How can I get reliable notifications for game deals & codes on my wishlist?
Never Miss a Great Game Deal Again
For avid gamers, few things are more satisfying than snagging a long-desired title at a steep discount. The challenge, however, lies in staying on top of the ever-changing landscape of sales, bundles, and promotional codes across countless storefronts. Relying solely on manual checks or infrequent emails from individual platforms often means missing out on flash sales or limited-time offers. This guide will help you set up a robust system for reliable notifications, ensuring your wishlist works for you.
Leveraging Official Platform Wishlists
Most major digital storefronts, like Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop, offer a native wishlist feature. Adding games to your wishlist is the first crucial step. These platforms typically send email notifications when a wishlisted game goes on sale. While convenient, these notifications can sometimes be delayed or less frequent than desired, especially during major sales events. It’s a good baseline, but not always comprehensive enough for the most proactive deal hunters.
To maximize their effectiveness, ensure your account notification settings allow for deal alerts. For example, on Steam, you can customize email preferences to include ‘A game on my wishlist or followed list is on sale’. On consoles, enabling system notifications for deals can also provide on-device alerts.
Harnessing Third-Party Deal Aggregators and Price Trackers
The most effective way to get reliable, timely notifications is by using specialized third-party services that aggregate deals from multiple retailers and track price histories. These platforms often integrate with your existing wishlists or allow you to create new ones directly on their sites.
Top Aggregators for PC Games:
- IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD): An indispensable tool for PC gamers, ITAD tracks prices across dozens of official retailers (Steam, GOG, Epic, Humble Store, Fanatical, etc.). You can import your Steam wishlist directly and set custom price alerts.
- GG.deals: Similar to ITAD, GG.deals offers comprehensive price tracking for PC games, including historical lows, bundles, and official key store comparisons. It also allows wishlist imports and custom alerts.
Console-Specific Deal Sites:
- DekuDeals: A must-have for Nintendo Switch owners, DekuDeals tracks eShop sales, physical game deals, and allows you to create a wishlist with custom price drop alerts.
- PSDeals / XB Deals: These sites are dedicated to tracking sales on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Games Store, respectively, offering historical data and wishlist integration for notifications.
Browser Extensions and Mobile Apps for On-the-Go Alerts
Beyond dedicated websites, browser extensions and mobile apps can provide instant notifications. Many of the aforementioned deal aggregators offer companion apps or browser extensions that can alert you directly. Some general price tracking extensions also work on game store pages.
- Enhancements for Steam: While not a deal tracker, extensions like Enhanced Steam or SteamDB often add useful price history graphs directly to Steam store pages, helping you gauge if a deal is truly good.
- Deal Alert Apps: Some independent apps allow you to create wishlists and receive push notifications on your phone whenever a game you’re tracking hits a desired price point.
Leveraging Gaming Communities and Social Media
Sometimes, the fastest alerts come from fellow gamers. Online communities are quick to share breaking deals, especially for limited-time offers or pricing errors.
- Reddit Subreddits: r/GameDeals is a highly active community where users post and discuss game deals from all platforms. Setting up alerts for new posts in this subreddit can be incredibly effective.
- Discord Servers: Many gaming communities and specific deal-focused servers have bots that post deal alerts in real-time.
- Twitter Accounts: Follow reputable game deal accounts that specifically tweet out sales and codes. Enable notifications for these accounts to get instant alerts.
Setting Up Your Ultimate Notification System
To get the most reliable notifications, a multi-pronged approach is best:
- Primary Tracker: Choose one or two main deal aggregators (e.g., IsThereAnyDeal for PC, DekuDeals for Switch) and import your wishlists. Configure email and browser push notifications for desired price drops.
- Secondary Alerts: Enable email notifications on official platforms (Steam, PlayStation, etc.) as a backup.
- Community Watch: Join relevant subreddits or Discord servers and monitor them, or set up notification filters if available.
- Mobile Access: Use companion apps or dedicated deal alert apps for push notifications on your smartphone.
By combining these methods, you create a safety net that significantly increases your chances of catching deals and codes for games on your wishlist, ensuring you never pay full price when you don’t have to.
