Valve Corp. announced earlier this year that it would be changing up the way it handles some of its big seasonal sales by ending all temporary discounts. This included Daily Deals, which changed every day, as well as Flash Sales and Community Choice deals, both of which lasted for eight hours before being replaced by new sales.

At first, this seemed to imply that Steam users would be safe buying the games they wanted at any point during the sale, because presumably the discounted prices would stay the same through the end of the sale, but now it looks like that may not be the case. Reddit user /u/MosquitoSenorito pointed out on the /r/Games subreddit that discounts on multiple items, including Rocksmith 2014 and South Park: Stick of Truth, will end long before the completion of the Steam Winter Sale.

While some discounts are ending early, there have also been a few games that were added to the sale after it had already started, which disproves the theory that the end of Daily Deals and Flash Sales would mean users no longer had to worry that a game they bought would be discounted even more a day or two later.

“Make sure you buy games from your wishlist in time,” MosquitoSenorito advised, “and if you really want some games, don’t loose hope: It can still get a discount.”

At least with the Daily Deals and Flash Sales, users knew exactly how long the lowered price would last, and they also knew that if their game didn’t get a bigger discount by the end of the sale, they could still buy it on the final day for the same price it had been since the sale started.

With the new system, there seems to be a lot more uncertainty about the best time to buy a game, and reading through a jumbled price list is not nearly as exciting as checking in once a day to see what the new deals are.

Screenshot via Steam Client