Kotaku - How Valve Could Solve The Steam Backlog Problem.
"It all got me thinking, though: what if, from time-to-time, Steam just... stopped for a bit? What if this sort of thing happened more often, but maybe with a little less focus on a big sale? There could still be a huge event involved, but perhaps it would be centered around digging through your backlog, pushing through games you’ve been meaning to get around to for ages. Valve is, for better or worse, utterly masterful at crafting metagames that get people to care about stuff they normally wouldn’t. Case in point: Steam trading cards, badges, etc. More specific case in point: the Steam summer sale’s Monster Game, which somehow convinced millions of people to click until their bones ached and their calluses wept."