• The 2022 Game of the Year, Elden Ring, is finally on sale right now on Steam.
• Elden Ring is seeing a 30 percent price decrease and joins scores of other popular titles in the Steam Summer Sale, lasting until 13th July 2023.
• The Steam Deck is also seeing big discounts but South Africans are being left out of the fun.

The Steam Summer Sale is upon us! One of the holy days on the PC gamer calendar where we celebrate our Patron Saint Gabe Newel by making him even richer and buying games at a discount. This joyous occasion has graced us with the first time ever 2022’s Game of the Year Elden Ring sees a discounted price.

If you’ve been patiently waiting for a sale to try out FromSoftware’s masterpiece, now is the time. Especially if you want to give the game a playthrough before the highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC hits us.

Steam is reducing the game’s price by 30 percent, from R849.00 to R594.00. And while this isn’t the biggest discount we’ve seen during the sale, it has boosted the game’s recent sales.

Elden Ring went from number 42 in the Steam best seller list to number 3 overnight, since the sale launched on the 29th of June (it is ending on 13th July 2023). It is now the best-selling game on the platform, again, a year after launch.

It is only beaten by Counter-Strike, which is free to play, and the Steam Deck which is also seeing a major discount thanks to the quarterly sale. According to The Verge, this is the Steam Deck’s second-ever sale and its price is being reduced by $40 for the 64GB base mode (now $359.10), $79 for the 256GB model (now $449.65) and $130 for the top-of-the-range 512GB model (now $519.20).

Unfortunately, Valve is still not selling Steam Decks directly in South Africa, so the website insists they are “out of stock.” The only reputable retailer selling the devices locally is Incredible, which is not adhering to international discounts.

All three versions are available for their base prices.

Apart from Elden Ring, Steam is offering loads of other big-time game discounts for the Summer Sale. For example, you can get Call of Duty Modern Warfare II at 45 percent off, or R758.45.

Or Rockstar hit Red Dead Redemption II for just R329.67, down 67 per cent from R999. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI – part of the classic strategy series – is being reduced by 90 percent, from R899 down to just R89.

Those are just some of the sales now online at Steam. Just about every game has received some form of discount in the hopes of drawing buyers out of the shadows. Entire franchises are also seeing price slashes.

Here you can buy all three Total War: Warhammer games in a bundle for R743.29, down from nearly R2 000.

Other franchises include The Witcher, where some games are being discounted by 80 percent, and EA Sports, where you can scoop up FIFA 23 for just R274.98.

As we always say, seasonal sales are the best times to pick up any PC game you have been interested in especially now in the market, where consumers are feeling the pinch of routine interest rate hikes and global inflation.

Now, with whispers of a looming recession in the US, we wait with bated breath to see how the game’s industry will be affected if it does come to pass. Gaming has traditionally weathered financial headwinds quite well, barely feeling the downturn caused by the financial crisis of 2008.

Now the industry is bigger than ever, but can it be sustained with current conditions?

[Image – Steam]