Steam Summer Sale 2016 news update: Sale begins next week; Games await Daily Deals
Hardcore gamers are preparing themselves (and their wallets) for this year's hotly anticipated Steam Summer Sale, wherein Valve offers games at discounted prices.
While the video game developer has yet to make an official announcement for the Steam Summer Sale 2016, fans already have the start and end dates marked on their calendars after the dates were leaked on Reddit.
A few weeks ago, the alleged dates for this year's Steam Summer Sale were posted to an /r/Steam thread by Reddit user MrFreemanBBQ. The dates were indicated in a screenshot of what is supposedly a confidential message from Valve. The alleged announcement, which was titled "Event: Summer Sale 2016 discount Approvals," had a note saying, "Do not post event details on the Steam Community or on your own site(s) until the sale has officially begun."
According to the screenshot, the Steam Summer Sale 2016 will begin at 9:45 a.m. PST on June 23 and end at 10 a.m. PST on July 4. In the screenshot, the dates and times are in Cyrillic, but because Steam is an international platform, the start and end times for the sale are in Pacific Standard Time. According to Polygon, after the screenshot was posted on Reddit, the dates for the sale were then shared on Russian social network VK.
Though Valve has yet to confirm whether the sale dates indicated in the screenshot are the actual dates for this year's Steam Summer Sale, VG 24/7 notes that MrFreemanBBQ has a record of accurately predicting or leaking the dates for Steam's various sales. According to the website, the Reddit user gave the correct start and end dates for the Steam Summer Sale 2015, as well as for other Steam sales.
Meanwhile, Neurogadget reports that this year's Steam Summer Sale could feature Daily Deals and Flash Sales, as has been the custom over the years, except in the previous Winter Sale.
Gamers look forward to the Daily Deals and Flash Sales during Steam's sales, as they provide extra discounts on top of the already astonishing price cuts Steam offers. However, these bonuses also have some negative effects. For one, many gamers would wait until the very end of the sale to buy the games they want to make sure that these games are not being offered as part of a Daily Deal or a Flash Sale.
Last year, Steam announced that it would be ditching the Daily Deals and Flash Sales for its Autumn and Winter Sales, but failed to mention the upcoming Summer Sale.
