Valve seemingly discontinues Steam coupons — the company quietly removes partner documentation

Earlier this morning on Twitter, the unofficial but trusted SteamDB took note of Valve removing official partner documentation for Steam Coupons after a long period without them dropping for users at all. While the relevant Steam Support page and non-expired coupons still exist, it seems that Valve is steadily moving toward phasing them out entirely in favor of limiting promotional pricing to sales or publisher key distribution outside of Steam.

Is this a major blow to Steam's user base? Not particularly. Frequent sales and the lack of control over what coupons you get have long made most of them a non-factor outside of particular scenarios. Since coupons were only received randomly through crafting badges or as random developer gifts, the likelihood of them being for something you want is astronomically slim.

Is it a shame that Valve potentially removes the feature instead of making it more interesting or worthwhile? Perhaps, but it's not like Steam is hurting for extra features on top of its basic functionality as a game store and launcher. Losing coupons with platform-wide Steam sales in mind seems like a non-issue unless you're actively looking for something to be mad about.

It's difficult to emphasize how tacked-on the Steam Coupon system has felt since its addition. Common searches for Steam Coupons most frequently point toward users confused about why they exist or how to remove them from their item inventory when they remain unused due to rarely providing a deal the user wants.

So, ultimately, there's no major loss here—it just seems that Valve is performing some maintenance work and eliminating a feature its Steam storefront never actually needed and its users rarely used.

For those of you out there still hoping to get rid of coupons or perhaps even scoop some that may be of value to you, you aren't totally without recourse. Steam Group Coupon Dumpster seems to be where most users go for this kind of thing, but really...are you sure you don't just wanna wait for the next major seasonal sale? Just saying.