How to get alerts for the best discounts on PC, console, & indie games?
Never Miss a Bargain: Your Guide to Game Deal Alerts
For avid gamers, the thrill of a new release is often matched only by the excitement of snagging a favorite title at a fraction of its original price. With the vast ocean of PC, console, and indie games available, keeping track of every sale can feel like a full-time job. Thankfully, there are numerous tools and strategies to ensure you’re always the first to know when that coveted game drops in price. Let’s dive into the best ways to set up alerts and become a master of game deal hunting.
Leveraging Dedicated Deal Websites and Aggregators
The internet is brimming with websites specifically designed to track game prices across multiple storefronts. Services like IsThereAnyDeal, CheapShark, and GG.deals meticulously monitor prices from digital distributors such as Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, Humble Bundle, Fanatical, and more. These platforms often provide price history charts, allowing you to see if a current discount is truly the best deal ever or just a regular sale.
The real power of these sites lies in their alert features. You can create a wishlist of games you’re interested in and receive email notifications or browser alerts when any of those games hit a specific price point or percentage discount. This automation is incredibly effective for passive deal tracking.
Mastering Platform-Specific Sales Cycles
Major gaming platforms are renowned for their regular, significant sales events. Understanding their typical schedules can give you a significant advantage. Steam, for instance, has its legendary Summer and Winter Sales, alongside smaller seasonal events like the Halloween, Autumn, and Lunar New Year Sales, which often bring massive discounts across their entire catalog. Similarly, the PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, and Nintendo eShop run weekly deals, monthly sales, and large seasonal promotions.
It’s also worth keeping an eye on the Epic Games Store, not only for their frequent sales but also for their generous offer of free games every week. Adding these free titles to your library can significantly expand your collection without spending a dime.
Harnessing Browser Extensions and Mobile Apps
To integrate deal tracking seamlessly into your browsing experience, consider using browser extensions. Tools like the Enhanced Steam extension (though unofficial) or various price comparison plugins can show you historical low prices directly on a game’s store page, or even compare prices across different retailers with a single click. For mobile gamers or those who prefer alerts on the go, many of the aforementioned deal aggregator websites also offer dedicated mobile apps. These apps push notifications directly to your device, ensuring you’re alerted instantly to price drops, even when away from your desktop.
Engaging with Gaming Communities and Social Media
The collective power of the gaming community is an invaluable resource for finding deals. Subreddits like r/gamedeals and r/buildapcsales are hotbeds of user-submitted discounts, often highlighting flash sales, obscure regional deals, or pricing errors before official channels can. Similarly, dedicated Discord servers and Twitter accounts (often run by the deal aggregators themselves or passionate community members) constantly share new findings.
These communities not only provide real-time updates but also offer a space to discuss the quality of games on sale, helping you decide if a particular discount is worth pursuing. Following these channels is a low-effort way to stay in the loop.
Signing Up for Email Newsletters and Publisher Alerts
While sometimes feeling like spam, official email newsletters from game publishers and digital storefronts can be surprisingly effective. Companies like Humble Bundle, Fanatical, GOG, and even specific publishers often announce exclusive sales, bundles, or flash deals directly to their subscribers first. Creating a dedicated email address for these subscriptions can help manage the influx and ensure you don’t miss out on special promotions tailored to their audience.
Never Pay Full Price Again
With a combination of these strategies, you can transform from a passive shopper into a proactive deal hunter. By setting up wishlists on aggregators, monitoring platform sales, utilizing browser tools, engaging with communities, and subscribing to newsletters, you’ll be well-equipped to snag the best discounts on PC, console, and indie games. Happy gaming, and may your library grow while your wallet stays full!
