PC GameSource Blog

Just when I started winding down from the recent onslaught of daily Steam deals, Valve caught me offguard with their latest sale, entitled Perils of Summer. You can find a veritable pant-load of games and even entire publisher collections on sale… many of them even 50-75% off of their regular prices.

Check out just a tiny selection of the deals to be had:

• Got $5? Why not get the entire Overlord Complete Pack–that’s a lot of bang for a few bucks!
• Still haven’t checked out Bioshock 2? It would be a shame not to for $15.
• Find the indie fantasy platforming gem Trine for only $4–you can’t go wrong here.
• DiRT 2, my new favorite racing game on the PC alongside Burnout: Paraside, is only $10. Yes, $10!
• The newly-updated Counter-Strike: Source is going for only $6.80, practically a steal.
• Get (almost) every Unreal game for a total of $13.60 with the Unreal Deal Pack. Yes, this even includes Unreal Tournament III Black Edition!
• Get all of the Call of Duty games up through World At War for $29.99
• Better yet, why not get every 2K game released on Steam (except Civ V) for $89–a 75% discount.
• THQ is also offering their entire collection for only $50, half off an already amazing deal.

This is barely a fraction of the games available in this sale, and many of these are only on sale today (June 24th) other than the publishers collections, which will be available for the duration of the sale.

Don’t miss out, but don’t spend all your hard-earned money today–check back tomorrow to see if Valve has anything else in store during this truly outstanding sale.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Valve announces Perils of Summer sale on Steam (vg247.com)
• So long, disposable income: Epic Steam sale (destructoid.com)
• Steam Summer Sale Begins (cinemablend.com)
• Counter Strike: Source Hits Mac, On Sale [Mac] (kotaku.com)
• Counter-Strike: Source strikes the Mac, receives update (joystiq.com)
• Counter Strike: Source Now Available to Buy on Steam and Play on a Mac (crenk.com)
• Counter-Strike: Source now available for Mac (!) (crunchgear.com)

The Scenario: You really love Steam, Valve Software’s online game marketplace, distribution platform, and community tool. You purchase all of your games there and rely on it for nearly all of your gaming needs.

You have even gone so far as to re-purchase many games you already own, just to have them on Steam. You’ve spent thousands and have well over 400 games in your Steam collection.

The Problem: During a sale, you buy a $9.99 game bundle with Click-n-Buy, which is literally as easy as clicking and buying from within Steam. But you spend that $10 before the payment clears, and Valve is then charged back for $9.99 on your account.

Roll ahead a couple of days when you return from Christmas vacation and want to play some games over New Years break. But when you restart Steam, you find out your account has been disabled and you have lost access to all of your precious games.

The Solution: There isn’t one. Pay Click-n-Buy back, who will pay Valve back, who will hopefully enable your account again after they get their money.

This is the problem inherent in digital distribution today. If you want the convenience of having your game library managed by a third party, you need to rely on the to give you access to what you would otherwise own outright. If you get on their bad side, they usually have the right to take it all away with little to no notice to the user at all.

I didn’t mean to charge Valve back $9.99, and that would be stupid to do, given that I have happily given them thousands of dollars for my current Steam-powered game collection. None-the-less, I had no games over New Years break, and am still waiting for my personal Steam account to be enabled again.

I am no hacker. I am no fraud. I am a loyal patron, game developer, and industry fan who has spent thousands on Steam and made one small $9.99 mistake. While it will likely be corrected and all will be back to normal, it is still a scary thought, and it still makes me cherish the few games that I do have boxes and discs for–even in hard financial times, I can always get them out and play them no matter what.

But I still love Steam. And I encourage everyone who likes the idea of digital distribution to utilize the service to its fullest. Just don’t ever mess with the distributor because they truly do have the power.