Steam Winter Sale Leak: Discount Dates Surface, Dec 22 to 28? -- Everything You Need to Know!

One of the many things gamers look forward to are the annual video game sales happening all-year round. After enthusiasts enjoyed great deals during Black Friday last November, the winter season brings yet another discount extravaganza as an expected Steam Winter Sale is bound to take place again. If the leaked email posted on Reddit is to be believed, it's going to roll out on Dec. 22.

Per Attack of the Fan Boy, the leaked email actually coincides with the same dates as previous Steam Winter Sale events. While this date has not been confirmed, it is assumed that it will run for one week, or until Dec. 28 which is similar to last holiday.

Shack News reported that the sale will likely kick off at 10 a.m. PST, with little expected flash or daily deals. WCC Tech reported that last year's Steam Winter Sale started at 1 p.m. EST and, based on what went on then, it's not easy to gauge which titles are going to be discounted and for how much. For some ideas and hints, there's a rundown of what the best deals were during 2014's Steam Winter Sale in another Reddit post.

The annual winter sale from Steam is one of two major discount periods the site offers, along with its summer sale. There's also an autumn sale but the price differences aren't as low compared to the other sale events, per Attack of the Fan Boy.

Steam is an online gaming platform operated by Valve Corporation. It went live in 2003 both as a multiplayer and a social networking environment that can run on Windows. It gradually developed access to other types of platforms like OS X, Linux, iOS and Android.

By 2007, the site saw profit when third-party developers offered their games. Among these are well-established companies like Capcom, Eidos Interactive and id Software.

Capcom was the first publisher to support Steam and offered the fan favorite "Devil May Cry" series on the site. "Steam is the right place for us to go with our titles. Valve has created a huge installed base of gamers who naturally fit with the profiles of the titles that Capcom develops," said Capcom executive Mark Beaumont via Eurogamer.

In September of this year, Steam reached a milestone when it started offering over 6,464 games to Windows users and 2,323 games to OS X users, per Ars Techica. It has reached over 75 million subscribers in 2014, per IGN.