals" occurring during this period. In the past there have been several instances an item already on sale is discounted further for the daily deal. If at all possible, you will want to hold off your purchases till the last day. Then you ensure you have bought all the items you want at the most discounted price. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Look at the Theorycrafting section for examples.

Stockpiling

If you don't want to trade steam games, skip this section.

So lets say the summer sale has started and the daily deal is a game 90% off. Its at an all time low price. You may want to purchase a copy for yourself, but if you regularly trade steam games it may be the most "profitable" time for you. What you need to do is decide if you think its a game with a high demand. Diner Dash is probably not going to have as high of a demand as say Super Meat Boy. If you feel it has a lasting demand, you can buy multiple copies as gifts. The trick to it is to send the item as gifts to an alternate email address you have access to, and never redeem the item. It will remain at "Sent" status, and you will retain the ability to resend the game to another user at any time. This allows you to build up a collection of games you can use for bargaining at a later date.

If you are planning on going hardcore into stockpiling, be sure to read the Theorycrafting section.

Advanced Trading

If you don't want to trade steam games, skip this section.

So you have stockpiled a large collection of games you purchased at highly reduced prices. The trick to this is that you need to wait long enough after the sale that the demand returns. After several months, users who missed the sale may be interested in getting the game for themselves. The reason stockpiling is so effective, is that people tend to use the current prices of steam games as a their "blue book" value. Sure Psychonauts back in january 2010 was on sale for $2, but today its $10. Lets say I purchased 50 of them to give away to friends and stockpile. This means that if I want any game that costs more than $2, I effectively saved money if they accept my offer for Psychonauts. It is likely that they will accept my offer for games equal or greater in value as long as they feel interested in the title I offer. I may offer Psychonauts ($10) for Lume ($6.50), but in reality we both came out ahead. They got a discounted price for Psychonauts, and I saved about $5 on that particular title.

The reason you have to be especially careful about volatile games, is that any price drop lowers your maximum estimated savings. If Duke Nukem Forever is on sale for $30 when I stockpile but drops to $10 before I liquidate it, I effectively lost $20 from my maximum estimated savings per license I still have in stock. If the game is extremely stable in price, it may be possible for me to hold onto my stock for years waiting for games I want to come out.

Also don't forget you can combine titles in your offers. If I stockpile Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, I could offer all three of these licenses for roughly $30 worth of games. I may have spent as little as $10 for those three licenses though.

Organization

If you don't want to trade steam games, skip this section.

If you go hardcore into steam trading, you will want to organize a database of your prices. You will want to keep track of your investment price, your current stock of licenses per title, and the current price of each title. This will allow you to easily figure out what you can offer to anyone that wishes to trade with you. The steam activation window is by no means designed for this level of use. You can keep track either on a piece of paper, or a various programs like excel.

Conclusion

I do not recommend using this guide to make money. Remember your account is held by steam. If you piss them off, they can take away all the licenses tied to your account. It is my belief that they have no problem with purchasing extra sale licenses because the money stays within the service. There is also no guarantee that they will lose money in the long run from these practices. Its like if you went to a store on black friday, and bought several boxed copies. Its not about reselling being unethical, its about not pissing off steam.

How You Can Contact Me or Say Thanks

If you would like to contact me, you can do so via steam. (just click my icon if you are at the original source)

If you decide to purchase games through greenmangaming for steam, you can use this url as a referral if you need to sign up:
http://www.greenmangaming.com/?gmgr=nicuheqo

It will give both of us a bonus $5 credit to our accounts after you spend over $5 on anything. Regardless you should compare your prices elsewhere. However, the $5 credit may make your purchase overall cheaper than other locations.

To search for steam games on greenmangaming, just input steam into the search box.

Bonus Content

Theorycrafting

This is all theory! These are guesses from my personal experience and reading other issues other people have experienced on steam! These are not facts, and some of them could even be based on coincidences.

Account Flagging

Certain actions will flag your account in steam. This is usually done to prevent fraud. From my personal purchasing habits it seems that completing 15-20 transactions in a period of time will cause a "hold" on your account. This "hold" causes steam to error on purchases for a period of time, in an attempt to prevent fraud.

From my experience, the "hold" seems to be placed depending on the number of transactions. This means that if you want 20 of A and B, you should make sure each transaction has both A and B. Otherwise the "hold" may force you to wait in order to complete the transaction. This is mainly an issue during sales where the hold may force you to miss licenses at reduced prices. You can also attempt to space out your transaction times in an attempt to maximize the amount you can buy.

Also gifting a large amount of items in a short period of time seems to "flag" your account internally. This seems to be done to ensure that you aren't going out of your way to help break region restrictions. Remember, they don't care about you gifting to a friend. They care about you going around region restrictions en masse. They use the flags to denote someone at valve should look into your gifting habits manually. Its at their discretion if you have been abusing the gifting to get around region restrictions.

Steam-Wide Sale Exceptions

There are two exceptions to the rule of waiting to the last day on sales. If you missed an item that was already on daily deal during the sale, you may wish to purchase it at its discounted price before the last day so you can go ahead and play it.

Also if you want to stockpile heavily, you may want to take the gamble the games you are investing in will not have a daily deal. This means you go ahead and purchase x of game A and B. Then purchase x of game A and B on the last day. If either A or B did turn out to be the daily deal, you still got part of your stock at the further reduced price. This assumes that the "Hold" in the theorycrafting section above holds true.