PayPal tweets that next Thursday, June 23 is the “official” start date for the 2016 Steam Summer Sale, lending further credibility to a previous leak on Reddit.
For most people, recreation during the summer means lounging by the pool or maybe heading to a backyard barbeque. But for PC gamers, the arrival of summer brings with it a great excuse to stay indoors: the Steam Summer Sale. Gamers can now mark their calendar for next Thursday, June 23rd as the annual sale’s start date has leaked online.
Members of the PC Master Race can thank PayPal for the good news. The online payments processor sent out a tweet early this morning, calling June 23rd the “official” start date. To be clear, Steam publisher Valve has not officially confirmed this news, but PayPal has been right about Steam sale start dates in the past.
It’s official: the @Steam_games sale starts 23rd June. https://t.co/6EdbWFScCW
— PayPal UK (@PayPalUK) June 16, 2016
PayPal’s announcement matches up with a previous leak on Reddit. The sale will reportedly run from 9:45 a.m. PT on June 23 until 10 a.m. PT on July 4. Those dates were first made public when Reddit user MrFreemanBBQ shared a screenshot he claimed was from internal Valve communications. The “confidential” disclaimer on the screenshot clearly demonstrates that this information was not meant for public consumption, but now that PayPal has also made the official start date known, this leak is looking more legitimate. It’s worth noting that MrFreemanBBQ also leaked the exact time frame for the Steam Autumn Sale (dubbed the Exploration Sale) last fall.
Obviously, it’s not known what games will be on sale this year but there are likely some assumptions that can be made based on past sales. Valve decided not to hold the popular Flash Sales during last year’s Autumn and Winter promotions and it’s likely this trend will continue. Games during those promotions were discounted to one price and remained there for the duration of the sale.
The removal of Flash Sales was not a popular choice among some gamers, but may have had something to do with the new refund policy Valve implemented last year. The company likely didn’t want to have to deal with a bunch of refund requests from customers who purchased a game only to see it drop to an even lower price during a Flash promotion. Valve will also likely be pushing all developers to be crystal clear with their pricing. This is because Valve got in trouble with the UK Advertising Standards Authority last year after some gamers felt mislead over the price of Grand Theft Auto V during the 2015 Summer Sale.
