When do PC games go on sale?
The short answer is late June and late December. The long answer is more useful, because the big seasonal sales are only half the story β and if you treat them as the whole story, you'll overpay in one direction and wait pointlessly in the other.
This guide covers three things: the calendar that actually repeats every year, the way a game's price ages after launch, and how to read a price chart so a fake bargain can't fool you. At the end, a section most deal sites skip: the times when waiting is the wrong call.
The calendar that repeats every year
Valve announces exact dates a few months ahead, but the windows barely move. Around each of these, most authorized stores run parallel promotions of their own β the discounts are publisher-approved, so the same game often drops everywhere at once:
One myth worth killing: prices in the last days of a seasonal sale are the same as on day one. Steam dropped mid-sale flash deals back in 2015. Buy when you decide, not on the final evening.
How a game's price ages
A big release usually holds its price for the first few months, flirts with β20% or β30% in its first seasonal sale, and reaches its first β50% somewhere around the one-year mark. By the second birthday, β70% and deeper becomes routine. Indie and mid-tier games run the same curve faster β sometimes hitting β50% within six months.
Our own catalog shows how far this goes: across 1,400+ discounted games we track, the median discount is around 80%, and nearly two thirds are cut by 75% or more. Deep discounts aren't the exception in PC gaming. They're the destination almost every game eventually reaches β the only real question is how many months the walk takes.
The exceptions are real, though. Some publishers defend their prices for years, and a handful of evergreen titles simply never need to discount deeply because they keep selling anyway. If the game you want is one of those, no calendar will save you β which brings us to the chart.
Read the chart, not the badge
A 'β80%' badge tells you nothing by itself. The number that matters is how today's price compares with the lowest price the game has actually hit before. That's exactly what the price history chart on every GamerPoint game page shows β along with a recorded-low marker, so you can see in two seconds whether this is a genuine floor or a mid-range dip dressed up with a big percentage.
The strikethrough 'regular price' deserves the same suspicion. Publishers occasionally raise a list price before a promotion, which makes the discount look deeper than it is. Anchor to the recorded low. It's the one number nobody can inflate.
And if the game has no active deal right now? Its page still works for you: add it to your favorites and you'll hear about the next drop instead of having to remember to check.
When waiting is the wrong call
Deal culture has a blind spot: it treats waiting as automatically smart. It isn't always. If you're going to put two hundred hours into a game this year, the difference between buying it now and buying it 40% off in four months rounds to pennies per hour β and you paid for those four months with the months themselves.
Multiplayer games are the clearest case. Their real value is the crowd, and the crowd is biggest near launch. Saving fifteen euros to join a quieter server a year later is a bad trade for most people. The honest rule: wait on single-player games you're merely curious about; don't wait on the game your friends are playing right now.
Frequently asked questions
When is the next big Steam sale?
Steam runs four seasonal sales a year β spring (March), summer (late June), autumn (late November) and winter (late December). Valve publishes exact dates a few months in advance, and the windows shift by at most a week or two from year to year.
Do all games join the seasonal sales?
Most of the catalog participates, but each publisher sets its own discounts. Brand-new releases often sit out their first seasonal sale or offer a token cut, while older titles return to their established maximum discount almost every event.
Are launch discounts worth taking?
The typical β10% launch week discount is a courtesy, not a deal. Take it if you were buying at full price anyway; ignore it if price was the thing holding you back β the first real cut usually lands within the year.
Why does the game I want never seem to go on sale?
A few publishers protect their prices for years, and top sellers have little pressure to discount. Check the game's price history chart: if the recorded low after a year or two is still shallow, that's the publisher's pattern β plan around it rather than waiting for an event that may not come.