Steam's Summer Getaway Sale underway: Hide your wallets

It's no secret that Valve's Steam digital gaming service holds gigantic sales throughout the year and discounts even the biggest games by 50% or more. This time around, we're seeing probably the biggest sale of the year so far, which is Steam's Summer Getaway Sale that is lasting 11 days throughout this month, with each day having its own set of discounted titles.

Headlining today's sales is BioShock Infinite at 50% off for only $29.99. This specific deal will only last 24 hours, so the clock is ticking. You should be aware of four different types of Steam deals throughout this next week and a half or so. There are broad, store-wide discounts that older games receive; there are daily deals which last 24 hours; there are flash deals which only last a couple hours; and then there are community deals which are voted on by Steam users.

Obviously, the more broad store-wide deals usually aren't that great of a deal, and usually deal with games that aren't very popular. However, it's the daily deals and flash deals that you'll want to keep your eyes on. These deals only last a short amount of time, and usually consist of popular games that have deep discounts. Blink once and you'll miss them.

However, if you're like me and end up buying all of these cheap games but never play them because you have more important things to do, then we suggest hiding your wallets and implementing some self-control. It's a hard thing to do when you can get Portal 2 for just a few dollars, but once you buy that first cheap game, it's like a vicious cycle.

Of course, we're not therapists and we're not trying to advise you to be careful out in the crazy world of Steam sales — go crazy for all we care. Just be sure you'll actually play them when you get them. Don't end up like us, with a huge list of games that we've never played that we'll never be able to sell again.