I'm Steaming About Steam

[tinjaw]

I'm to angry to post anything more right now. I'd probably get a law suite thrown at me.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo angry with the @#%(#@$%&ers at Steam. I have been going back and forth with them for FOUR days, and they still have not addressed my issue. I asked a specific question and gave very specific replies and they have me off on some wild goose chase.

Just venting some steam now.

Has anybody had experience with Steam support? Good or Bad?

[gexecuter]

From what i have heard they can have pretty crappy support but i wouldn't know personally. If you don't mind me asking what's your problem with Steam?

[Crush]

I bought a game (the ship) that had a steam account at Ebay. I couldn´t use the registered game so the licence must be transferred somehow. The communication with the steam support was rather bad - I didn´t feel like getting real help there. The way to transfer the key to my account was so complicate that I asked the seller how this problem could be solved. He gave me without any comments his complete account together with some other game keys. This reaction shows that he also wasn´t very happy with steam. The system creates more problems to honest customers than any copy-protection in the past in the hope that only new games will be bought and private dealing with used games will be reduced to zero. This is not a fine way to treat gamers. After this experience I decided not to buy games "powered" by steam anymore.

[Eóin]

While complaining about Steam, why is it that buying the physical and presumably more costly boxed game in a local store is easily about half the price you'd pay online?

This whole Steam business is the biggest swindle being forced on us by capitalists in a long time. There is no competition so games are being 'rented' to us at prices far in excess of anything we were paying before.

[justice]

the only problem i have with the steam is the price but that's the publisher's fault i believe.

[wraith808]

While complaining about Steam, why is it that buying the physical and presumably more costly boxed game in a local store is easily about half the price you'd pay online?

This whole Steam business is the biggest swindle being forced on us by capitalists in a long time. There is no competition so games are being 'rented' to us at prices far in excess of anything we were paying before.

-Eóin (April 10, 2009, 06:31 AM)

To me it's a big convenience, and actually on most games it's not double the price of buying in stores, but about the same amount, and games are not rented to you... you can back them up locally and play them offline if you want.

But the conveniences:

• Gets rid of the clutter of physical boxes
• Don't have to insert the DVD/CD to play
• Can re-download any time- no more losing games
• Can preload the game and play on the launch day rather than going into the store

As far as the OT, I've had to deal with steam support twice, and both times were less than satisfactory.  One was on recovering my password, and they wanted the key from the CD I had installed Half Life with to restore, and that was long gone... I think they've changed their policies since then on password retrieval.  The other was with an offer that they still had advertised and I actually had in my cart that wouldn't check out- because of their long turnaround time, by the time they got back to me, the offer was no longer valid and they wouldn't do anything about it.

[f0dder]

I've never needed steam customer support, but I really like the platform. It's convenient, and the copy protection used isn't all messy and drivercrappy like retail games.

The only two things that annoy me is
1) the price issue. Games bought this way ought to be cheaper than boxed games.
2) that some games aren't available in all regions at the same time - this is plain lame.

[Deozaan]

The only problem I've really had with Steam is that sometimes it takes a week to download the games, which I think is because I'm behind two physical firewalls (my router and the school's router) so I can't properly forward ports.

I've never had to contact Steam support and I usually wait for a Weekend Deal to buy games so I often get them on average at 50% off the retail price.

[tinjaw]

It has been over one week since my "issue" began. Here is an update.

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that during the back and forth exchange with support I was a complete @55h0le. I'm not making excuses, but I began this exchange believing, based on past experience with dozens and dozens of technical support requests, that I had a 1% chance of getting an intelligent response. I was already angry that I would have to go though yet another futile waste of my time.

It started when I updated the steam client and somehow my password was no longer remembered by the steam client. I had lost the piece of paper with my password so decided to use the automated means available in the steam client to reset it. That process didn't work and I wasn't getting any emails from steam.

I opened an support case and my password was reset, however, I explained that the reset mechanism wasn't working and I wasn't getting any emails. I also stated that I was 100% positive they didn't end up in a spam folder.

I got a reply, obviously a cut&paste  job, that said my password was reset by support and that I should check my spam folders.

They did not address the question as to why I wasn't getting emails from the steam client, but I was getting them from support.

The reset password allowed me into the steam client. I reset my password using the steam client.

I then noticed that I it prompted for me to login to the store. Why? I had already logged into the steam client.

Turns out it didn't change my password to the store, it remained what support had changed it to.

Again the change password didn't work.

A reply to support got the same exact reply. It did not address my problem. I had taken the time to describe my problem in detail, but that didn't matter.

Then I got angry and mean.

I told support that they didn't answer my question but simply blindly reset my password. And they did this twice. I wanted an answer. I wanted it fixed.

To make things worse, it was taking 24-hours between replies. Days were going by with my locked out of steam.

To make things even worse, I had ordered, and paid for 2 new games, that weren't showing up in my client.

I complained and further explained my problems.

I got another email, the same as before, cut&paste, resetting my password.

I blew my top. I demanded to have the case escalated. It wasn't. Several more days past.

In the end, all I got from steam after one week was three password resets. My problem was never addressed. I wasn't provided any assistance to determine the cause of my problem. Not once was it suggested that any research was being done on my problem.

All I got were robotic password resets.

I eventually determined the cause of the problem, on my own, with absolutely no help from steam.

I expected them to provide *some* help and I didn't want to try a bunch of stuff between what they wanted me to test, so all this time I just waited.

In the end, I spent way too much time angry -- screaming and yelling. I wasted many hours of my very valuable time. Steam support made the count 1,000 and 1 times that support proved to be, not only worthless, but actually caused more pain and suffering than just attempting to solve the problem myself.

I am so sick and tired of absolutely horrible support from software companies, mostly gaming related, Steam just happens to be the latest one providing a textbook example of $hi++y support.

Will I ever learn my lesson? I doubt it.

[f0dder]

That's quite a horror story :/

Sucks that there isn't any proper support! So... pray tell, what was the problem & solution? You found the lost password, or was it something sneaky?

[Lashiec]

The Steam client had a few problems remembering the password for me. The first time was when I purchased something via the site, instead of using the client. When it launched the program, I was asked about my password, something normal. But when the following day, I launched the client, it asked about the password again, even when last time I checked the box for remembering the password. The second time, that it happened, it was completely random, though, I was told to type the password, even if I did not uncheck the box for remembering the password anywhere, nor did I launch the client from any other place than the desktop link

Fortunately (for what tinjaw and Crush tell us), I did not have to talk with the Support Team yet, so fingers crossed.

While complaining about Steam, why is it that buying the physical and presumably more costly boxed game in a local store is easily about half the price you'd pay online?

This whole Steam business is the biggest swindle being forced on us by capitalists in a long time. There is no competition so games are being 'rented' to us at prices far in excess of anything we were paying before.

-Eóin (April 10, 2009, 06:31 AM)

That depends. I don't know how is the situation in Ireland, but in Spain you don't save anything buying in a store compared to Steam. Of course, except certain offers, and the games published by a specific company, I always buy PC games online, as it's much cheaper to get them in the UK, for example, than buying it in any store of the country or Steam.

I do like Steam, it offers a bit more convenience than physical purchases, and it has another features that make it worthy (the community, achievements, etc.), but I never used it to buy new games, except indie ones. I buy the Weekend Deals whenever I feel like it, and I love that I can purchase old games unavailable elsewhere, but the prices are anything but competitive, and it's not like it lacks competition (Impulse, GOG...), but it seems there's a pact between game companies and physical retailers to not set prices lower in Steam to avoid mining their business. I'm sure than both Valve and the companies making business with them are not too sad to make the customer pay the full price, instead of subtracting the costs they save by distributing things digitally.

At least you own the games (Valve could do better in this respect, though), something that won't be possible if a service like onLive works as advertised.

[tinjaw]

That's quite a horror story :/

Sucks that there isn't any proper support! So... pray tell, what was the problem & solution? You found the lost password, or was it something sneaky?

-f0dder (April 12, 2009, 06:19 PM)

I installed a new firewall/IPS/proxy system on my network  a few weeks ago and typo'd on one of the packet filtering rules. I wasn't properly letting UDP traffic pass on a few ports.

[tinjaw]

As for the general topic of buying games online, I prefer it to traditional physical box retail sales. I use Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse, and GOG.

[wraith808]

As for the general topic of buying games online, I prefer it to traditional physical box retail sales. I use Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse, and GOG.

-tinjaw (April 13, 2009, 08:25 AM)

I do also.  I haven't bought from GoG yet, but I do plan to support it.  Steam is my most used platform, followed by Direct2Drive (which I actually like a bit better since you get actual game files that you download, though Steam is more convenient).  I use Impulse only when I have to.  It's a bit too much for a gaming platform IMO, and I prefer the minimalistic approach of the others vs Impulse's bloated client.

[f0dder]

Steam sometimes forgets my password, but I think that's because I share the account with p3lb0x - my guess is that steam "forgets" my password if he's been logged on from his IP.

[wraith808]

No, that's not the reason.  I have steam installed on my desktop and laptop, and log myself out by logging in on the other one all the time- it never forgets my password though.

[f0dder]

No, that's not the reason.  I have steam installed on my desktop and laptop, and log myself out by logging in on the other one all the time- it never forgets my password though.

-wraith808 (April 13, 2009, 09:49 AM)

Both machines are probably on the same WAN IP, though? That's not the case with p3lb0x and I

[wraith808]

Not a

Both machines are probably on the same WAN IP, though? That's not the case with p3lb0x and I

-f0dder (April 13, 2009, 09:53 AM)

Not always.  I've knocked my desktop off of steam from all over the country. (or at least Boston, RI, and CA )