After weeks of conjecture about exactly when it would start, Valve have finally kicked off their annual Steam Summer Sale.

Much like last year, 10 games go up each day in the daily sales. Another three titles also rotate every eight hours, part of a “Flash Sale” system. Finally, there’s also a “Community Choice” sale which puts up a new sale at eight hour intervals.

Unfortunately, the sale is again missing the game achievements that made the sales from previous years more fun. Instead, Valve have opted to create a Summer Sale Badge, which uses the recently released Steam Trading Card system.

For those who haven’t participated in these sale before, you should always wait for a game to be discounted as part of either the Flash, Daily, or Community Sales to ensure you pay the minimum price possible. As such, wait until the last day before buying titles that haven’t yet shown up in the big sales, to make sure you don’t fork out more than you need to.

Green Man Gaming also appears to to be emulating some of the sales on Steam, offering Bioshock Infinite at the same discount. Presumably it’ll be continuing this trend for the rest of the Steam sale. Given that Green Man Gaming offers titles 20% cheaper than on Steam, it’d be worth checking out the site first before purchasing any games through Steam.