Steam Summer Sale 2018 Goes Live, Offering Deep Discounts On PC Games & Free ‘Summer Saliens’ Game With Prizes

The Steam Summer Sale is the highlight of the year for many hardcore gamers with beastly desktop rigs and laptops, heralding a week of deeply discounted games from AAA titles to indie releases.

Some big titles are already featured today at significantly reduced rates according to Polygon, including but not limited to:

• PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, one of the most popular battle-royale titles around, reduced by 33 percent, on sale for $19.99.
• Darkest Dungeon, a huge hit on streaming service Twitch and a decent little dungeon crawler rogue-like, offered up at a 70 percent discount for $7.49.
• Nioh: Complete Edition, Team Ninja’s clap back at Dark Souls and Bloodborne with faster fighting, sold at a 40 percent reduction for $29.99 including all DLC.
• Ark: Survival Evolved, a sandbox crafter’s delight featuring guns and dinosaurs, up for grabs for $19.80, which is one-third of the original asking price.
• Crypt of the Necrodancer, a rogue-like rhythm game experience, is sold today for $2.99 or at an approximate discount of 80 percent.

Alongside the primary attraction of the sale, Valve often offers up an interesting little mini-game to coincide with the cut-rate pricing that attracts the attention of dedicated Steam players across the world. Last year found account holders collecting stickers to complete a “Sticker Book” in a treasure hunt somewhat familiar to Steam fans that collect the omnipresent digital trading cards, according to PixelKin.

The Steam Intergalactic Summer Sale is here! https://t.co/CcHw2gcWH8

For the next fourteen days, take advantage of huge savings throughout our store on over ten thousand games. You can also help unlock free games by playing our Summer Saliens Game. https://t.co/OCGESzi8f1 pic.twitter.com/6ytRr4CCuy

— Steam (@Steam) June 21, 2018

This year, Gabe Newell and his team at Valve have something a little different in store for customers in the form of Summer Saliens: Fight the Duldrumz, a cute little game that involves the player defending his battle station from increasingly difficult waves of alien invaders.

The prize?

Players may be entered into a draw to win any number of Steam games and may also win a variety of other prizes depending on their level and performance. Players are able to customize their “Salien” with a variety of legs, eyes, mouths, hats, and other choices, something akin to favorite children’s toy Mr. Potato Head, with new cosmetic options unlocking as gamers unlock experience with each successful foray down to a number of distinct planets of play.

No matter how badly the sale might hurt the wallet, gamers always seem to flock to it in droves. Steam is by far the most popular digital sales platform for gaming – VentureBeat reports that Valve’s digital distribution service accounts for between 50 percent to 70 percent of all PC game downloads – and shows no signs of stopping its market dominance.

The Steam Summer Sale is the largest sale event put off by the company, though they also do large sales for the holiday season in their annual Winter Sale amongst other seasonal promotions. 2018 appears to be a banner year for the platform as the gaming industry swells with profits from software sales due to an ever-increasing install base.