Steam Reveals 2023 Major Festivals and Sales Schedule: The Complete List

Valve has dropped its entire Steam sales and festival schedule for 2023, letting you know ahead of time when planning your video game purchases. In a blog post, the company listed a calendar, creating a strong distinction between major seasonal sales and themed events. The former only takes place four times a year and offers discounts on just about every title released. These are set for Spring, Summer, Fall/Fall, and Winter. Festivals, on the other hand, spotlight a select category of games for a short period of time – usually based on genre – while promoting certain free titles into the mix. The calendar is also intended as a guide for developers, who can now register and grab discounts for their games.

Previously, players had to rely on guesswork or the SteamDB website to find out when the next sales event was happening. With Valve being more open with this new schedule, there should be no more room for confusion or fear of missing out – although the first day of all major Steam sales will cause site-wide delays. due to server overload. The calendar also lists Steam’s Next Fest event, held three times a year – the first is live now – allowing players to try out demos/previews, interact with developers, and watch live streams. Developers can expect early feedback on their games and gradually build an audience for the future – similar to what Recreate Games did with Party Animals.

With that, here’s the full Steam sales and festival schedule for 2023:

• Mystery Fest: February 20-27
• Spring Sale: March 16-23 (Major Seasonal Sale)
• Puzzle Fest: April 24 to May 1
• Sports festival: May 15 to 22
• Next festival: June 19-26
• Summer sales: from June 29 to July 13 (big seasonal sale)
• Stealth Fest: July 24-31
• Visual Novel Festival: August 7-14
• Strategy Fest: August 28 to September 4
• SHMUP Fest: September 25 to October 2
• Next festival: October 9-16
• Return of the Steam Scream Fest (Halloween sale): October 26 to November 2
• Fall Sale: November 21-28 (Big Seasonal Sale)
• Winter sales: from December 21 to January 4, 2024 (big seasonal sale)

Previously, Valve only had three major seasonal sales – summer, fall, and winter. The Spring Sale joined the list in September, based on popular demand from their “developer and publisher community”. This new sale replaces Steam’s Lunar New Year sale, which kept changing based on the East Asian calendar – sometimes aligning too close to the Christmas season and creating an uneven waiting period between promotions. Along with the aforementioned events, there will still be occasional developer sales and weekend deals on Steam.

Last year, Steam also updated its regional pricing tool, setting higher game costs for all supported countries outside of the United States. The tool essentially recommends updated prices for developers, who can set a new base price for their games by comparing it to Valve’s suggestion. The report suggests that the default prices for PC games in India could increase by 85%, if the studio accepts these values ​​and applies them to their titles. At the time, the company also mentioned that once a price was adjusted using the toolkit, Steam triggered a 28-day cool-down period, during which time the game could not be offered at reduced price.