Flash Sales are reportedly coming back to Steam sales
Flash Sales, arguably one of the worst aspects about the old format of Steam sales, are said to be making a comeback.
In the past, a number of the games discounted during Steam's major sales essentially had two sale prices. The default sale price is what would show up anytime you visited said game's store page.
Then there was the extra special sale price, which offered an even deeper discount. This is the one you wanted, for obvious reasons. The only problem was that you didn't know when it was going to happen, and it was always frustrating to realise you missed out on some big deal because you hadn't checked Steam when it happened.
In fact, it was so tiresome trying to keep up with all this that the number one advice players would give is to always wait until the last day of the sale before buying anything, unless the game you want had been part of a flash sale prior.
According to Valve News Network's Tyler McVicker, the concept of Flash Sales is making a return, with some changes.
Developers are now able to set a time limit for flash sales of their games, between six and 12 hours. This likely means the front page would have to update every hour or two to show the new batch of deals, keeping things interesting for the sort of people who think of Steam sales are meant to be exciting adventures.
McVicker usually relays accurate information, and since Valve never actually reveals these sort of changes to the public, we'll have to take their word for it. Until the next major Steam sale, of course.
Flash Sales were retired right around the time Valve introduced the easy refund system. If they are indeed returning, it may be a headache to sort through the mountain of refund requests customers are inevitably going to submit when they buy a game just before it hits a lower price.
Refunding a game because it got cheaper as a result of a sale is one of several cases where Valve would be happy to offer a refund, and it's one of the default reasons you can choose when placing a refund request.