Prep Those Wallets: Steam’s Summer Sale has Launched

Right on schedule, Valve has just launched its famous Steam Summer Sale, which runs straight through to the end of the month. Like the last big sale, Valve’s implemented an interesting mechanic here worth paying attention to – and let me just say, if you’ve been hoarding cards to craft for this contest, you won’t be regretting it.

On this page, you’ll want to click “Get Started” to automatically join a team. Your goal is then to craft as many cards as possible, and earn as many points as you can in general, to help your team win that day. Win what, you ask? I’ll let Valve explain:

Everyone is randomly assigned to a team when they click the “Join a Team” button above or when they craft a badge. Your points count toward your team’s daily total.

Each day the team with the most points wins. 30 members of that team who contributed points that day will win 3 games off their Wishlist. Make sure to update your Wishlist. Anyone who contributed points to that win will get 2 bonus Summer Sale trading cards. Everyone else who contributed points that day will get 1 bonus card.

Overall, this sounds like a fun mechanic, but whether or not you plan on taking part, chances are good you’ll be interested in the enormous number of games and apps on sale. As always, much of Steam’s catalog is on sale, with highlighted games featured on the front page. At the moment, a couple of notable “Daily Deals” includes The Witcher 2 for $4, Far Cry 3 for $7.50, XCOM: Enemy Unknown (which is now for Linux) for $7.50, and Democracy 3 for $8.50.

Every 8 hours, a new set of Flash Sales will appear underneath the Daily Deals which will also be worth checking out. And, sticking to tradition, you’ll be able to vote in the Community’s Choice every eight hours to help decide what will appear next. It’s highly recommended that you check back every eight hours for this, since every 3 votes gets you 1 event trading card to craft or sell (current going prices are around 15 cents).