Summer of Steam Sales (Camp Activities)

[MusicallyInspired]

Valve are fun. This year they have the regular daily summer sales on its games but they also have this fun "Summer Camp Activities" thing going on. Every day from June 30th until July 10th (I think), they have a daily list of new achievements in various Steam games that you can perform which will give you a prize ticket. Every 3 tickets you collect can be exchanged for a prize (listed on the site I linked). Mostly they are game addons and DLC, but there is a free game you can get also (Alien Breed 2). There are different achievements every day but you can still do the old ones that are passed.

Also of particular interest is that for every ticket you win you are entered in for the grand prize. The grand prize is 100 people who will be selected from the draw will receive the top 10 ranked games in their Steam game wishlists for free.

In each day's list of achievements there are obviously games that not everyone has (unless you buy them, and current summer sales price tags are conveniently located close by if you don't own them), but there is also one achievement in every list that anyone can do for free. Some examples so far: Post a comment on a friend's profile page, link your Facebook account with your Steam account, share a game screenshot that you've uploaded via Steam, join the Summer Camp Steam group, write a game recommendation for one of the Steam games you own, and play any free Steam game demo. This is (I imagine) so everyone can enter for the grand prize without having to pay anything. There's also an achievement for the game Spiral Knights which is free-to-play which will give you another free ticket as well. There's a Team Fortress 2 achievement as well, and TF2 is also free-to-play.

Pretty cool stuff! I've currently got 11 tickets and am attempting to get my 12th (I'm waiting for L4D2 to finish downloading!). The achievements I've accomplished so far are from: Serious Sam TFE HD, Beat Hazard, Team Fortress 2, Spiral Knights (fun little MMO type game, actually), and Super Meat Boy (this one was the only really difficult one so far). And as I said, there's one for L4D2 to survive a campaign on any difficulty. I may buy a couple more games and get more tickets if they go on sale during the week.

[Moon Dragon]

My friend used the sale to buy the nancy drew pack and the valve pack for my birthday . I also did 3 of the smaller achivements so I could get the Portal 2 gear, but I'm not really interested in the rest, so I'll probably stop there.

[MusicallyInspired]

Besides the prizes, the more achievements you get the more likely you are to get the top ten games in your wishlist.

I finally got the L4D2 ticket today. Also did Audiosurf's (which is $1.49, incidentally) and Poker Night at the Inventory's. One more from Counter-Strike: Source and I'll have 16.

[DeadPoolX]

I've acquired six achievements so far and traded three tickets for the "gold ship" in Beat Hazard. I might get the "scuba gear" for the robots in Portal 2, but that's about all I'd want.

I suppose I could get Alien Breed 2 instead with my last three tickets, but Alien Swarm is free and it's practically the same game, so why bother?

[Moon Dragon]

Besides the prizes, the more achievements you get the more likely you are to get the top ten games in your wishlist.

Yeah I know...

If all the achivements were free I might go for it, but most of the games you need to get achivements in are not in my possession and I'll not buy them just for one achivement . Besides, this isn¨t the first time they've given top 10 as a prize, so they'll likely do it again. Besides, I don't want the games that badly .

[MusicallyInspired]

Every day has at least one free achievement that anyone can get without buying anything. Mostly just Steam things like recommending a game, posting on someone's profile, etc. There are ones for Team Fortress 2 and Spiral Knights which are free to play as well.

[Moon Dragon]

Every day has at least one free achievement that anyone can get without buying anything

That's how I got the 3 tickets for the scuba gear . Maybe I'll check it out some more then, but I try to limit anything that involves achivements because I'm a bit of a completionist .