Alright, so it’s 2017. Activity on Gaming Rant is still somewhat lacklustre right now, and is most likely going to remain that way for the next couple of months. I’ve personally been very busy with other far larger projects, which is unfortunately taking up 99% of my time right now. But anyway, on to the article.
Steam. I’ve written about them before, and it’s absolutely no secret that I’ve had a somewhat public and rocky past with the Steam platform, and Valve as a whole. I’ve criticized them, and will continue to criticize them for as long as they continue down this unusual path of monopolizing the PC gaming industry. Today’s no different.
Steam has, over the last day and a half, been having some rather severe network related problems. Today, Steam’s network went down for a short period of time with an unannounced outage. Taking a quick look at the Steam stats history for the last 48 hours, it appears clear that a lot has been going on over at Valve HQ. To a point where I’m beginning to question as to whether or not this is a deliberate attack on the Steam platform, or just yet another Valve befuddle.
According to those stats, an estimated 3 million people lost connection to the Steam servers at around 4:00 PM EST on February 23rd.
And yet, I highly doubt anyone that was affected is even going to bat an eye towards this outage. It’s pretty typical and commonplace for Steam to go offline every week, so most Steam users are used to it by now. But really, they shouldn’t be. People should be in an uproar over the unreliability of the Steam platform, and Valve’s apparent lack of interest or ability to do anything about it. I mean, what the hell? This isn’t a new problem. It has been happening for years, in the form of weekly downtimes every single Tuesday. Steam has gone offline 261 times in maintenance alone since 2012, not including the outages of 2017 so far. There are an average of 52 Tuesday’s every year, which means Steam goes down a minimum of 52 times every. single. year. How is that acceptable? How is it that we as gamers can not only condone an unreliable network like this, but actually go so far as to defend it?
Don’t get me wrong, I love PC gaming, and I use Steam as my primary drm platform of choice. Steam’s got so many sales each year, all of these inconveniences are easily overlooked. But at the same time, they really shouldn’t be overlooked at all. Valve has conditioned us to accept less than satisfactory service by waving discounts in front of us. Expecting us to praise them for their service, while failing to properly maintain said service.
And yet, here I am. Writing this article that no one is going to bother reading. People have been so damn conditioned by this bullshit, I’m preaching to deaf ears, and willfully blind eyes. Unless a major publication such as IGN writes an article about Steam’s unreliable network, I don’t see Steam ever truly improving. There is almost no pressure from the media or the consumers to bring forth a change. Little to no standing demand for a network that we as gamers deserve. When Xbox Live and PlayStation Network are both more reliable than Steam, shit’s broken. It needs to change, and fast.
Aw, who am I kidding here, really? Valve’s not going to change, so long as the general gaming public is fine with a lacklustre service. With Steam. This low level of quality isn’t new, and has been here for years.
All I can really do, is write this article, and hope that someone out there shares a similar view to my own.