It's that time of year again! The time that PC gamers look forward to as much as their wallets dread. The Steam Summer Sale of 2014!

STARTING THURSDAY, JUNE 19TH AT 10:00 PDT

What games do you hope are going to go on sale this year, and do you have a budget in mind for how much you want to spend? My list is pretty short this year because I already own most games that I want, but there are a couple of things that I'm looking forward to picking up on the cheap:

Tips on Steam Sales for new PC Gamers

• Don't buy anything unless it's part of a Community Choice sale, Daily Deal, or Flash Sale unless it's the final day of the event, otherwise it may show up cheaper after you buy it. It sucks buying a game that you really want for 40% off only to have it show up for 85% off a couple of days later. If you miss a limited-time deal during the event, it may come back on the final day, so all is not last. Be vigilant! This leads me to my next tip...
• Add games that you want to your wish list now. Valve will send you emails when they go on sale. Whitelist noreply@steampowered.com. The emails will be titled "A game on your wish list is on sale!" Another benefit of Steam wish lists is that your friends can see when you have a game on your list is on sale, I've had more than a few games gifted to me this way (and given them out as well!)
• Community Choice sales...make sure you vote for the games you want!
• Set yourself at least a ballpark budget. It's all too easy to just buy anything and everything that is on sale for 75% off or more without thinking about it. Trust me, I know...you don't even want to see my Steam library.
• Unless you can't live without it, don't buy games that are "only" 40-50% off. They will almost definitely go on sale again at a later time at a deeper discount, patience pays
• Check out this Chrome extension called Enhanced Steam. Helps you identify games on your wishlist, games that are on sale, and games that you already own while browsing the Steam website. Thanks for the heads up fattony12000.
• http://steamdb.info/sales/

SteamPrices.com is a fantastic resource to take a look at the historical price points of a game you're considering buying. Take a look at it before you buy to make sure the game hasn't recently been offered on deeper discount - if it has, you may be better off waiting.

I hope Just Cause 2 is on sale.

Oh you.

So those prices are what you are the minimum discounts you hope to see on those games, right? For a second there I was confused and thought those were discounts already listed somewhere.

Ugh, it's a little early for this thread, no? Given that it will at least be after the 16th, it's probably best to start this thread after the E3 madness ends.

@mb: In all seriousness I hope Kentucky Route Zero drops to a nice low price of under $5 - I've been wanting to get it but somehow am being very cheap about it.

It's never too early to start planning! I started it now because we are going to be so busy with E3 all week, I probably wouldn't have had the time to spend on it if the sale indeed does start on the 19th.

Yep! I edited the column header to be a little more clear.

Under $5 would be amazing...I think it's an instant buy for me under $7.50 though. I think the lowest it's been is $12.49 back in January, so it's likely we will see a deeper discount during the sale. Let's hope.

Wasn't Europa Universalis part of a Humble Bundle? I think cheap makes sense for the base game since there's sooooooo much DLC for it. I had it and a bunch of the DLC thankfully gifted to me, but I'd have definitely thrown down more than $10 knowing how dense the game is.

Actually... I might not have for the very same reason. It's not an easy game to wrap your head around - would imagine it's effing amazing when you can though.

Also the only game I can think of off the top of my head that I would seriously want and would actually play is Dark Souls 2, which I imagine will have a moderate but not stellar discount this time.

Also, Steam Summer sale time should be a paid week-long (or however long it lasts) holiday.

There was a thing floating around that would suggest the sale might start around the end of this month, to get it out of the way before "The International".

Oh goddamnit, I am not prepared for this. Which is fine, because I've got enough shit I haven't played that I bought 2 or 3 sales ago.

Maybe I'll restrict any purchases to whatever's on my wishlist:

1. Kentucky Route Zero
2. Transistor
3. Jazzpunk
4. The Stanley Parable
5. Wolfenstein: The New Order
6. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
7. The Yawhg
8. Trails Fusion
9. Killer is Dead
10. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

This is some preemptive ass preemptive thread.

I love these threads just for the excuse to post this one.

Sadly my budget is nonexistent right now, though some of the things I want are pretty new so I doubt they'd be off much.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enhanced-steam/okadibdjfemgnhjiembecghcbfknbfhg?hl=en

Considering Gaben sucked me dry during the Winter Sale, I need to start up my defense mechanisms as early as possible. They'll fail anyway, but a man can delude himself.

I haven't bought anything from the last... I don't know... 3 Steam Sales? I think I'm fine.

I'm hoping to get Dark Souls II, South Park, Walking Dead Season 2, and the Wolf Among Us as cheap as possible.

Are you ready for a miracle?

so all is not last

typo!

Anyways... I'm holding out for Stanley Parable at 5 bucks, but that probably won't happen yet, so I probably won't buy nothing unless some crazy deal pops up.

This might be the first Steam sale where I don't buy anything, last one I only got a couple games. Too many of the same games are on each sale. If Dynasty Warriors 8 goes on sale I'll probably get that.

nooooooo, my body and my wallet and my soul and my mind and my heart are all not ready. NOTHING IS READY.

I use steamalerts to send me an email when a game I want to buy drops below a price I set, it's extremely useful and I suggest others to use it.

I really need to go ahead and buy Kentucky Route Zero, but aside from that I don't plan on getting anything else

I dont think i played most of the games i bought during last years sale.

I don't think there's anything I'd buy this time around. I think at this stage I've bought everything I could want right now.

Hmm, I might finally pick up Rayman Legends. That's probably about it. I've already bought everything I wanted from past steam sales.

There's not that many games that could drop in price significantly since the only new games i'm interested will be only a couple weeks old at that point.

Might pick up Tropico 5 if by some miracle it drops 50% but i don't see this happening until later this year. Same with Grid Autosport. Though that one i'm waiting for reviews and hoping for a demo. Grid 2 was such a shit show. I'll more likely end up picking Dirt 3 instead. I have it on PS3 but would rather just play it on PC now and this might be enough to hold out for Grid for a couple more months. I'm not that big of a racing game fan, i just get this craving about once a year and have no problem replaying one i already have.

Otherwise i have about a month now to figure out if i like Europa Universalis IV enough or not to see if it's worth picking Conquest of Paradise and Wealth of Nations.

At this point, I'm hoping to just stock up on some smaller titles that will run on my damn laptop. I need some good time wasters. The only big purchases I can really foresee nabbing would be a copy of South Park for my brother and Kentucky Route Zero for myself.

I have more than 60 games on my wishlist, so Im not looking forward to this... :p

Check your badges everyone. There's 10 trading cards to collect for this summer sale.

Currently they're all labelled as "mysterious".

Oh god damn it you scared off my wallet

Meh, I'm more than likely going to pass again this time around. Any PC game I really give a shit about, I already own. I do have some games on my wishlist that I would probably like to play, but, at the risk of sounding redundant, I don't really care about them enough that I would spend my own money on them.

@bigjeffrey: LOL

Must buy games to not play ever... or not.

I'll grab Murdered Soul Suspect and South Park if they get a 50% discount.

I'll be watching Watchdogs but I doubt it will be discounted this early.

I thought the sale usually started around the end of June through the July 4th holiday.

NO! It can't be time already! NOOOOOOOO

I've never partaken in one of these. Mainly, I'm hoping for price cuts for Dark Souls II and South Park. But I have ten other released games on my wishlist.

It begins 19th June.

Let's list it out:

• Jazzpunk
• The Walking Dead: Season 2
• Rust
• South Park
• Transistor

There's some other stuff I could be persuaded to buy at the right price, but that's the main stuff I'll be looking for.

Definitely looking to pick up:

• Fallout: New Vegas
• Outlast DLC
• The YAWHG
• Jazzpunk
• Final Fantasy VII

Of course I'm psyched, but I'm also broke. So more psyched in theory than in practice. I might just buy the rest of the Summer Sale cards, craft a badge, and get out.

I already have like literally over 300 games to finish. I need The Hyperbolic Time Chamber to finish that shit up!

But yeah, Maybe I'll pick Outlast + DLC and the games I'm missing from the Blackwell Series...

@expensiveham said:

Shhhhhhh, shhhhhhh, don't say that, there is always room for more! THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR MORE! LET VIDEO GAMES CONSUME YOUR VERY BEING!

I'm hoping for a sweet deal on Dark Souls 2, it's still rather new but if I'm a good boy and save up all of my money maybe 30 or so wouldn't be so bad.

There are now places for "Mysterious" cards in my Steam Badges page. Probably a summer sale thing?

Already done that. What bothers me is that I went and paid the full price for Stick of Truth and Wolfenstein, but will finally just be finishing up Dark Souls 2 by the Steam sale. Poor purchasing on my part, especially for my dislike for 60.00 price points for Pc games. I got Kentucky Ground zero for a reduced price, but I am playing only a little of it right now.

I don't know why, but I guess to wash down DS 2, I have been playing a bit of Half Life 2 on hard in the evenings. But this bad habit of yelling at the game has carried over, and I may even have free copies of HL 2.

Doesn't July 19th seem really late to start steam sale? That almost feels like a back to school type of sale that the Target's of the world do. I bet it starts right after July 4th (so the....7th?).

I have the same issue every year, which is that I'm usually broke, and the reason i'm broke is because I've already bought all the videogames I want when they are first released. Even then, any games I buy usually occupy my attention for about 20 minutes before I get bored and go back to playing Dota.

If there's a dota hat sale, though.... god help me.