Usually, when it comes to these big sales like Steam Summer Sale I don’t buy a lot of games in general. This time around however was a bit different. As I have a purpose for spending and there were some amazing games I wanted to pick up on the cheap. It was easy to quantify spending with my future intent to create content around these games.
Most of them will just be a game review. I might end up creating further content around some of them if I find the game deep and interesting enough. There also the chance some of them I will find not worthy of creating any content around as I did not find them as interesting as I was hoping.
In total if I had purchased at full retail it would be around $600 after taxes. I expect at my content burn rate to get around 1 to 1.5 months’ worth of content out of that spending. It will take some time to get around to it all so this was some proactive spending on my part. Thankfully I paid nowhere near that.
To be fair that number is a little high. I did purchase some packages that include a lot of “junk” that I either won’t be reviewing or have l little use for. Some had a bunch of DLC in them or other stuff like “music tracks.” The discounts however on those packages sometimes ended up being cheaper than just buying the couple of things I wanted separately out of them. I also wanted some of the DLC anyway so there were a lot of great deals to pick up.
One of the games I already have a review out on --Chronicon. I also paid full price for it. It was an indie game that is still in early access and I might even put out more content around it in general.
Since it is a newer indie game there is quite the buzz around it and I had some amazing side benefits from creating a review around it. It picked up a decent amount of attention on Twitter with help from a community I’m now in. Along with a retweet from the developer himself. This to me was worth the cost as that is a step in the direction my content needs to take for me to be able to sustain and maybe one day recover my costs to keep doing such things indefinitely.
I’m also not all about just buying older games of yesteryear at deep discounts. My budget still has room for a couple of games when they drop that I plan on spending the $59.99 to acquire each. Hopefully with plans to get a few posts out of them to make it less of a loss. That content will also pick up a lot of traffic with quite a few things I have going on that I’ve been slowly building up as well.
Steam Summer Sale Itself
The sale did have some issues with the racing and I’ve noticed my points as well. I was hoping to pick up a lot more $5 discounts than I did. My team Hare also finished 3rd place but I was not lucky enough to randomly be selected during the days we were ranked high enough to get a free game out of my wishlist.
I did put some games on my wishlist that where $50-59.99 that either is not out yet but has a price, where newer with small or no discount. If I had won any of them for free that would just reduce my own costs in future content. Along with getting some brand new stuff out in the following weeks instead of months.
Quite a lot of people joined team Corgi and there was even some poking fun at the people who did not. My reasoning for not going with the meme is the fact of just how many people in fact did. While they were getting top 3 rankings a lot. They also had considerably more people to always be so far ahead of anyone else. Since the award of prizes had a set number per day. I felt my chances where better being in a team with a lot fewer people even if we did not always win. While I did not get anything out of it as of yet. I’m still happy with my choice as they performed decently.
If you are just looking around for some games to buy I included my list of ten that link out to full reviews I have written on Steem. The first part about the race no longer matters and I did not seem to be picking up many interests in that part so I never invested more time in rewriting or keeping it up to date with changes during the race part.
This is my second time now making a post about a Steam sale this time around I put a lot more effort into having a list of games. When the winter one rolls around I have plans to do the same again. Hopefully with a lot less effort on my part and some different games on the list.
Cost Of Being A Content Creator
Now we get down to the brass tax of this post. This sale itself was a cheap way to ensure I can bring fresh content in the future at a price point I had the funds for. I’m sure those who want to show some support but can’t stand another Path of Exile post out of me can rejoice (I’m bored of that game as it is myself.)
Now it’s true those are not going be triple-A new releases. While some are triple A they might be a few months to years old. From a business standpoint; until I’m able to build myself out further to either increase my revenue sources or reduce my costs it would not be sustainable model spending over $5.7k-$8.6k a year just on this side of things. There are other costs as well like hardware upgrades, software, stuff breaks, store solutions, and so on.
If I assume a spending rate at retail pricing of $300 every month that’s $3,600 a year. On top of that, I’ll be building a new computer in hopefully less than a year for around $1k. Add in other experiences and it’s easy to spend $5k in 12 month time period without very little planning.
Thankfully my costs are nowhere near that and if needed I could make things last longer than I plan for. On top of that, I been doing other things to further reduce my costs when I can. With hopefully some things working out in the next few months that I can start to ramp up things around here.
I also have been burning through games a lot faster then I use to do. The old me before wanting to create content around games would be fine for weeks on a single game. I would not play it as much, I’d stop to enjoy the little thing, and I’d go achievement hunting or other stuff. While I could just make one or two posts a month that tends to get a content creator now where fast.
Final Thoughts
Next couple of months I’ll be mixing in what I’ve recently spent along with some other content I have planned before the Steam Summer Sale. Some of which I did not get out in time due to some real life stuff. Last few days have been a bit slow on my end for creating content.
If the cover did not give it away Monster Hunter World is one of them and it even was a top seller during the sale. Along with some Legend Of Gridlock and Fallouts. Than stuff from a bunch of different gaming genres such as RPGs, RTS, adventures and so much more.
I also have some f2p games I been putting time into. I have been making the round creating content from time to time on digital collective card games, there also some other genres I just have not found the time to a write-up and get it out yet.
It’s going to be quite the fun summer and into the fall months.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar. The cover image is from Monster Hunter World. The remaining screenshots are from the Steam platform.
Originally posted on Enjar Games. Hive blog powered by ENGRAVE.