OK here's my best understanding of how it all works, step by step:
- You start with 0 Boost Meter Capacity, and Valve increases it to 100. You basically can't do shit with this; it has the equivalent value of about 3 cents at best.
- You spend money to increase your Capacity at a ratio of 100 points to 1 US dollar. Let's say you spend $60 US, so your Capacity is now 6,100.
- You don't have any points yet, you've only increased your Capacity to earn points. To fill that Capacity up with points, you install a game that you have some Steam Achievements in and play/idle in it for at least 30 minutes. Once that's done you can go to the sale page, scroll down to the bit that looks like this:
...and claim those points. Anything over your current Capacity will be wasted.
- Now that you've filled your Capacity with points, you can go to the Pit Stop and use those points to Boost your team. Each Boost will convert a maximum of 1,000 points into Tokens. Crucially, converting points to tokens will LOWER YOUR CAPACITY. You don't just spend the points, you lose THE CAPACITY TO EARN MORE POINTS.
- Now you've converted your 6,100 points into 6,100 Tokens, which you can spend on the badge, backgrounds, emotes, or save them up for a $5 US discount on your next purchase which costs 15,000 Tokens. However, your Capacity has dropped to 0. You can go back and idle in more games with achievements, but you won't be able to claim those points until you raise your Capacity again.
- How do you raise your Capacity? Get spending again; 100 Capacity for every 1 US Dollar, remember? Alternatively, wait until tomorrow, when GabeN himself will grace your account with another 100 Capacity (which, remember, is worth about 3 cents).
So, long story short, if you're going to spend over $150 US in this sale, you can get a nice little $5 discount voucher out of it, provided you're also willing to idle in some games you have a lot of achievements in, claim the points, convert the points to tokens and buy the discount. Every $150 you spend will get you another $5 discount, and you can stack multiple discount tokens in the same purchase.
However, if you
aren't going to spend $150, you don't get shit. It isn't worth wasting your time with any of this. Even if you're going to spend $149, there's nothing here for you. Just buy a few games on sale, enjoy them, and you can safely ignore this whole metagame.
