- The Steam Summer Sale is now on and Valve has added a new data category for us to look at.
- The storefront owner now highlights the most played games on its Steam Deck handheld.
- New to the sale this year are “deep discounts” where discounts start at 90 percent off.
Tis the most wonderful time of the year – the Steam Summer Sale.
Yes that’s right, the time to ignore your burgeoning backlog consisting of hundreds of games you’ve likely forgotten you own is here and there are some tantalising deals to be found.
Before that though, Valve has released a new data category for us to page through – the most widely played games on its handheld PC the Steam Deck.
While not officially available through Valve in South Africa, one can pick up a Steam Deck from a number of retailers including Incredible and Takealot as an imported product. We should caution that buy a product in this way can limit the warranty or void it entirely. As such we recommend checking with the retailer about the warranty and after sales support before buying.
As for Valve’s data, while interesting, there are no real surprises here. The most played game on the Steam Deck right now is Elden Ring which just saw the release of its first and only DLC in Shadow of the Erdtree. Unfortunately the DLC is not on sale. Data from Steamcharts reveals that in the last 30 days, the player count for the game has increased 317 percent with a peak of 780 786 players. The all time peak for Elden Ring is 952 523.
Just behind Elden Ring on the Steam Deck most played chart is Stardew Valley with poker roguelike Balatro coming in third.
You can pick up all of these games on a discount thanks to the aforementioned Summer Sale.
- Elden Ring – R594.30 (30 percent off),
- Stardew Valley – R95.40 (40 percent off),
- Balatro – R130.50 (10 percent off),
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – R639.20 (20 percent off),
- Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX – R585.81 (31 percent off).
You can find the Steam Deck chart here. Looking at the the Most Played category, only Elden Ring cracks the top five again with Counter Strike 2, Banana (???), Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds making up the rest of the rankings.
Something we’ve noticed for this Summer Sale is a new “deep discounts” category. Here you can find discounts that knock up to 95 percent off of the price of a game.
These include:
- Asseto Corsa – R18.50 (90 percent off),
- Batman Arkham Knight – R29.90 (90 percent off),
- Jurassic World Evolution 2 – R39.90 (90 percent off),
- Disco Elysium: The Final Cut – R21.90 (90 percent off),
- Middle-Earth Shadow of War – R28.45 (95 percent off),
The Steam Summer Sale is on until 11th July so there’s no need to rush to see what you can get your hands on.
