Steam Winter Holiday Sale Has Big Discounts, New Contests, Huge Prizes

Once again, Valve has kicked off the traditional Steam Winter Holiday Sale, with the digital distribution service being host to a series of daily discounts on great titles, as well as to price cuts for many other games and even a special competition that has a huge prize.

Steam has always marked special occasions with great discounts and sales and the upcoming winter holidays are no exception, as Valve is making sure to commemorate these celebrations by running lots of deals and a new competition.

First up, let’s start with the discounts, as Steam will run from now until Sunday, January 1, 2012, major daily price cuts on specific games.

Besides these cuts, discounts can also be had on special packs of games, as well as on individual titles from publishers like Electronic Arts, Bethesda, Paradox Interactive, Codemasters or Warner Bros, many seeing prices cut from 20 to even 50 percent.

Besides these discounts, there’s also the Great Gift Pile challenge, in which players need to complete up to six objectives each day, most of them involving achievements in games that are discounted that day, like Orcs Must Die or Bunch of Heroes, which are now available for a lower price.

Once you unlock these achievements, you get either a gift or a lump of coal, each being quite special. Gifts can either be full games or some of the new Steam coupons, which give players a discount on special games or titles once the winter sale is over.

If you get lumps of coal, however, don’t worry, as each piece is a ticket for the Epic Holiday Giveaway, which has many impressive prizes, including the biggest one in Steam’s history, consisting of all the games currently available on the digital distribution service.

There are other prizes, with 50 lucky users getting the top ten games on their wishlists, 100 getting the top five titles on their wishlishts, while 1,000 users will receive the Valve Complete Pack bundle.

If you don’t want to have your lumps of coal sitting around, you can mix seven pieces and craft them into a gift.

We’ll be keeping you updated with the major discounts ran by Steam each day, so keep on checking back, both here and on Steam itself.