Huh,to each their own i guess,i really liked the monster mini game a couple summers back.

I was too late to witness the coal event but never again Clickr "games"!

MONSTER GAME 5EVER

I prefer it as simple as possible. No games of any kind. That said, I did play the monster game at it was okay.

fuck it, I don't even want to have to go through my discovery queue, just give me my frickin' cards

No event is really special, they could all have been much better. But I find the queues most annoying. I'd prefer stupid clicker game over queues.
If I'd have to pick one, I'd have to go with the winter auction event. I didn't have a truck load of gems. I sold excess walls and emojis, but still the amount was nowhere near what I saw other people work with. I had to be vey smart when to go for it and not go for the AAA games. Managed to win 40 games by the end of it. Every single one of them I really wanted. I think I missed out only on 2 games I wanted.

Those with flash sales

Summer Monster game was lot of fun , thou I thought I will break my mouse

pressing trough the queue is a bit frustrating, annoying... but i know its a free ad

The coal event was the only one I actually enjoyed

Anything is better than having to go through the discovery queue 3 times per day. I don't mind browsing my discovery queue, but not 3 times daily for the whole duration of the sales. Today I only got 2 cards from my discovery queue because the Steam Community was down when I finished my first discovery queue.

Wheres the options both, neither, depends?

Mini-games makes for a more fun and hyped event - but not so much for the best shopping experience. Almost all went a bit further then needed becoming grind or generating ansiety and generally too much for so many days. I loved then for awhile and hated most by the end of the sale. Clicker obviously being the most obvious but far from the only one.
*Btw clicker done some things on the right direction and better; It was more engaging. It involved gaming without spamming games with farmers for achievements. It was interesting at the begining and increasingly better because, as a game, it involved the same traits of engagement like a learning curve to master; But ten mastery came soon, it was simple, and obviously repetitive.. and by the end was a terrible grind.
**also many things wrong- perhaps the worst and often not mentioned being taking people away from browsing and playing actual games.

Just browsing is the most sane and fire-sure way to do things. But just browsing lacks the charm and spirit of a event and theres no fun involved wich in steams case is a must: the catalogue is so freaking huge that only browsing becomes tiring or a shore pretty quickly so from a UX point of view adding some fun, uniqueness and means of spicing up the browsing is a must.

On my opnion steam is closer to the ideal now. They're adding some uniqueness (stickers) with something to spice up that involves some discovery oportunities. But this one is lacking fun, oiginallity, real engagement and once again they go a bit too much- discovery is fine but come one, 3 times?

The ones which they gave an ounce of a fuck about, eg : minigames, flash sales

Just wanna farm/sell them asap! Every year it is possible to make like ~2€ from cards :P

Steam Summer Camp 2011 was the best