As the leaks and rumors foretold, the 2020 Steam Summer Sale has officially launched. As always, the Summer Sale will see many of the games in Steam’s catalog discounted significantly, but this year, the Summer Sale is bringing a new – and permanent – Points Shop along with it.
This season’s sale will go from July 25 through July 9 at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST. On top of the usual assortment of discounts, the latest sale also introduces The Point Shop, a new rewards program for making purchases on Steam and contributing content that your fellow Steam users enjoy.
In addition to acting as a rewards store, the new Points system also opens up the ability to buy awards for particularly interesting, informative, or funny user review or to any other sort of user-made content on Steam like mods in the Steam Workshop, guides, screenshots, or videos.
It’s worth noting as well that points can’t just be purchased outright; according to Valve, Steam users will receive 100 points for each $1 spent in Steam on games, DLC, hardware, soundtracks, applications, and in-game items, and users on the receiving end of an award also walk away with some additional points for their trouble
Here’s a quick selection of five featured deals to get you started.
- Borderlands 3 for $29.99 (was $59.99)
- Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain for $5.99 (was $19.99)
- Tabletop Simulator for $9.99 (was $19.99)
- Destiny 2: Upgrade Edition for $33.49 (was $49.99)
- A Plague Tale: Innocence for $15.29 (was $44.99)
You can even use Steam Points to unlock emoticons and backgrounds that you formerly would have had to unlock with Steam trading cards – though you can’t trade or sell any of the stuff you buy with Steam Points on the Steam Marketplace. You’ll also be able to collect special Steam Summer Sale cards and craft badges to collect the usual assortment of seasonal goodies.
So, if you’ve had your eye on a certain game, it might not be a bad idea to give it a few hours before you attempt to buy it. The 2020 Steam Summer Sale is live now until July 9th at 10 AM PDT, so you’ve got two weeks on the nose to make your buying decisions.
