How to track PC game deals across Steam, Epic & GOG for lowest prices?

Navigating the Digital Discount Jungle

The world of PC gaming offers an embarrassment of riches, not just in terms of games, but also in the sheer volume of sales and discounts. Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG are constantly vying for your attention with tantalizing deals, often running concurrent or staggered promotions. While this competition is great for gamers’ wallets, it also creates a challenge: how do you keep tabs on every sale to ensure you’re truly getting the lowest price for that game you’ve been eyeing?

Manually checking each storefront daily is tedious and inefficient. Fortunately, a host of powerful tools and strategies exist to help you become a master deal hunter, ensuring you never overpay again.

Essential Tools for Aggregated Deal Tracking

The cornerstone of effective PC game deal tracking lies in using dedicated aggregation websites. These platforms do the heavy lifting, pulling deal data from multiple storefronts and presenting it in a consolidated, easy-to-digest format.

1. Price Comparison Websites (Aggregators)

• IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD): Often considered the gold standard, ITAD tracks prices from a vast array of legitimate digital storefronts, not just the big three. It provides historical low prices, allows you to set price alerts for your wishlist, and even calculates the best regional prices. Its interface, while packed with features, is incredibly powerful for serious deal hunters.
• GG.deals: Similar to ITAD, GG.deals offers comprehensive price comparisons, historical data, and customizable alerts. It boasts a clean, user-friendly interface and often includes data for bundles and key resellers (though always exercise caution with unofficial key sites).
• CheapShark: A straightforward aggregator that quickly shows you current deals across numerous stores. While it might lack some of the advanced features of ITAD or GG.deals, it’s excellent for a quick glance at today’s best offers.

These sites are invaluable because they show you not just the current price on one store, but the lowest price available across all tracked stores, along with crucial historical data. Knowing a game’s all-time low helps you discern whether a current sale is truly a good deal or just a temporary markdown.

Leveraging Platform Features and Browser Extensions

Beyond dedicated aggregators, the storefronts themselves offer features that, when combined with other tools, enhance your deal-tracking capabilities.

2. Platform Wishlists and Email Notifications

Every major storefront – Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG – allows you to add games to a wishlist. Critically, they also offer email notifications that alert you when a game on your wishlist goes on sale. While not comprehensive for cross-store comparisons, these are vital for capturing deals directly from your preferred platform.

3. Browser Extensions for Instant Price Checks

Several browser extensions can integrate with aggregator sites or provide direct price history and comparisons while you browse storefronts:

• Augmented Steam: A must-have for Steam users, this extension adds a wealth of information directly to Steam store pages, including historical low prices from ITAD, package info, and even metacritic scores.
• Enhanced GOG: Similar to Augmented Steam, this extension enhances the GOG experience with price history and other useful data.
• Generic Price Trackers: Some extensions for sites like ITAD or GG.deals allow for quick price lookups directly from any game page.

Community-Driven Deal Hunting & Advanced Strategies

Sometimes, the best deals are unearthed by dedicated communities or require a bit more strategic thinking.

4. Gaming Deal Communities

Platforms like Reddit host active communities dedicated solely to finding and sharing game deals. Subreddits like r/gamedeals are incredibly effective, with users constantly posting new sales, highlighting temporary price errors, and discussing the quality of specific deals. Many even feature deals from less common storefronts or bundled offers that might not appear on aggregators immediately.

5. Combining Sales with Coupons and Bundles

The lowest price might not always come from a direct store sale. Keep an eye on:

• Bundles: Sites like Humble Bundle and Fanatical frequently offer curated game bundles at incredibly low prices, often including games from your wishlist.
• Store-specific Coupons: Epic Games Store, in particular, is famous for its generous coupons during major sales, which can be stacked on top of existing discounts for unprecedented savings. Other stores sometimes offer similar, though less frequent, coupon codes.

Building Your Ultimate Deal Tracking Workflow

To maximize your savings without getting overwhelmed, consider this streamlined workflow:

1. Primary Aggregator: Choose one main aggregator (e.g., IsThereAnyDeal or GG.deals) and set up price alerts for all games on your wishlist. This is your central hub.
2. Platform Wishlists: Keep your Steam, Epic, and GOG wishlists updated and enable email notifications as a backup.
3. Browser Extensions: Install relevant browser extensions to get instant price context while browsing storefronts.
4. Community Check: Periodically browse r/gamedeals or similar communities, especially during major sale events, to catch unique opportunities or discussions.
5. Bundle Watch: Keep an eye on Humble Bundle and Fanatical for high-value bundles.

Conclusion

The quest for the lowest PC game prices doesn’t have to be a chore. By combining the power of deal aggregation websites, platform-specific features, browser extensions, and active communities, you can build a robust system that ensures you’re always informed about the best deals across Steam, Epic, GOG, and beyond. Arm yourself with these tools, and you’ll be well on your way to expanding your game library without breaking the bank.