Was This Game Just On Sale? Steam May Show Price Shifts Over the Past 30 Days

Steam is the largest video game platform with more than 129,000 games and counting. With so many games and the company offering frequent sales, it’s hard to keep track of whether a game is at its lowest price or if it’s been discounted further in the past, but that may change. 

Lines of code found on the Steam platform appear to refer to a game’s recent price history, according to a post on Wednesday from the X account for the Half-Life fan site Lambda Generation. The code was discovered by data miner SigaTbh, who found it on SteamDB, a database and tracking site for the gaming platform. While price history is already a feature on Steam in the European Union, this update could be the first sign that it will become the norm for the platform over in the U.S. 

In the image posted by Lambda Generation, there are six lines of code referencing “Price_History,” and each line reflects a detail that could appear on a game’s page to provide context about its price. The price history would show the game’s normal price, the current price, whether the current price is a 30-day low, and whether the game was at a lower cost sometime within the past 30 days. 

Valve didn’t immediately respond to a request for confirmation about the new feature. 

Back in 2023, Valve added the price history feature to Steam in the EU as part of the Omnibus Directive. The directive is a set of rules issued by the EU focused on consumer protection. Companies with digital storefronts were required to implement a price tracker on their platforms to display the lowest price for each item over the past 30 days. Even though the Omnibus Directive is in effect, it’s not available in every EU member state, as individual countries must adopt it. 

Certain EU rules that require changes to a product or service eventually reach the US. Apple was forced to add USB-C to its iPhone 15 lineup due to EU legislation requiring standardization of charging ports. 

It’s unclear why Valve would add a price tracker to Steam in the U.S. The company is reportedly working on an AI bot for the platform dubbed “SteamGPT,” and the price history could be part of its features.