As everyone prepares to get together for the holiday celebration, Gabe Newell has decided to pull you back to the computer tomorrow with the annual Steam Winter sale. In what has become a tradition for Steam sales, the exact date for the beginning of it was revealed by Paypal, this time doing so on their Twitter account.
https://twitter.com/PayPalUK/status/811138351302516736
While Valve has not publicly confirmed that date, they have announced when the voting on the Steam Awards will begin, and it will be December 22nd. Over 15 million nominees were sent in, and the final winners will be announced on New Year's Eve. This event is likely continuing the recent trend of the "gimmicks" for the sales to be more community oriented and less of a game. While we'll include the full list of dates, nominees, and awards below, we want to focus here first on the write-in category, which will have their vote on December 30th.
Instead of just choosing one, Valve has opted to go with four different write-in awards, and no, none of them are "game most in need of a sequel" with Half Life 2 listed. The first is the "Boom Boom" award, which is about games with the best explosions in them. The nominees for it are:
- BroForce
- DOOM
- Just Cause 3
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
- Kerbal Space Program
- Dark Souls III
- Darkest Dungeon
- Dota 2
- Geometry Dash
- Super Meat Boy
- Abzu
- Cities Skylines
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Mini Metro
- Viridi
- Don't Starve Together
- Gang Beasts
- Golf With Your Friends
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Magicka
December 22 “Villain Most In Need Of A Hug” Award
- Borderlands 2
- Dead by Daylight
- Far Cry 3
- Far Cry 4
- Portal 2
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Paladins
- Starbound
- Stardew Valley
- Unturned
- Age of Empires II HD
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Sid Meier’s Civilization V
- Team Fortress 2
- Terraria
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Rocket League
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
- Fallout 4
- Terraria
- Bioshock Infinite
- DOOM
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Garry’s Mod
- Grand Theft Auto V
- The Stanley Parable
- Tabletop Simulator
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Life Is Strange
- To the Moon
- This War of Mine
- Undertale
- The Walking Dead
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- Blood and Bacon
- Farming Simulator 17
- Goat Simulator
- Stardew Valley
What games are you looking at picking up this holiday? What games do you think were denied awards? What do you plan on voting for? Share your thoughts in the comments below!