The mid-year gaming holidays, also known as the annual Steam Summer Sale, has kicked off this week. The sale features a large chunk of Steam’s huge library of PC games at discounted prices. You can also participate in a community grand prix event by earning in-game achievements and purchasing games. Winners can receive games on their wishlist, and redeem points for new emoticons and backgrounds.

As in previous years there are no daily sales or flash sales. What you see is what you get throughout the sale. Here are some of the best deals for this year’s Steam Summer Sale:

To participate in the grand prix event, you’ll need to join a racing team. -After you choose a colorful racer, you can increase your boost meter by logging in daily, as well as spending money during the sale (1$ = 100 boost points). Next you can help drive your team’s car by earning Grand Prix Quest achievements in certain games in your library. By contributing you can earn Grand Prix tokens, which can be redeemed at the Pit Stop for emoticons and profile backgrounds.

The real prize is being part of a winning team. Each day of the event random members from the top three teams will win the top game from their Steam wishlist, so make sure you have games listed there!

The Steam Summer Sale ends July 9.


This article was written by

Eric has been writing for over eight years with bylines in Dicebreaker, Pixelkin, Polygon, PC Gamer and Tabletop Gaming magazine, covering movies, TV shows, video games, tabletop games and tech. He reviews and live streams D&D adventures every week on YouTube. He also makes a mean tuna quesadilla.