Holiday season is here and along with it, like clockwork, comes holiday sales. Gamers look forward to this time of the year in anticipation of massive sales and huge discounts that have become a tradition for the holidays.

All the big names in digital downloads of games are offering a huge number of deals for this season. Holiday/winter sales for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam, and Origin are now live.

Instead of beating or braving the holiday rush, people can now choose to shop in the comforts of their own home. The situation is even better for games since people can download digital versions of the games they purchase almost immediately without having to wait for their games to be shipped to their doorstep.

At the forefront of the future of selling games is Steam. Valve's online store popularized digital download purchases of games with the help of its frequent and huge sales.

Steam's annual Winter Sale is now live. According to computer publication PC World, Valve is also running its Steam Awards voting alongside the sales event. Steam users can vote for their chosen games in a dozen categories.

In previous years, PayPal was the first to leak the start date of the Steam Winter Sale but this year it was leaked in a Neogaf forum thread. PayPal UK eventually confirmed the sale date prematurely.

The deals for the Winter Sale are pretty much the same as the deals for the Autumn sale. Most of everything on Steam is on sale. Hardware is also on sale, including the Steam Link, Steam Controller, and HTC Vive.

For the Steam Awards, voting will be opened each day for one Valve-defined category only. On December 30, voting will be opened for the four user-voted categories. Winners will then be announced on December 31. The Steam Winter Sale itself will last until January 2, 2017.

Technology website Ars Technica reported that Xbox Live and PlayStation Network have their own sales on their online stores. Both are offering deals on daily and weekly specials. There are deals for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, and PS Vita games.

According to gaming website GameSpot, the current Xbox Live sale is the biggest sale Microsoft has ever held. Microsoft announced that there would be 350 deals throughout the sale. The Xbox Live sale ends on January 9, 2017.

Origin is offering discounts on its two biggest hits of 2016. Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1 are only available through the Origin store. Although Steam does not have these two titles, the Steam Winter Sale will have many others to offer.