On Steam sales: while i do dabble in them occasionally, if i find something interesting for a buck or two, i stopped participating in them entirely.
I just found out that my time is way more finite than my money. At this point of time, if i want to play a game, i will just buy it at any price, sale or not. It's finding time and desire to play it in the first place that stops me.
Especially when in the latest sale they basically turned consumerism (as in act of spending money) into a metagame, which is all kinds of scummy for me.
You're supposed to buy games to play them, not to compete in some virtual competition on which team will spend more. This is skewing of the buying process into some kind of casino where you don't even have a hope of a chance to end up earn more than you spend.