It was the same with Boston to Worcester. That was discounted by 20% in the Winter Sale, just over a month after release. There is definitely a trend of routes getting discounts sooner than they used to. I wonder why...
Its definitely a trend which is factoring my decision on day 1 purchase's and I find myself weighing up if I’m desperate to buy a route at full price or if I should wait a few weeks and see if it’s discounted in the next sale.
Finally picked up the TSW5 Deluxe Edition. 70% off is nice, I don't expect much higher discount soon. Got three new routes to explore, along with a few locos. None of the routes really interest me all that much, which is why I've waited this long. Still, can't really go wrong at this price, there's little I don't enjoy in TSW
So wanted to just know. Is there a separate March Madness sale or is the Steam Spring Sale basically March Madness?
LIRR commuter seems good at 50% off. What are people’s thoughts about this route? On my bingo card it almost checks out all preferred route criterias, the only thing is it is in US. Had an unsatisfactory experience with New York to Trenton, so now I am more cautious about US stuff
Love this route its fast paced stop and starter 3 start/end points two trains to choose from tho almost identical you eachother you have to play with safety systems on unless you on pc I'm sure there's a mod to turn them off its got a few branches as well good route.
Another sale, what a surpise I have the feeling TSW is really degenerating into complete junk. Don't get me wrong, I like discounts. I've bought many add-ons in sales myself. But what I've been observing for some time, and what I'm seeing again in this sale, could really be interpreted as a slap in the face to all those buying the add-ons on day one. That old game versions, including older add-ons, are being offered at bargain prices is fine. Fore some years there was a range up to 6-12 months, until a SMALL discounts appeared. But the fact that nowadays even the most recent game TSW5 is being sold off again with a 70% discount, and that one of the add-ons, which isn't even two months old, is already being advertised at 20%, is truly unbelievable. - Is it because of the poor quality of the add-ons and thus poor sales? - Is it because the standard prices are too high for the quality offered? - Or are the standard prices generally set higher than they need to be so that they can advertise with supposedly "high" discounts and such sales don't become a loss-making business for the company? (I know this principle from a local furniture store; prices are generally high, but 70% of the year they constantly have sales with ridiculous "anniversaries" that only makes sense if the shop had calculated the difference from start into their calculations. And they can all the time tempt the people with high percentages.) I'd really be interested to know what their sales policy is and what their sales figures are. Given the consistently questionable quality, I don't see any worthwhile arguments for buying a route that isn't on sale. Exceptions might be routes that impress with their quality or scope. Examples may: Frankfurt - Fulda, Suffragette Line, Mildmay Line, the JT routes, and routes from TSG. But the rest? Too often, we hear about bugs and errors in preview sales and the excuse: it's because it is not the release build. In the end, however, you find out: the same errors are also present in the release build. Nothing was fixed. And suddenly, new bugs appear, like the missing passengers. Current presentation of the Cardiff route. It feels like they placed a lot of trees so that as little of the surrounding area as possible needs to be built. Portals on platforms to change platforms. So that you don't have to build so many underpasses or the like?! That's just not convincing! And I see this addon already now in one of the next sales with good starting percentages. So I will definitively not buy, until the percentage number reaches a specific area (as many others I assume) . The latest announcement for the Frankfurt-Wiesbaden S-Bahn won't be much different. They're building several route branches (which I think is nice in principle), but they're ending everything in the middle of a line again. With the section to Hanau from the Frankfurt-Fulda line and an addition to the tunnel route, at least one of the included S-Bahn lines would have been complete. That would have been an immense added value, justifying a day-one purchase (assuming there isn't another massive sale after 1-2 months). But also all those who constantly think that €30 is too much and complain about routes that there aren't any new locomotives included, even though there's plenty of running gear included (even if it's been recycled several times) should think about. Because I could well imagine that this stingy behavior (not only in the train sim and game industry) is also a contributing factor to the fact that quality isn't what it could be and that content is becoming increasingly less! But at the end: the question to DTG, why should someone ever buy on day 1 or on every other day (on that the add-on is at normal price), knowing there comes a sale several weeks later anyway? I would like to hear good reasons and arguments. And a suggestion: why not from begin a 365 days sale with half-priced addons?
Many's the time I have bought games right before a sale or price cut. Also movies, music, groceries, and pretty much everything else I've ever bought. That's not a slap in the face, just the randomness of life. Also, many's the time I've gone to buy something and found it on sale. Me, I prefer seeing half-full instead of looking for slights.
I agree, it’s not like it’s a state secret that routes get discounted frequently, if you’re willing to wait a year after release you can virtually guarantee at least 50% off but for most routes I don’t want to wait a year
With Steam I believe you do have the option if you bought something, then it goes on sale cheaper a few days later, to refund on that basis then rebuy at the discount price. However I presume the usual two hour caveat and “strikes” on your amount of refunded items still count in that situation.
Don’t think there will be a March Madness sale and there hasn’t been a Festival of Rail event this year. I presume that there will be an Easter Sale next month.
So far as Steam is concerned, doesn't the current sale replace the Easter one? So the next confirmed main Steam sale will be June/July time. Then there is a fairly hefty gap until late November (Thanksgiving) followed a month later by Xmas/New Year. I'm fairly certain DTG did have their Festival... style sale back in February.
Sorry OV there was a Steam Festival of Rail sale February 6th-13th, l forgot about it. Getting old!!! As for another steam sale between now and the end of June, we shall wait and see! Just seen that the November Autumn sale, is this year from Thursday 29th September to Thursday 6th October.
Yes, after this Spring Sale, the next major event will be the Summer Sale on June 26, I believe. From what I'm reading, the Autumn Sale will be in late September through early October, instead of Thanksgiving week. Not sure why this is because November and December are the big spending months.
The late November major sale was previously called Steam Autumn Sale. It was moved to September this year, likely because it was too close to the Steam Winter Sale, probably to make all the major sales spaced evenly through the year. There may be still however some "Black Friday" or "Thanksgiving" event this year instead, with plenty of things discounted, which would be probably shorter than the autumn sale was and it will not be Steam-wide that almost everybody would join, but will be organized by various publishers. In the past DTG had their catalog-wide sale in September (when TSC had year in the name instead of "Classic" and new editions released in September) - this year this sale will be called Steam Autumn Sale. Similarly, in the past there was no major Steam Spring Sale, but the Lunar New Year was a major sale instead, and there were various separate sale events in March, like for example DTG's March Madness, unrelated to other sales happening at the same time. Currently the Lunar New Year sale is an event and not a major sale organized by Steam, but by various publishers (mostly from east Asia). There was no major sale on Steam connected to Easter as far as I remember, but that doesn't mean publishers can't do some sale then.
20 - 27 March 2025 Our Springtime Sprint continues with plenty of discounts available in the Spring Encore Sale! https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/steam-spring-sale-now-on
We just had the steam spring sale last month. So no. Never seen easter being celebrated on steam in the form of a sale so far.
Not any more... They changed it a year or two ago to balance the sales more equally, albeit that doesn't explain why we get the summer sale then nothing until the American Thanksgiving then a month later Christmas and New Year.
Don't forget Black Friday.... and Cyber Monday. Every online store has gone mental over that recently.
They normally use the term spring sale instead of Easter sales, as it upsets and offends other faiths and religions. I can’t see there being another big sale until the summer as like you’ve already said, we’ve already had a sale last month. I just hope the next sale we have newer content, as all DTG keep dropping lately is mostly TSW2/3 era. Great for new players, but not for veterans.
I think I read recently that the " Thanksgiving Sale " has been moved up to late September - early October. After that, we have to wait until mid December for the next sale. This makes more sense for Steam to space their major sales every three months ( March, June, September and December.) Besides, I have the impression that the whole " Black Friday " phenomenon is losing its luster here in the US. More and more people go online for Christmas shopping each year and they do it later. Shopping malls are closing everywhere.
The current PS5 sale is even more hit and miss. Old crocks like Rapid Transit (which should be permanently discounted by now) no discount and full price, yet ECML £11.99 or you can pick up the three routes from the TSW5 release for also just £11.99.
Yeah it’s pretty diabolical. I’ve been waiting for some discount on the newer German routes, but it’s always the vintage content on sale. I mean at this point I probably should just buy them, but I’ve waited this long so waiting a bit longer can’t hurt.
See, every time I hear about this route, it basically seems to boil down to "It probably should have been left with NEC-NY in never getting added to the backcompat list" - one wonders if part of why it seems to get passed over for discounts is tacit acknowledgement of the issues people would complain about if they actually had incentive to buy it. To this day it remains the one classic TSW route I was never given a solid reason to buy.
The route itself isn't great, but the 182 is a nice addition (especially when it was the only Eurosprinter/Taurus in the game)
It's pretty good (much better than the buggy Dispolok). My only objection to it is less than great sounds, but there's a good soundmod for it.
May Madness Sale Tuesday 6th May – Tuesday 13th May 10 - 80% discounts See links in my original post to filter using your own criteria - https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/latest-sales-thread.26334/ DTG announcement - https://live.dovetailgames.com/live...am&utm_id=dtg&utm_term=may-madness-sale-steam DLC at historic lows -
Be careful with the sales. TSW4 content (which is compatible with TSW5) might be cheaper than the TSW5 variant, for example the BR 218 in the current sale.
It's not misleading. It's labeled TSW 4. To be fair, if you buy TSW 4 content, you can then upgrade that content to TSW 5 for free (just like everyone else did when TSW 5 came out as a free upgrade) So you can still get the better deal, it just takes one more step to use.
I don't know. It's effectively the same product, from the same developer, in the same store, just priced differently. I don't know what DTG and Steam are trying to achieve with this kind of pricing. It certainly requires customers to be more aware. I just happened to find out because I had the TSW4 version on my wishlist, and then went on the TSW5 store page to look for other discounts, but found the 218 to be discounted differently. Misleading or not, it's not very transparent either.
It's the upgraded version. It's clearly labeled. As I said, you can get a discount if it's offered on earlier TSW versions and then you upgrade for free to TSW 5. So you aren't "losing" anything. They can't do it any other way because people STILL play TSW 4 and TSW 3 (a few) so if you remove those from the store then you lose them. Then they would scream bloody murder for "forcing them to upgrade." This way doesn't harm anybody. All you have to do is read labels. It's as transparent as possible. If in your example, the 218 is discounted more on TSW 4 for example, and you "in error" buy that one.. then you can STILL get the TSW 5 version of the 218 for free and get the TSW 4 sale price. It just involves one free upgrade that takes you a few seconds. So in your case, it would HURT you for not having it like this because you would have not had a cheaper sale on TSW 4 at all. You'd just never get the lower price.
I remember doing this in the TSW2 days. Back then the TSW 2020 ones were constantly having a bigger discount and you would still get an upgrade for free. Even bought TSW 2020 as part of a deal and never ever installed it, only started with TSW2. They seemed to have cut back on this since at least TSW4 and all versions had the same discount for a while and no deals to be had buying for the older game. At the same time there are the constant 90% sales on core routes which was not the case before. This might have been a honest mistake for the 218, although it probably has driven up the sales a bit, I for sure picked it up for the TSW4 price instead. Once they added the erroneus price I dont think Steam allows it to be increased for a while if its in a sale.
I agree it might have been a simple mistake. If it was an intentional strategy, you'd expect it to occur more often. Still, it might pay off for us customers to check prices on DLC for previous TSW versions before buying anything.
