Steam Summer Sale 2014: Halftime Report

We are over halfway through this years epic steam summer sale. Midst the controversy of the reddit gamers trying to "fix" the team contest, and many gamers complaining that steam trading cards are nothing more than a cheap way for valve to make a quick buck there have been some pretty decent deals on games. I personally have 141 games on my steam account and I know folks with a whole lot more than that, so this year I haven't spent nearly as much as I have previously since the list of games that I really want is a lot shorter now. However, even I have purchased a few titles.

Despite the people complaining about the trading card system, which I personally have no issue with (in fact some of my friends who don't use them have earned 3-4 games just from selling their cards off) there is no doubt there has been some pretty decent sales thus far this year. For example just looking right now I see Batman Arkham Origins, Bioshock Infinite, Kerbal Space Program, and Child of Light to name a few of the current deals.

I don't know how you guys feel about the steam sales, but I'm actually a huge fan of the summer sale, as well as the winter sale. This year, due to a lot of issues that has come up I didn't have as much money to drop as most years so I put myself on a $100.00 budget for the entire sale. We are over halfway in, and I've still got over $50.00 left. So far, I have picked up the following titles personally.

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Legendary edition)
• Kickbeat (Steam Edition)
• Brutal Legend
• Cthulhu Saves the World
• Game Dev Tycoon
• Outlast's "Whistleblower" DLC
• State of Decay
• Contagion (Gifted to me. Thanks Kurio!)

Of course I had already played Skyrim on console, but I decided at such a cheap price, why not get it for PC just to check it out with all the amazing mods I could load up? Kickbeat was an impulse buy, but pretty fun (if you have a 360 controller). However there were a couple impulse buys that turned out to be real gems to me. First I have to give a huge plug to Game Dev Tycoon. I've always been a fan of Tycoon games, and I lost myself for 2 days in this one. The second is Cthulhu Saves the World. Sure, it's got old ass Nintendo graphics....but Cthulhu is an amazing troll, and the idea to make him the hero of the story makes for an amusing time playing. Bottom line is, with my meager $100.00 budget, I still have over half of my money, and 4 days left on the sale. That isn't bad considering I picked up 7 games and a DLC already.

I've seen people complaining on forums, and in replies to other article about how the sale sucks this year, and how trading cards are ruining steam. I think those folks are going a bit to the extreme with it. If anything, these cards give you an opportunity to get more games by selling the cards if you don't care about ranking up your steam levels. As far as the sale being "bad" this year.....There hasn't been any deals that I considered "amazing". But there have been several deals on indy titles that I would have never picked up otherwise, as well as a few big name titles like Skyrim, for people who may have never played it on the PC. I think that the gaming community as a whole needs to just lighten up a little bit, and start enjoying gaming again instead of sitting around mean mugging everything all the time. What do you guys think? Get any good deals yet this year? Let me know in comments!