Steam! You either love it for being one of the largest and most successful gaming communities online, or you absolutely hate it because you're completely against all that hoopla over digital rights. Well, I guess there's a middle ground. Either way, in this article we're going to like Steam a lot.
The lifeblood of the Steam community is the constant sales, trading, exchanging, bartering, and all-around excitement over Steam users experiencing new games. The Steam platform has made it very easy to trade games, in-game items, beta keys, and more within the client. It sucks that we can't physically sell these games, as we could with our Nintendo cartridges, but some of the efforts that Valve has come out and made really soften that blow a bit.
With that in mind, allow me to introduce you to a network of three websites that will make your Steam experience even steamier.
SteamGameSales.com
SteamGameSales.com is the place to go when you want easy access to visualizing what games are receiving the highest current discounts on Steam. Not only Steam though: Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, GOG, Impulse, Desura, Beamdog, and Get Games as well.
Right on the frontpage, all of the latest sales are being displayed to you. By clicking the headers of each column, you're able to sort sales by those specific elements: savings, price, etc.
I'm a Steam sales addict. This really makes the process so much less painful. Pop on this website once a day, check the latest deals, and you're all set. If you sign in through Steam, you can even check your account versus games that you already own, to make sure you're not having your chain jerked (in case a game is on sale that you forget you own).
This is a very simple and effective service. Completely useful.
SteamTrades.com
The premise of SteamTrades.com is very simple. Trading is huge in the Steam community. SteamTrades.com offers a simple forum where users can come to look for offers and trades on games. Users post what they want and what they're offering and patiently wait for interested others to come along.
As every site should, SteamTrades.com has a reputation system so you know what you're getting into before you even get involved. The site is put together very well and it's been responsible for (what I'd assume to be) thousands and thousands of successful trades.
SteamGifts.com
SteamGifts.com is the more unique and clever of the network. Generous gifters use this website to hand out their extra, giftable copies of games, DLC, and other assorted goods.
The site operates on a "points system," as best explained by their FAQ page:
The point system is designed to prevent users from entering for every single giveaway. This lowers the overall number of entries, and provides everyone with better odds of winning games they're interested in playing. New users start out with 25P. Every time anyone submits a game, every member of the site, excluding the giveaway creator, receives 5 percent of that gifts value (in USD) in points. For example, if a $50 gift is created, every user on the site receives 2.5 points. And, if a $20 gift is created, everyone would receive 1 point. These points can then be spent on entering giveaways.
In the above screenshot, you see a player listing a game with an entree of 30P. The game costs $30 on Steam. Entering the giveaway is as simple as clicking the button you see there. These giveaways happen often and fast. It's the kind of website you'll want to keep up with every day, as points are constantly being shuffled around.
These three websites do a great service to the Steam community. If you're into Steam, check out the other recent articles we've done on the topic: