Most gamers worth their salt have heard of Steam; it’s the legendary Valve corporation that sends PC gamers in spirals of glee from new-age access to an ever-increasing array of games and spirals of despair from the disappearance of their funds for the same games. However, there are always plenty of sales to be had from other online and in-store retailers. It’s hard (or at least annoying) to keep track of them all, so I’ve made a handy list to help you through the rest of 2015 and beyond.
The Skinny
Companies have one, ultimate objective: making money. Psychology and common sense says people want more for less, thus the huge saturation of “sales.” Frequently, products are priced higher than what companies actually want to sell them for so when they “mark them down,” customers feel as if they are saving money when in reality it’s the original price. It’s basic marketing. However, products have to sell eventually, thus they are given deeper discounts. A good way to get the message out are promotional newsletters. Statistics are very important to any successful company, which is the reason they love to take your personal information. With straight-to-email newsletters, both parties win.
Sign up to receive new product information, coupons, and discounts. Frequently, companies will send you coupons just because you haven’t purchased anything in a while or because you put an item in your online shopping basket and never bought it. If you want, you can make an email address specifically for recieving discount and newsletters like “[Your Email Address][email protected].”
Retailers
Here’s a list of some of the more common sellers and links to their promotional pages.
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Amazon:
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Electronics Coupons Page (You can search by discount percentage on gaming accessories!)
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Amazon Prime Day is July 15th. Sign up for Amazon Prime or a free trial to get access to exclusive Amazon offers that are “bigger than Black Friday”!
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GameCo (UK only)
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Discount Directory and E-mail Sign Up Note: Sign up is at the very bottom of the page
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Gamestop:
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GreenManGaming:
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HumbleBundle:
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Origin:
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Target:
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Coupons Page (Check in the Entertainment category)
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Toys R Us:
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Walmart:
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Last but not least…Steam:
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Sign up for a Steam account to save wishlists and stay abreast of the games you love when they send you email notifications of when your games go on sale.
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Alternatively, there is a wonderful site dedicated to finding the best Steam sales. Here, you can check out unexpectedly detailed information like the highest sale price a game has ever gone for, the prices for different currency, and the amount of people who have played and are playing the game: https://steamdb.info/sales/
Special Mention
While they don’t specifically sell games, they do have a lot of gaming gear and computer essentials at decent discounts.
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NewEgg
Coupon Websites and Sale Trackers
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App-Sales
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Android/Google Play Appstore lists current apps on sale.
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App-Store Discounts
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Apple’s Appstore shows price drops and free games.
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CamelCamelCamel
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http://camelcamelcamel.com/ This website tracks Amazon price history and tells what the top price drops are with an option to get notifications.
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Groupon
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https://www.groupon.com/goods/v1-gaming This website scours the net for several game-related product promotions.
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RetailMeNot
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http://www.retailmenot.com/coupons/videogames This website shows current deals from retailers, usually store-wide and not game-specific.
There a tons of places across the web to find discounts, this is just a short list of the most common and easy-to-find. Happy shopping!
