Rejoice, for the annual Steam Summer Sale has finally begun! Starting at mid-day Thursday and running until Monday, July 23, Valve and a large stable of publishers on the Steam digital distribution platform have collaborated to destroy your budgets.
Like previous event sales, every day features a new set of "daily deals," each of which lasts 36 hours (so laggards still have a half-day grace period to pick up yesterday"s deals). There are also "pack deals," which are collections of publisher"s libraries that are heavily discounted - up to 88% off the total retail price of the bundled games. These pack deals should remain constant throughout the duration of the sale.
As if those weren"t enough, there are new additions to the Steam savings this time around. Now there are four concurrent "flash sales," which are individual items discounted higher than usual for a short amount of time, and cycle out as their timers end. Finally, there"s a new "community"s choice" deal. Every eight hours or so, a poll with three different potential offers appears. All registered Steam users can vote on the game they want to see discounted. After the timer runs out, the winning choice is put on sale, and a new poll goes up in its place.
Thursday"s Indie Bundle I matches up perfectly with the leaked sale info posted a couple days ago, so it is likely that the rest of the list is accurate as well, if you want to get a preview of the upcoming indie bundles.
Finally, American gamers can get a 30% trade-in bonus at GameStop for the duration of the Steam sale when the games are traded in toward Steam Wallet credit. You"ve gotta find a way to afford all these games somehow, right?
Join in the forum discussion and share what games you"re buying, what games you hope to see on sale, and how much your wallet hates you.
Source: Steam