Tips for Steam Summer Sale?

I'm sure someone will link you a guide (or forward you to another thread like this) but the main rule is to wait for the Daily Deal

Buy only the things you want/going to play that are at least 75% off.

Block your credit card.

This.

Turn off the PC and play consoles for two weeks. Your wallet will be better off.

Buy games only on Flash Sales, Community Choices or wait till last day.

Do not buy anything you will not play till the next sale... Most of us learned this in the hard way.

have $500 of disposable cash.

tipp: don´t create one summer sale thread after another!
use the search function and read through the existing threads...

Don't forget to bring a towel.

Buy everything even if you don't ever plan on playing it.

^.^

Use Enhanced Steam, http://www.enhancedsteam.com/

Buy everything.

Run, you fool !

Have money is probably step 1, where I generally fall hideously short.. Step 2 is undeniably "Own a system that plays games decently.." where I also come hideously close to failing again.. It grates my nerves to dust trying to find a quality, cheap game that has content worth buying AND will run on my total-crap laptop.. Almost turns me away from gaming in general (note that this has been going on for /years/ now, so I've been slowly losing it..)

Three bits of advice...

If you plan on using a new credit card, use it now before the sale, to minimise trade lock damage

Game discount specials are usually repeated twice, sometimes three times due to lack of creativity or interest on valves part... If you miss the first time, don't panic-buy.

Games usually have a generic discount during the sale, and occasional temporary BIG discount. Be mindful of the discount countdown timer... If there's a particular game you really want, don't buy it at a low discount... Wait and see if it gets a special discount. If it never does, buy it at the very end of the sale.

My tip is to buy many cheap TF2 keys and trade them for games. Only buy something directly from Steam if there is a possible price bug.

♦ Don't waste money buying MORE games than you could reasonably play through the summer season.

Nothing grates me more than seeing a game I just HAD to buy drop further in price before I've played it!

If you see the game you want on daily sale during Summer Sale go get it, it won't get lower price. Better don't buy games on flash sales because it's usually not the best price on sale.

This

• You wanna buy a game but already got several to play in your library ?
  If you buy it
  1) Do you intend to install it IMMEDIATELY ?
  2) If yes. Do you intend to play it IMMEDIATELY ?
  3) If yes. Do you intend to finish (or at least spend a lot of time in) it SOON (2-3 months AT MOST)

If you get no at any step, don't buy the game. It'll be discounted again in the future, cheaper, with news DLCs, in an enhanced edition etc.

I am undecided whether to take The Witcher 3, but I think there will be better deals in the future type Green Man Gaming, I do not know ...

Move to Venezuela, acquire the citizenship, get a job there, apply for a creditcard, etc.

This way you will discover the biggest cure for Steam Sales: the currency exchange controls in place in the country since more than 10 years: you will be limited to $300 PER YEAR for online purchases! (it used to be $2500, then $1500, then down to $400, and this year it got slashed to $300... and I suspect the next year it will either drop even lower, or all the way down to zero). All that not only for Steam, but also Origin, Desura, Amazon, and everything else online. Communism HO!

But on the bright side, you won't be purchasing AAAs at full launch price anytime soon. For me, Summer Sales are the only way to buy games here, and only indie games at best (or really good deal on old AAAs).

Add hundreds of dollars to your Steam account and go wild my friend! :D

Something else that no one mentioned yet, if you see a game by a dev you like or part of a series you like in a flash sale or daily deal and you want another game in the series check out the other games anyhow. Sometimes other games by the same dev go on sale for the flash deal as well and they just feature the newest one or the most popular. Looking at the top sellers can be another way to find this. I happened to catch the oops price for the Two Tribes Bundle during a flash sale in winter just because I was looking at the top sellers under $5. The flash sale was actually for Toki Tori 2+ so that one was easy enough to miss if you didn't click on the sale or look at the top sellers.

If a game is at a 75% or higher discount and/or below $1 it's probably safe to buy even without being a daily deal. On the first day I usually go and look at all games sorted by price from lowest to highest and buy anything below $1 that looks interesting and have yet to see one get a further discount since most of those are at 80 or 90% off already. That's a good way to get older games and there's some fun stuff in there.

Don't forget to vote for community choice sales even if none of the games interest you. You get a card for every three votes and can sell it or craft it.