Steam's 2019 Winter Sale kicked off this week, ringing in the holiday season with markdowns on thousands of titles on Valve's ubiquitous PC gaming platform. The vast majority of games available on the Steam Store are marked down anywhere from 10% to 90% off, and the discounts are valid until January 2, 2020 at 1 p.m. EST.

The semi-annual summer and winter sales on Steam took the gaming world by storm in the late 2000s and early 2010s, becoming legendary events thanks to thrifty players taking the opportunity to buff up their digital game libraries. Valve itself even got in on the fun by building minigames for some of the sale events and special achievement badges for Steam users to earn.

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With additional sales popping up on Steam and other platforms in more recent years, the events have lost some of that early thrill, but they're still hard to beat when it comes to finding the best deals on PC titles. This year's offerings beyond the discounts are relatively simple: by buying games in the Steam store during the sale, users can earn reward tokens to spend on flair for their profile or friend chats, or a one-time-use discount coupon to put $5 toward purchases before the event wraps up in the new year.

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Players on the hunt for the best deals won't be limited to Steam itself during the sale. GOG's winter sale is also in full swing until January 2, with discounts of up to 95% on 2500 DRM-free titles. The Epic Games Store also launched its first annual holiday sale this week, offering discounts on its own selection of games until New Year's Day. The library of available discounted titles is smaller than Valve's store, but the offerings include a number of the exclusive titles that launched on Epic this year like Borderlands 3, as well as comparable discounts for games that are available on both platforms like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2. 

Epic is offering all users a coupon for $10 off of any purchase worth $15 or more during their holiday sale. Users will also be able to grab one free game in the store's 12 Days of Free Games, with the first title offered being Into The Breach, an acclaimed indie turn-based strategy game written by Fallout veteran Chris Avellone and made by the creators of FTL. Fortnite fans can also grab free skins during the Winterfest event on the platform's headlining title.

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