Get your wallets ready and your votes as two big events are happening and live now on Steam with both the Steam Autumn Sale and the 2020 Steam Award Nominations.
Firstly, let's talk about the Steam Awards. This is the fifth annual event, where users all across Steam can vote for their favourite games across different categories. The final voting will take place in December, with nominations running until December 1 at 5PM UTC.
The categories for this year are:
- Game of the Year
- VR Game Of The Year
- Labour Of Love
- Better With Friends
- Outstanding Visual Style
- Most Innovative Gameplay
- Best Game You Suck At
- Best Soundtrack
- Outstanding Story-rich Game
- Sit Back And Relax
The only category that doesn't have a release date for games attached is the Labor of Love, all others need to have been released after the 2019 Autumn Sale. You can go ahead and nominate titles over here. Oh and yes, it does include a nice Steam Profile Badge too.
Valve say the winners will be announced on January 3 at 6PM UTC.
As for the Steam Autumn Sale, you know the drill by now. Thousands of games just got super cheap, so be sure to look through your Steam Wishlist to see if you can pick something up you've been waiting on. As for some suggestions, here's a few semi-recent releases going cheap you can't miss out on:
- SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE - 60% off
- Black Mesa - 50% off
- Desperados III - 40% off
- Resolutiion - 40% off
Want more? Here's another 10 fantastic experiences from various genres we can easily recommend with big discounts:
- The Way - 90% off
- Transistor - 85% off
- SOMA - 80% off
- Alien: Isolation - 75% off
- Assault Android Cactus+ - 75% off
- Salt and Sanctuary - 75% off
- Near Death - 75% off
- Invisible, Inc. - 75% off
- Slime Rancher - 70% off
- Hand of Fate 2 - 50% off
Do let fellow GOL readers know in the comments what you think is absolutely unmissable with a good discount.
Valve also expanded their Points Shop with a bunch of Autumn Sale themed items. If you love customizing your profile there's some nice animated background artwork and avatar frames.
The whole sale runs through until December 1 at 6PM UTC.
Heck, at that price you should buy it just to congratulate them on the stylish name.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 25 November 2020 at 10:35 pm UTC
Quoting: ageresI don't remember how it was in previous years, but now one game cannot be nominated in more than one category. My favourite 2020 game is Streets of Rage 4, it definitely suits for GotY, best coop, best visual style, best soundtrack and more. I haven't played much this year, and I'm not sure I can find enough new games to fill every category.
I think they last year was the first that limited it to one category per game. I remember it saying somewhere that it was ok to leave categories blank.
Native
- Hellpoint is 30% off, which I'm quite tempted by.
- Eagle Island is 40% and I've had it on my wishlist for months. Now might be the time...
- Jupiter Hell has it's usual 20% discount. Liam raves about this and I enjoyed its free weekend, but I'm waiting for it to exit EA first as I really want to spend some time with it.
- It's getting mixed reviews, but I really like the look of A Long Way Down. It's giving off CardHunter meets Slay the Spire vibes. Only 25% off, but for a tenner, I think it might be worth the risk.
- Beautiful Desolation is now just a tenner with the 30% discount.
- Pine looks promising. And it's only just over £7.50 with the 60% discount.
- Finally, not a great discount, but I've been wondering if I should pick up The Long Gate. It just looks really intriguing. Only 15% discount though.
Proton
- Prey is platinum, and they've recently removed Denuvo, which was preventing me from buying it until now. At 80% off, only £4, I'm picking this up, finally.
- Quantum Break is only £7.50 with its 75% discount, but as it's only silver-rated, I'm probably going to give it a miss.
Last edited by scaine on 26 November 2020 at 9:14 am UTC
Quoting: scaineHellpoint is 30% off, which I'm quite tempted by.
So far I'm put off by the controller recommendation. Since playing a 3d game with a controller will never happen for me, this may just break the game.
Quoting: scaineEagle Island is 40% and I've had it on my wishlist for months. Now might be the time...]
Thanks, had totally forgotten about this.
Quoting: scainePrey is platinum, and they've recently removed Denuvo, which was preventing me from buying it until now. At 80% off, only £4, I'm picking this up, finally.
Oh! Removing denuvo does indeed change things. Still, over my 5 euro general guideline of spending no more than 5 euro on a proton game. Seems that the pound price is better for this one. What would make me more hesitant is sending money in the direction of Zenimax.
Last edited by Ehvis on 26 November 2020 at 10:38 am UTC
Quoting: EhvisQuoting: scainePrey is platinum, and they've recently removed Denuvo, which was preventing me from buying it until now. At 80% off, only £4, I'm picking this up, finally.
Oh! Removing denuvo does indeed change things. Still, over my 5 euro general guideline of spending no more than 5 euro on a proton game. Seems that the pound price is better for this one. What would make me more hesitant is sending money in the direction of Zenimax.
Pretty weird to release the game on GOG, and keep the denuvo on Steam.
It's a *great* game, by the way, I absolutely loved it.
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