Steam Sales are - for right or wrong - some of the biggest events of the year, but this time around Valve is trying something a bit different.

The Spring Cleaning Event started yesterday (Thursday, May 24th) and is running up to May 28th and encourages consumer to play the games it already owns. Users are incentivised to 'choose a daily task or project': 'Speed Clean', 'Spin Cycle' and 'Clear the Backlog'.

Speed Clean has gamers playing the playing one of the titles that are free for the duration of the sales event, including: Don’t Starve Together, Dead by Daylight, Cities: Skylines, Tyranny, Borderlands 2, Castle Crashers, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Left 4 Dead 2 and Dirt 4.

Spin Cycle has Steam giving users random games from their library to play in order to earn badges. And finally Clear the Backlog encourages gamers to play a title that they haven't even played - likely a large number for most users.

"Spring Cleaning. That wonderful time of year where people go through their closets to make space, and in doing so discover forgotten gems lost to the bottom of plastic storage totes," the company wrote.

"But why should the joy of rediscovering a kitschy t-shirt, or a well-hidden holiday gift, be limited to cleaning our homes? With so many wonderful games out there it’s easy to have a backlog of titles that you always intended to go play, but for whatever reason never got around to… and the Steam Spring Cleaning Event is the time to change that. By diving into your Steam Library and playing games that you haven’t looked at in a while (or at all), you can unlock and level up the new Spring Cleaning badge.

"But this event isn’t just for those with a hefty backlog of titles to work through… as we said earlier, Spring Cleaning is a time of delightful surprises and so in that spirit the following games will be available to play FREE for the duration of the event (May 24th -May 28th)."