There was a time when you could win all games on Steam. Valve used to be quite generous

Steam launched on September 12, 2003, and exploded in popularity in 2004 when Half-Life 2 went exclusive. Over time, it became the go-to PC gaming store. Despite issues like malware-infected games and adult content removals even as some controversial titles stayed, Steam keeps evolving with features like PC performance monitoring. It’s come a long way in 22 years, and while everyone loves Seasonal Sales, there was once an event that gave every single game to one lucky winner.

A 2011 Holiday legend

The Steam Holiday Sale in 2011 was pretty wild if you think about it. Back then, there were way fewer games than today. These days, there’s spam, weird clones, even games ripped from itch.io. – but it was still a huge number for the time.

The event ran daily from December 19 to January 1. Each day, six objectives were revealed, and completing them earned you either a gift or a “lump of coal” in your Steam Inventory. Gifts could be games or coupons, and if you collected seven lumps of coal, you could craft them into a gift. You could trade gifts and coal with friends or just give them away.

Source: Valve

If you saved your coal, you could enter the Epic Holiday Giveaway on January 2. Your entries were based on how much coal you still had in your inventory, and you had to have at least 10 items on your Steam Wishlist to qualify. And the prizes were amazing. You could win a “Valve Complete Pack” or 5–10 Wishlist items. But the grand prize was absolutely insane: every single game on Steam –there were probably only around 2,500–3,000 games at the time.

We don’t actually know who the lucky winner was, but just imagine walking away with Portal games, Batman: Arkham City, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the Civilization series, StarCraft 1 and 2, Mass Effect 2, Resident Evil titles, Bioshock, Fallout series, Skyrim, Oblivion, and that’s just scratching the surface. A giveaway like that today would be unimaginable, but I wouldn’t complain if I won it.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

November 11, 2011

Rate It!

• Overview
• Guide

• Steam
• Valve