Some digging through the Steamy innards of Steam could point to Valve having plans to roll out 30-day game price tracking beyond the European countries it’s currently a feature in. That’d make it easier to tell at a glance whether the discount that’s tempting you towards blowing some cash on another addition to your backlog is actually the boon you think it is, or an increase on some previously lower price.
As spotted over on SteamDB by a Steam scourer with the handle @SigaTbh and shared by Half-Life fansite Lambda Generation, some new code related to whether a game’s at its lowest price in a 30 day period and whether it’s previously had a different discount applied to it appears to be swimming around in the store’s backend.
This is already a feature Steam has in EU countries, in order to comply with European Union consumer protection laws designed to increase transparency around prices and the sale of goods. But, this new code could be an indicator that Valve are planning to roll out the feature in countries beyond that existing crop.
Assuming that’s the case and the 30 day discount info looks the same as it does for those EU countries, you’ll be able to see a handy little box next to where you click to buy a game, with said box showing what price it normally is, what price it currently is, and its lowest price in the last 30 days. No more staring at friendly-looking percentages and wondering if they’re actually cheeky percentages who might convince you to part with more cash than you otherwise might need to to own a thing.
So, now we play the waiting game to see whether any of the Steam updates Valve pmup out in the near future include these handy price trackers for all, or at least more than currently have them. A framerate estimation feature‘s also on that list, with some text strings seemingly hinting at it having been spotted in a recent Steam client update.
