Does A Steam Labor Day Sale Happen Each Year?


Steam is a major player in the video game industry for two main reasons, instant downloadable content and sitewide and developer initiated sales events. It is the sales that the Valve corporation (the company behind Steam) rolls out that is our concern here. On Labor Day, is there a Steam sales event?

Steam does not have a specific Labor Day Sale each year. The Summer sale is its major sale of the year and ends fairly close to Labor Day. The Halloween sale is also right around the corner. Sales are meant to boost total company sales numbers and too many too close is not good for business.

In this article we will dive into how Steam operates such a successful video game selling website and what their sales events look like. Let’s get into this!

Valve Corporation is the company behind the Steam gaming site.

Contents

What Is Labor Day And A Labor Day Sale?

Labor Day is a holiday observed on the first Monday of September in the United States. In the 19th century, trade unionists requested that there should be a holiday to honor labor. 

Having the first Monday in September off from work was significant for American workers when Labor Day was declared a national holiday.

Working conditions in the country’s factories, railroads, mills, and mines were grim. Employees, including many children, were often required to work twelve hours a day, six days a week, in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. It was then announced a federal holiday in 1887 and has happened every year ever since. 

Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of summer in the U.S., but worker-oriented Labor Day parades and festivities are still part of the federal holiday. In recent years, parades have been cancelled due to the pandemic. 

This is said to be very advantageous to capture customers. It is essential for discounts and allowances for many retailers in the United States. Some retailers claim it is the biggest sale day of the year, coming second only to the Christmas sales.

Labor Day Is An American Holiday

Steam is a company with ties internationally. I know this for a fact seeing as one of the online games I regularly play has me chatting with Australians, Germans, Canadians, and many more. The American servers for many games are the most popular, even if the connection is far enough away to cause some issues.

This leads Steam to dedicate most of its holiday based sales to times or seasons that most around the world will recognize.

Though, the U.S. market is understandably the largest which leads to sales like Halloween and other small events, for the most part Valve makes their date decisions for these events based on more internationally identifiable dates.

How Does Steam Advertise Sales?

Steam sales selling dates are usually a secret at Valve. Steam sales are, however, fairly distributed throughout the year. The sell dates are slightly made predictable. These discount sale dates are only told among staff because any customers who knew about them would wait for these dates to get the discounts.

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What Does Steam Do?

Steam is a platform for playing, discussing and producing games. Steam also sells games at a much lower price than other sellers due to the digital format and sales events. Like any other business, Steam has opted to have seasonal sales with discounts. For Steam, they happen at different times yearly in winter, spring, autumn, and summer.

The summer and winter sales are the most extended sales that last up to two weeks. The other Steam sales last for about a week or even less.   

Steam also hosts steam festivals. They are currently referred to as Next Fest. In the celebrations, hundreds come to play the game for less. Many upcoming games give game demos for you to play. 

Steam allows users to discuss their opinions about games and other products. This way helps them understand which games will meet the higher market demands before the sale dates. As a business, it is usually intended to make profits as the primary goal. 

On the summer sales, Steam has added thousands of games on the points shop. The frequent discounted deals help Steam to stay in the game for ordinary customers. There are also thousands of stickers to earn. What’s more, it does this every year. 

Super Top Secret Steam Tip: Free Games

If you are not as picky about your game titles and don’t mind a little retro action, then there are some games on Steam that won’t cost you a dollar, Euro, etc. Here is an example of a list of free games that could be found on Steam during 2021.

  1. Spellbreak
  2. Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
  3. Destiny 2
  4. Digital Combat Simulator
  5. Brawlhalla
  6. Missed messages
  7. Paladins
  8. The Supper
  9. Tabletopia
  10. Apex Legends

So, if you are cheap or just not in possession of extra cash at the moment, give some of these freebies a try.

How Often Are Steam Sales?

Steam sales occur at regular times of the year, but some of them can change from one year to the next.  The previous sale dates can be used to predict the following sale dates. The future sale dates are only shared among developers and partners at Valve. 

Steam starts its sales mainly on the first Thursday of the month, except for Autumn/Black Friday sales which have been starting on Wednesdays in the previous few years. Every year, there are seasonal sales with deep price cuts to win more customers. 

The fortunate fact is that steam sales are consistent makes it relatively easy to predict the stream sale dates, however confidential they are for the customers. To help you figure out when the next one coming up is, here are some of the larger the Steam sales dates in 2021.

There is the Lunar sale that occurred from February 11 to February 15. Then there is the Golden Week Sale that lasted a week. It happened in April from 29th to May 6. There was another steam sale in May, and this one was called the Open World Sale 2021. It ran for four days.  

The Steam Summer Sale is a great mid-year opportunity to gram as many games or titles at a discounted price. 

The summer sale is said to be the most significant and most extended sale. The Halloween sale mainly focuses on horror games as in-game Halloween events have also accompanied the games. Those who find fun in horror games get a better deal with this sale.

The Steam Autumn Sale occurs during the Black Friday period and the Cyber Monday to ensure that Pc gamers are well supplemented with games and don’t miss out on the Autumn sale.

The Steam Winter Sale is their Christmas season sale, the last steam sale of the year, and it has the most significant discounts. 

Chances are the discounts will increase as the annual sales roll by. It’s also much easier to wait on the purchase because there are no daily or flash deals. If you see a discount, you know that it’s going to be stable until the end of the sale, so you can wait a few days to make a decision.

Has There Ever Been A Steam Labor Day Sale?

Steam sales days are initially kept secret until a date is leaked before it’s added to the sales calendar. However, as much as Steam has many sales days in a year, it has not been brought out clearly that there has been a Steam Sale on Labor Day.

There has not been a Steam Labor Day Sale because the holiday comes right after the summer sale and before Halloween. Having another sales date here sounds like too much extra work for Steam with the minor difference in the number of sales. The ROI just isn’t there.

A Steam Labor Day sale would reduce the Halloween sales or the Summer sales since people will go for the most favorable sale date.

This holiday has been important for many retailers and product sellers to allow discounts on their products. For Steam, however, there are other standard sales dates than the steam Labor Day Sales. 

Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of summer, but worker-oriented parades and celebrations continue to be a component of the federal holiday.

Wrapping Up Steam Labor Day Sales…

If you are looking for a sale around Labor Day for that wish-list item on the Steam website, you may have to plan a little ahead for the Summer Sale or wait for the Christmas time Winter Sale. There usually won’t be one specifically dedicated to Labor Day.

That being said, you could run into a developer sale during that time of year. These are small sales usually lasting a few days where one specific game developer’s games will have discounts on Steam. If your titles are not included, you will just have to wait for the Autumn (Halloween) sale or the Winter (Christmas) sale.

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Resources

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-sale-dates/

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/steam-sale-2020-schedule

https://www.investopedia.com/news/history-labor-day/

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