Valve apologies for confusing Steam Summer Sale Grand Prix event

The Steam Summer Sale 2019 is currently running, and while Valve – the company behind Steam – has been cutting the prices of thousands of PC games, it’s also tried to liven things up with the Steam Grand Prix event, but the complexity of the event has lead to complaints from both customers and game developers.

The idea behind the event is that customers win points by taking part in the Steam Summer Sale, with players racking up points for various achievements. People with lots of points would then win the game at the top of their Steam Wishlist.

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While that might seem straightforward enough, the full rules were so baffling that many customers complained – leading to Valve apologizing for the complexity, and releasing a revised announcement that attempts to make the rules clearer.

It wasn’t just customers who were annoyed by the confusing rules. Many game developers – especially indie developers – have raised concerns about the original instructions, which led to some people dropping their games from wishlists in favor of more expensive titles.

Changing the game

Because of the complaints, Valve has announced that it has changed the way the game works, based on the feedback it received.

The changes are (according to Valve):

• We've made improvements to the Driver's Dash and Manual, to help clarify how to play.
• We’ve made some back-end changes to help mitigate some of the snowball effects we’ve seen that have led to Team Corgi running away with the first two days of the races despite their tiny legs.
• We’ve changed some code to help deal with the imbalanced team sizes across the board.
• We've added a new random drop drivers can receive upon boosting called STEAL BOOSTS. If another team is way ahead, use this attack against them to help close the gap by stealing their boosts for your own team.

Valve says that “We’re hoping some of these changes will help make the event more clear and enjoyable. We’ll keep an eye on things and continue to adjust the game as needed.”

Valve has also given away an extra 1,000 points to every player that was active on the first day of the event, and another 1,000 for players who were active on day two.

While we applaud Valve for trying something a bit different, it’s a shame that the overly complex nature of the Steam Grand Prix event has detracted from the genuinely impressive deals that are available in the Steam Summer Sale.

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Via NeoWin