Valve gives away one Steam Deck every minute during The Game Awards 2022. To win one, you just have to sign up for the competition and watch along.
And we’re not just talking about the base model. People who tune into the show at 4.30pm PT / 7:30pm ET Dec 8th / 12:30am GMT Dec 9th have a chance to win a high-end Steam Deck model, which normally costs $649 / £569 and comes with 512 GB of SSD storage.
To be eligible to win one of the best gaming laptops ever released, there are a few steps you need to go through, but the potential prize is worth more than the minimal effort you’ll need to put in.
How do you sign up for the Steam Deck Scholarship?
To enter the Steam Deck Scholarship at The Game Awards 2022, you need to head to The official Steam page (Opens in a new tab) And sign up with your Steam account. But registration is just the first step.
You will then need to tune in and watch The Game Awards 2022 live, via Valve’s Steam stream specifically – you can’t watch any stream and call it up every day. Giveaway streams from Valve will happen on The official Game Awards 2022 page (Opens in a new tab) and on SteamTV, with the pre-sale starting at 4.30pm PT / 7:30pm ET on December 8 / 12:30am GMT on December 9. And while watching either of these two broadcasts, you will need to make sure that you are also logged into the Steam account that you registered.
Last but not least, your account must meet a few additional requirements to be eligible to win:
- You must be from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or the European Union
- Your account must have made a purchase on Steam in one of those regions between 4pm PST / 7pm EST / 12 midnight GMT on November 14, 2021 and 3.59pm PST / 6:59pm EST EST/11:59 PM GMT on November 14, 2022
- Your account must be in “good standing” (i.e. no active bans or lockouts or that sort of thing)
- Your entry to the giveaway must be “in good faith”
You can also choose to enter by mail; More details on that are available at Valve’s official rules page (Opens in a new tab).
How many steamy decks are up for grabs?
The number of steam decks that Valve offers depends on two factors.
The first is how long The Game Awards 2022 will last. We don’t yet know when this year’s run will last, but we do know that The Game Awards 2021 was three and a half hours long, while The Game Awards 2020 was about three hours long, although both included Thirty minutes before- show.
The second factor is how long the Valve Giveaway stream will last – this is the stream that will be playing on Steam, and it’s what you have to watch to have a chance to win. If the Giveaway Stream were the entire length of The Game Awards, we could see Valve handing out over 200 Steam Deck freebies based on last year’s numbers. But if Valve cuts the presale, or decides to only stream for a set hour or even less, the number of Steam Decks to be earned will be much less.
No matter how many winners, we recommend sticking around as long as possible if you want a chance to win $649 / £569 for free.
And if you win, or if you already have a Steam Deck, you might want to check out our picks for the best Steam Deck games (Opens in a new tab) So you know what to play first.
