The Steam Summer Sale is Here! Tips to Not Make Your Wallet Hate You
How to spend your money wisely and get a bunch of video games.
It’s really happening, people. This is not a drill: The Steam Summer Sale is now live. For those that are Steam sale veterans, it’s a known fact that it’s easy to get carried away with the deep discounts. Suddenly, your cash reserve is hurting, and there’s no going back. Well, here’s a few tips and tricks that are a mixture of common sense and understanding past Steam sale behavior that’ll serve you well during your bargain hunting.
For the record, the current sale is slated to last from now until July 22nd, so 12 days. Here’s what’s currently up for the Daily Deals today, straight from Valve:
Bioshock franchise 50% to 75% off
Endless Space 66% off
Antichamber 66% off
Hotline Miami 75% off
Scribblenauts Unlimited 75% off
Don’t Starve 40% off
Defiance 66% off
Toki Tori 2+ 34% off
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger 33% off
Left 4 Dead Franchise 75% off
Daily Deals are your best bet when it comes to a good game for cheap. These are your bread and butter, and Steam tends to offer the best discounts on Daily Deals. If you see something here that you want, be aware that it’s almost certain to not get cheaper. Snatch it up while you can.
Flash Sales and Community’s Choice are great, but unreliable. These are just too finicky to monitor to count on. Flash Sales rotate fairly frequently, refreshing every 8 hours, but they’re just as good as Daily Deals — just more often. Community’s Choice is a fantastic way to pick up something that might not go on sale otherwise, but the fact that it’s, you know, up to the community makes it a gamble. Always vote, though. Steam usually rewards you for that.
Do not buy anything that isn’t part of a Daily Deal, Flash Sale, or Community’s Choice until the final day. There are going to be video games with generic discounts associated with them. Some of these might be quite tempting, but do not bite the bullet until the official sale has almost concluded. There’s nothing worse than pulling the trigger two days in only to discover the same game’s on sale for far cheaper three days later. It’s just not worth it.
If you missed a sale, don’t buy it anyway. The best sales typically repeat on the final day as a sort of encore. Even if your particular title doesn’t get included, it won’t hurt to wait, and you could potentially save some money.
It actually doesn’t look like publisher packs are included in this sale — which is a bummer, because those offered some of the best discounts available in previous ones. As a slightly smaller trick to make up for this, if you include an item in your Steam Wishlist, they’ll let you know when it goes on sale.
(image via 401 (K) 2013)
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