It"s the most wonderful time of the year, and of course that means that the annual Steam Holiday Sale has started. From Monday, December 19 through January 1, a huge selection of computer games will be on sale, plus daily specials and contest prizes throughout the full two weeks.
Almost everything in the massive Steam catalog is on sale as of right now, including themed bundles and publisher catalogs. These items will be on sale until January 1, though there is the chance that they might be discounted even further in a daily deal.
Speaking of daily deals, today marks the first set, with big discounts on games like Just Cause 2, Rift, Portal 1 and 2, the Max Payne series and more. The new daily deals will appear every day at noon Central time, so be sure to grab anything you"re interested in before that time rolls around and the old deals are replaced with fresh new ones.
For anyone who happens to be new to the whole Steam sale thing, it"s highly recommended that you wait on buying games in case they appear as a daily deal, when they might be discounted even more heavily than the normal discount prices throughout the two-week sale period.
On top of all this, there is also a contest where you can win gift prizes or earn a chance at a big sweepstakes-style giveaway. Every day, a new set of six objectives will be revealed on the Steam Holiday Sale page. These objectives will require you to either participate in a Steam Community activity (today"s is to simply check your Steam Inventory) or earn an achievement in a Steam game. Savvy gamers have already discovered all of the holiday achievements, and have started guides detailing how to earn them easily. You won"t get credit for these achievements until they"ve been revealed on the Steam Holiday Sale page, though there"s no harm in earning them ahead of time.
For each objective you complete, you will earn either a gift or a lump of coal. The gifts might be a coupon to save money on purchases or a free game, both of which you can keep for yourself or give away to friends or strangers. And while lumps of coal are usually a bad thing to find in your stocking, each piece you earn through Steam will count as an entry into the sweepstakes giveaway, the grand prize of which is every single game in the Steam catalog. You can also trade in seven pieces of coal for a random gift.
Good luck to everyone in the contest! Let us know what games you"re hoping go on sale in the comments!