Steam holiday sale is a legitimate Christmas miracle

by Griffin McElroy on Dec 23rd 2009 11:00AM

We know we throw the term around quite a bit, but seriously, folks -- "Christmas miracle" is the only way we can explain what's happened to the prices on over 800 games on the Steam storefront. It's like a "Greatest Hits" special of Steam's best sales throughout the year: There are sizable discounts on games from every genre, encheapened bundles of games from a dozen different publishers (including Square Enix and Telltale), and even five super-discounted daily offers (today it's Mirror's Edge, GTA IV and more)!

You simply must go check this sale out if your bank account hasn't been completely obliterated by the holiday shopping rush. Considering the wide, wide scope of the discounts offered, we'd be worried that this was a "Going Out of Business" sale -- a circumstance made entirely unlikely by the amount of monies we've spent on these nefarious Steam sales this year.

Source

Tags: digital-distribution, download, grand-theft-auto-iv, holiday, mirrors-edge, sale, steam, valve

Reader Comments (85)

My god - I already spent like 150 bucks on their Thanksgiving deals. There goes my entire Christmas bonus.

Where, where did all the money in my wallet go?

Well, God damn!

More like:

God bless the Steam employees. God bless them, every one!

Especially the poor chap with an M&M still stuck up his nose.

good lord!!!

Oh well there goes the trip to the in-laws....I can use that $80+ in gas money to stay here and buy games...

I've already passed that budget Chris. I'm going to have to think about the worth of sending my daughter to college now.

I mean...damn.

ROFLMAO!!

This sale is effing amazing - I wish I wasn't broke. Still, I did pick up a few games from yesteryear for like two dollars a piece.

By far the best sale I've ever seen on Steam.

:3

Damn, it's starting again. I can't freaking keep up. I have so many games in my back logs and so little time to actual play it.

I'll keep an eye on some of those. 20$ for Damn of War 2 is mighty tempting but my sweat spot for impulse buying is 10$ and lower. Once it reaches there, I'm in.

I'd say hold out for Damn of War 3. In it, everyone who participates in war is literally damned and joins Satan's army.

Essentially plays out like any other shooter.

I was looking through this sale before heading to bed last night, and I am extremely impressed. Unfortunately the game that I really want to play right now, Call of Cthulu, is not on sale, but I do plan on picking up Deux Ex. I was going to get Beyond Good and Evil but GoG has a similar sale, and even though Steam's discount on it is a little better, the GoG version comes with wallpaper and the soundtrack. can't beat that.

Hi I'm Mark and I am a Steamaholic. After binging far too much during thanksgiving, I was just about managing to keep it together - just the odd 2.99 game here and there, nothing too serious.

Just when I thought I was back on the wagon I'm now back to feverishly waiting for each 24hr period to elapse, chained to my PC so that I can keep feeding my habit. I have more games than I can possibly play, but I just can't stop myself.

Trials 2 and TOCA 3 will stop the shaking for now anyway.

Hi Mark!

=(

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s285/brian_hanna/steamy.png?t=1261587907

im brian, and im a steamaholic.

Hello Mark and Brian.
Welcome to Steamaholics Anonymous. Here we understand that digital distribution dependence is a crippling condition. Once you have one hit of Steamahol it can escalate into a binge, we've all been there. And to compound your problems your dealer often offers you deals that seem to good to pass up on forcing you to keep using.
At S.A we have a very effective method of treating the condition. You will be gradually weened off Steamahol by substituting it with a less potent and weaker form of digital distribution (e.g. Games for Windows Live), eventually you will get so annoyed at the concept of digital distribution you will venture out to a brick and mortar and by physical copies at ridiculously high prices thus curing your addiction.

Hi I'm Tom and I'm a Steamaholic

Here's what today made me do: http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii129/Frederickichardson/SteamSales.jpg?t=1261590172

And here's the overall result: http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii129/Frederickichardson/SteamRating.jpg?t=1261590172

I now realise that I simply cannot hold a candle to Arkanti and as a result I now feel slightly better about myself (there you are, you see - the benefits of sharing).

Can anyone seriously top 132 games?

Well a friend of mine has recently overtaken my collection, he has 166.

Im Andre and I have a problem. 136 and counting :(

http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/76561197969508490

$2.49 for both Indiana Jones classic games, Loom, and the Dig.

You CANT BEAT THAT!!!

Tropico 3 $20!

I'm really tempted to pick it up... I just can't seem to figure out how to effectively make money in the demo. LOL

There's a certain price point where I don't care anymore about having a physical box on my shelf and just have to buy these insanely cheap digital versions and that point is NOW!!!!

Thank you Steam for all you've done for PC gaming and I hope PC gaming can keep getting better, more developers and publishers will release games on the PC because of you wonderful guys!

I've been going through the list and DAYUM! The Stalker games and GTAIV and the Dawn of War pack too are on my list. But this just puts the retail stores to shame big time.

I remember in the Thanksgiving Sale, I bought so many games in a short amount of time that Steam flagged my account for possible fraud. Its going to happen again, LOL. : D

Wallet rape, not so much.

Bandwidth rape, you'd better fucking believe it!

If your ISP has a motherfucking douchebag download cap, your going to blow right past it!

Yeah this is a sucker. My ISP does have a monthly cap, with my current deal anyway, or 30GB/month. So downloading game from Steam is a pain in the butt. Good thing at work, there is no cap to worry about so what I have been doing is download the game at work, make a backup of the game, bring it back home and restore it.

Those caps sure suck ass. These greedy asshole ISPs put these caps just as digital distribution is gaining exponentially, freaking wonderful. Hope AT&T won't be next Houston, but its a matter of time I guess. : (

Im being fucked in the ass... badly. Apparently i have Unlimited downloads, but becuase of some fair usage crap i can only download 100gigs a month. Thats roughly 3 games

3 games?

what games are you downloading at 33gigs each?

the largest game i have downloaded from steam is around 15GBs or so.

Bandwidth rape!
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/

To paraphrase the Engineer : Steam sappin' mah wallet!

Hrm... all the Space Quest games for $4.99? Four Prince of Persia games for $22.49? That's nostalgically temptalicious.

The five million and three Nancy Drew games, adversely, are less so.

I just bought KOTOR 1 for $4.99, great deal.

lol.

i just got arkham asylum, mirrors edge, defense grid and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for 43 dollars, less than modern warfare 2 used.

Once again, Gaming PC's may cost more than a console, but i think i've almost made up for it by buying games on sale.

So true. Don't forget about the expensive HDTVs some console gamers get, along with paying for online, DLC, etc. The price gap between PC and console gaming is shrinking I believe.

and what you said about the impulse buys, dude seriously, i a m such a fucking sucker for games under ten or at ten dollars.

but even the batman deal got me, i hear arkham is amazing, and seeing it 33% off was like WOAH.

but shit dude, mirrors edge for 5 dollars? Stalker for 2 dollars?

i mean fuck, i would pay for that shit even if i didnt have a gaming PC, just to make sure i can play it once i do get one.

I'd already bought a physical copy of Mirror's Edge for $6 but bought it again on Steam for $5, just to have a digital copy always ready to download and to further support the developer, PC gaming and to thank them for porting it to the PC.

Batman is a freaking fantastic. I doubt that you'll be disappointed, especially at such an awesome price!

Batman: Arkham Asylum's available in a pack with 19 other games for $49.99. Amazing deal.

i would have gotten that pack, but nothing else that eidos has really interest me.

batman is the only thing there i saw worth spending over my 10 dollar impulse

I think I just lost 30 bucks in 3 minutes.
DAMN YOU VALVE AND YOUR AMAZING GAME DEALS!

I will definitely be logging on to see their daily deals for the next week or two. If they don't put all of the stuff I want on sale, then these packs are looking mighty tempting...

In the meantime, I bought STALKER for $2 and Braid for $2.50. This has been a great day.

I love you spambot

If you're wondering what to get, since so many titles are covered by this sale, you might want to check out this Slickdeals thread: http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1762442

The wiki on the first page is keeping track of some of the better deals and less "well-known" games you might want to try on the cheap.

That is helpful, thanks. =)

Well, I bit the bullet and grabbed "The Witcher" and X3: Terran Conflict. I've had my eye on both for a while. X3 didn't get the best reviews, but i played the F out of x2 and it's a lot of fun if you can get over the learning curve.

Happy Holidays everyone!

You again?

LEAVE NOW!

Now you need a buyers guide for the Steam Holiday Sale!

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Steam holiday sale is a legitimate Christmas miracle

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