We’ll likely never see another Steam sale event like the Grand Prix
The 2019 Steam Grand Prix plunged Steam into chaos, and we haven't had an event like it since.
Share this article...
WePC is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
With the Steam Summer Sale 2023 on the way, we thought it appropriate to talk about the 2019 Grand Prix. If you were around for the 2019 Steam Summer Grand Prix event, you’ll fully understand why Valve has chosen to keep the Steam events pretty tame during significant sales. Since 2019, we haven’t seen any really big events during the Summer Sale, and we’ll likely never see another Steam sale event like the Grand Prix ever again.
To clear things up, we’re not talking about the sale itself, that is still going ahead as planned on 29/06/23. We’re talking about the special events Valve sometimes runs within Steam alongside the major Summer Sales.
What happened to the Steam Grand Prix in 2019?
One word, chaos. It’s a long story but we’ll try to keep it short. Here is a fantastic video by The Spriffing Brit over on YouTube that describes how the exploit works.
The Steam Summer Sale back in 2019 was accompanied by an event dubbed the “Steam Grand Prix” where Steam users could pick a team to race with, every day was a new race. You could complete little quests to fill your boost meter with other players to help get the team you chose to the finish line first!
This race was incredibly broken, but it wasn’t the main issue. The main problem facing Steam was the quest rewards that earned players points (similar to the points shop we have now). This allowed players to accumulate points by completing in-game quests like “drink cola in Starbound” and spending those points on Steam Levels and discount vouchers in Steam.
The issue was, that these quests were never voided after completing so you could do them infinitely and rack up massive points. However, there was a limit. Steam implemented a points meter limit calculated by the money you spent up to the Grand Prix and any leftover Luna New Year tokens you had laying around.
Players, yet again managed to circumvent this limit to gain near-infinite points during the event. So now you have players leveling up their Steam accounts massively and buying discount vouchers while spending no money. Not a good return on investment for Steam.
Not only was the event confusing, it also lost a lot of money for Steam as players were buying discount vouchers left and right with free points they were earning via exploits.
We’ll likely never see another Steam sale event like the Steam Grand Prix 2019
This event was amended a couple of days into the event to try and control the amount of exploring going on and to fix some of the confusion with regard to the race itself.
Will there be another Steam event like the Steam Grand Prix? Or will the Steam Grand Prix be repeated?
Unfortunately, this event will have lost a lot of money for Steam with the number of discounts purchased with farmed points from the race event. Since 2019, we haven’t seen an event that came close to the Summer Sale 2019 in terms of complexity or design. Steam has kept it simple with recent Steam Sale events. Opting for visual themes over actual monetary advantages.
We don’t have high hopes for a big sale event for the Summer Sale 2023 either, (besides the massive discounts that will be on offer, of course). We think it’d be great for Valve to give a big event another go, just maybe test it a little more thoroughly first.
Valve hasn’t said anything official about banning Steam events, we just feel like in the last 3 years we would have had one like the Grand Prix if there was going to be one. We’re not excluding the possibility of more badge/aesthetic events.
The Steam Grand Prix 2019 was the most excited I was for a Steam event, and regardless of how broken it was, it brought the community together. And that’s the main thing.
Will there be an event at the 2023 Steam Summer Sale?
It’s not yet known whether the 2023 Summer Sale will be accompanied by an actual event or not, but we hope it is. There have been plenty of visual events that allow you to craft a limited number of badges and unlock aesthetic rewards for your profile. But there hasn’t been anything that allowed you to interact with the community quite like the Steam Grand Prix did.
Whilst the likelihood is slim, we remain hopeful that we will once again get an event like the Steam Grand Prix in 2019. But if you want to know the theme of the 2023 Steam Summer sale, we have some speculations.
