Steam Summer Sale 2017 tips

The Steam Summer Sale 2017 beings today on June 22, 2017. It is an event that many PC gamers -- and also some Mac and Linux gamers -- look forward to as thousands of games, apps and some hardware will be available often at huge discounts to the regular price (up to 90%).

Sales on Steam are not as eventful anymore as they have been years ago. This comes down to an increase in sales throughout the year, and that there is no real "event" anymore that is integrated into the sale.

What you get are deals, and an opportunity to earn some cards each day by going through stacks of suggestions.

The following tips help you get the most out of the Steam Summer Sale 2017.

Steam Summer Sale 2017 Tips

Don't rush

There is no need to rush things. Steam will be swarmed by users, especially on the first day of sales. This impacts not only the Steam Store, but also games and the general availability of Steam.

The main reason why there is no need to rush things is that discounts are valid throughout the sale period. This is different compared to sales a couple of years ago; Steam sales included deals that were only good for a short period of time, and thus were usually discounted more heavily than the regular discount of the game in question.

Since this is no longer the case, you will get the same discount regardless of when you purchase the item throughout the sales period.

Use SteamDB

SteamDB is a database for Steam games. It has a dedicated sales page that offers better listings of games, plenty of filters, and information on whether the current price is the highest recorded discount for a game or not.

You can sort games by price, discount, rating, release date, and even mix filters. One interesting option would be to list all games with a discount of at least 75% that have received an average rating of 90% or more.

Use Enhanced Steam

Enhanced Steam is a browser add-on that improves the Steam Store a lot. Some of the features that it supports include:

• Price Comparison -- Enhanced Steam highlights the lowest price and historical lowest price using third-party stores and shops.
• DRM -- The add-on informs you whether a game makes use of DRM.
• Other dependencies -- Information on whether a game requires additional software, e.g. uPlay.

Bundles are usually worth it

While you can buy any game or DLC on its own, it is bundles that often offer the best value for the money. Bundles come in three major flavors:

• Publisher Bundles -- Multiple games of a single publisher. Useful to buy an entire series of games, or a lot of games in bulk.
• Game Bundles -- These include the core game and most or all the add-ons or DLCs released for that game.
• Player Packs -- This is for multiplayer games only. You buy multiple copies of a game that you gift to some of your Steam friends then.

Game Bundles are great, as you get the full experience if all DLC and add-ons are included. This is especially important for games that throw dozens or more DLCs at you (Paradox I'm talking to you).

Steam deducts games or DLC automatically that you own already from the purchase price so that you don't end up paying for the same item multiple times.

Downside to Publisher Bundles is that you may buy games that you will never play, and that you cannot park them in your inventory anymore.

Adding purchases as Gifts is no longer an option

Valve changed recently how Gifts work on Steam. Valve retired options to gift to inventory, which means that you cannot buy games anymore during sales and store them in your Steam inventory.

This was pretty useful for buying bundles, as you could trade games of a bundle that you were not interested in.

Sell Trading Cards early

If you get trading cards, either through making purchases on Steam -- you get 1 trading card for any $10 that you spend -- or by going through the lists of suggestions, you may want to sell them as quickly as possible.

The price of cards goes down a lot usually throughout the sales period. While you may get 50 cents or more on day one for a card, most cards sell for 3 cents near the end of the sales period.

You can earn enough through cards to buy some games from the money that you earned.

See how to earn money on Steam for detailed instructions.

Grab a 5€ PayPal gift

I don't know whether this option is only available for German PayPal users, or for PayPal users in other countries as well.

You can grab a 5€ gift card, and if you make a purchase of 20€ or more on Steam the next time using PayPal as the payment processor, the 5€ is automatically dedicated from the purchase. PayPal notes that this option is available for 18000 users.

You may want to check out our general guide on Steam Sales here as well as it offers more tips and suggestions.

Stickers?

The Steam Summer Sale includes a Sticker book. You can earn sticker packs by completing quests (such as going through your discovery queue, making sure your preferences are in order, or checking your friends activity on Steam). Missed quests can be completed on later days on the Summer Sale progress page.

Stickers can only be earned through quests, they cannot be purchased on the market. Pages that you fill with stickers get unlocked permanently on the account. Sticker albums have no other effect.

Now You: Have another tip on getting the most out of Steam sales? Let me know in the comments!

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