Overview
In this guide I will show you how to survive using steam without spending the correct amount of money on steam that allows you to access everything. This guide is made for the people that don’t want to spend anything but the minimum on things in life.
Intro
Welcome to the cheap mans guide to steam.
Game sales and how to mange them
As I am sure all of you might know at this point, steam has a lot of sales and one of your key successes to being cheap on steam is taking advantage of these sales. Whenever you see a game on a steam sale for a really good price buy it or else it might be gone forever. Now you might be saying, Llama isn’t that how they get you to spend money by making the games so cheap you buy a lot and don’t realize your spending more than you should? And I would say that you are absolutely right so thats why you should only get games you really want and not any old game thats 99% off. But if there’s a game thats had really good reviews and you just know is the best game to ever exist you should get it anyway if it’s got a good sale price. But just remember that if you really want to be the cheapest on steam never get a game for full price NEVER. I would even go as far to say that a game thats 50% off isn’t even close to being passable as cheap. A game in my opinion should be at least 70% off if you want to stay on the cheap side.
Special events and spending
Another known fact about steam sales is that they usually happen during a special event or holiday. Some examples are Halloween or Christmas. These are the times where you can strike gold on sales and get some of the better games for better prices. You will find sales on games such as portal or portal 2. Now as recommended from the last section DON’T BUY EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Your losing instead of gaining. For more information look at the section before. Next we will talk about tactics on scouting out sales.
Charting and data mining
Here in this next section it might get more technical, so if your not a tech wiz stand clear on these next points. Now it might be hard and overwhelming to go in to a steam sale event (look at the section before for more information on sale events) and not know where to look or what to look for. So here are some ideas for figuring out how to get a better grasp on these events. Charting: you can try making charts of different sales on certain games on certain events and see if certain events use the same sales on games so you can track down when certain events will have certain games on sale for certain sales. (sorry for using certain so much) Steam employees: if you are friends with someone who works at valve or if you yourself work at valve use that inside Intel to figure out the sales and dates of the games. AI: This last point is the most technical but it might work. If you know how to code up a AI then try making one to sort through all the steam events that have ever happened and match up certain ones with each other so it then can predict future sales and events.
Places to avoid and danger zones
This next section is one of the most important ones. We will now be discussing where not to go if you want to stay cheap and spend the least amount of money possible. First you want to avoid card markets. These markets are full of cards that you will need to get badges, but there’s still badges you can get for free so avoid those. Something else you might be saying is, but Llama the cards usually only cost a couple of cents. That might be true but as a point I made in previous sections those cents add up and soon enough you will have spend a million dollars on cards and would have past your money mark. Now before I go any further I want you guys to know there’s a different between places to avoid and danger zones. Places to avoid are areas in steam where they can charge you money. Danger zones are areas in GAMES that might charge you money like micro transactions. Here are some games that have danger zones. Portal 2: believe it or not but Portal 2 has micro transactions in it, in the form of little hats, flags, and accessories you can put on atlas and P-body. Those big one eyed glasses might look temping but don’t fall for there greedy money grabbing trap. Overwatch: lootboxes, do I even have to explain. Fortnite: Yes I did have to add this to the list. Even if its not a steam game I still had to. Fortnite has it’s own currency in v-bucks that you can use to buy skins, gliders, and picks. So as an extra non-steam cheap tip don’t buy v-bucks no matter how much you want that pink bear skin that you know will lose popularity in two days. In conclusion any game these days could have a micro transaction somewhere so you can never be to careful. What do you mean I missed a game?! What? Fine! Fallout 76: You know it, I know it. Just don’t buy atoms from the atomic shop. This game has way over priced prices that no one should pay for.
What to do with your extra cash
In this last section I will tell you all the goodies you can buy with all the extra cash you saved up because of this guide. Well you can buy a lovely meal for your mom. Or you can get a better computer system or an actual gaming PC instead of this windows computer that can barley play big scale games without crashing. Maybe you saved your money to counter all these points and buy micro transactions! Yay!!! Well in which ever way you spend your extra dough just remember, NEVER SPEND FULL ON A GAME!
The end
Well this is the end. As we reflect on our money saving journey we realize YOU COULD HAVE USED THIS TIME TO GET A JOB AND ACTUALLY MAKE MORE THAN WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE SAVED!