Steam Summer Sale 2015 tips and information

The Steam Summer Sale 2015 has started giving PC gamers from around the world opportunities to purchase games and software at discounts.

While there has been an increase in sales in recent years, Steam Sales are still one of the best opportunities to buy games on the cheap, considering that thousands of games are discounted during the period.

As is the case with every sale on Steam, it is important to keep an eye on special deals that are only available for a certain period of time. If you want to maximize the money you save during the sale, you buy only daily deals until the very last day of the sale to make sure you get the best discount for each game.

If a game did not make it on the Daily Sales list, you can still buy it for a discount on the last day of the Steam Sale.

The Summer Sale features the following limited sale periods:

• Daily Deals - These deals offer huge discounts but are only available on a single day (and maybe the next if Valve continues the practice to highlight the deals of the last day as well). These deals run 24 hours or 48 hours depending on that. Best option to buy games.
• Flash Sales - These offers are only available for 12 hours after which they are replaced with others. Second best option to buy games.
• Monster Deals - These deals become available when Steam users join the Monster Summer Games and help defeat monsters. More about that below.

Monster Summer Games and Summer Sale Cards

It is common that Valve adds a mini-game of sorts to major sales it holds on Steam. You can earn Summer Sale cards in five different ways during the Summer Sale:

1. If you craft a game badge using game-specific trading cards, you will get a Summer trading card instead of a coupon. This started June 1 which means that you may have some Summer 2015 trading cards in your inventory already.
2. For every $9 you spend buying games and programs, you get a trading card.
3. Playing the Monster Summer Game. Steam users level 5 and above can play the game to gain up to three Summer Sale trading cards per 24-hour period.
4. Trading with other players.
5. Buying cards from the community market.

The Monster game is not working for many users right now. Many either get an error right away when they click on the play now button (There was a problem trying to join a game. Please try again later), or they notice lag and other issues (resets) while playing the game.

Basically, you help unlock so-called community milestones while playing the game which unlocks additional deals once a day when certain requirements are met. Currently, those requirements are that a certain number of players have joined games, that a certain number of clicks were registered, and that a certain number of bosses have been defeated. These discounts are valid for 48-hours each.

The game itself is a basic clicking game that is not really that special. The only advantage you get playing it is the three random summer card drops. While you contribute to community milestones as well, those don't appear to be an issue as they seem to be reached easily it appears.

Since the game is rather buggy right now, it is probable better to wait until things calm down a bit before you join the game.

Other Tips

If you are not on your desktop PC all the time, you may want to use the Steam mobile application to make sure you don't miss a single day of sales on the site as it highlights all items on sale as well.