The Steam Autumn Sale Has Started

Hi, Steam's autumn sale is now on. Okay, bye. Huh? Oh, yes, the 'fall' sale if you want. Whatever. Look, is it cool if I- oh, yes, yes.

This Steam sale is remarkably restrained. While over the years, Valve have filled sales with daily deals, flash deals, minigames, badges, gems, votes, ARGs, and whatnot, this simply has a squillion things on sale. No fuss, no hurrying, just discounts running until December 1st. They call it the Exploration Sale so you'll need to go digging, which I imagine is to show off Steam's newer game-finding tools.

Follow our Steam Curator page to see lots of games we like, for starters. Other Curators are, of course, available.

Or go check out your recommendations.

Or your discovery queue.

Or revisit games you've added to your Steam wishlist.

Or go searching for games you've been meaning to check out.

Or Valve highlight a few deals on the store's front page each day.

Or heck, just wait for people to fling links at your face saying "BUY THIS." Readers dear, I'm sure you have suggestions for each other? I'll casually mention that Deadly Premonition is £1.99 again, and point you towards what I said last time.

This is a fairly laid-back way to get people checking out Steam's explorastuff, I must say. Just think: they could've turned Steam's recommendations and curators into Temple Run clones rewarding you with virtual gold coins, which you virtually melted down and virtually forged into virtual golden idols, then traded to virtual explorers for a virtual mystery bag containing a random virtual hat, which you could trade for virtual carrots and a cryptic hint that you'd want to save those for the Christmas sale.

Steam's still a bit of a mess when it comes to discovering games, not sure what to do now it sells thousands (and applications! and movies! and music!), but it has improved. Now if the recommendation engine had the slightest clue what sorts of games I like, that'd be grand: it's currently showing me Escape Dead Island, for goodness' sake.

I also really like the Steam store background with the whale sharks. Should these change over the sale, I'd like to request a load of quiet forests and lakes.