Valve dates Steam sales and events for first half of 2022

Steam’s current Lunar New Year sale might be nearing its end, but there’s plenty more on the horizon for discount hunters – as Valve has now revealed in its newly released schedule of Steam sales and events for the first half of 2022.

As far as Steam’s flagship events go, first in the queue is another Next Fest, promising to once again heap an impracticably sized avalanche of playable demos upon visitors from 21st-28th February. There’s a second Next Fest in June, and that’ll be followed by Steam’s next big discount event in the form of the Summer Sale, running from 23rd June to 7th July.

Alongside the biggies, Valve is also organising a schedule of what it’s calling Themed Sales, designed to showcase specific categories of games. These come thick and fast from 28th February, when the focus will be titles that support Steam’s Remote Play Together feature. Here’s what the currently announced schedule looks like right now:

• 28th February-7th March – Remote Play Together
• 14th-21st March – JRPG
• 28th March-4th April – SimFest: Hobby Edition
• 2nd-9th May – Die-a-lot (including roguelites and Metroidvanias)
• 23rd-30th May – Racing
• 18th-25th July – Survival

Valve’s new events schedule arrives as part of a series of announcements for developers around its updated discount procedures, which includes changes to the frequency with which games can now go on sale. Essentially, starting 28th March, developers will have the opportunity to discount their titles more often – every four weeks compared to the current six-week restriction – although a number of other stipulations apply. In Valve’s words:

• You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 28 days
• It is not possible to discount your product for 28 days following a price increase in any currency
• Discounts cannot be run within 28 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events
• Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 28 days of releasing your title, within 28 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 28 days of a price increase in any currency
• You may not change your price while a promotion is live
• It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%
• Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day

Steam’s current discount event, the Lunar New Year Sale, continues until 3rd February.