They left out how some folks didn't like it back then. Viewed a separate launcher as unnecessary and invasive. Mind you most games came on a CD/DVD with a license. So in some cases you were buying...
They left out how some folks didn't like it back then. Viewed a separate launcher as unnecessary and invasive. Mind you most games came on a CD/DVD with a license. So in some cases you were buying a physical game already licensed and needed a separate online launcher to run it.
That same complaint we've leveraged at every launcher since. They need to justify their existence. Valve did so by providing services with the platform. As mentioned in the article, it was great for aggregating servers right off the bat. And now we've got handheld PC gaming on gaming on Linux. How will other platforms distinguish and justify themselves? We've seen several fail to do so, and some even were even shuttered for it. GOG did away with DRM and aggregates games across launchers all in one program. Epic's got cross platform compatibility built in and their Unreal engine (though admittedly not launcher specific). Microsoft is going big on game streaming.
But Steam came first and keeps doing it right. Or at least not wrong enough for us to vacate.
I understand corporations are evil and it's okay to bash them, but why would Valve rehash 20-year-old criticism when celebrating their oldest users? What does this comment accomplish other than...
I understand corporations are evil and it's okay to bash them, but why would Valve rehash 20-year-old criticism when celebrating their oldest users? What does this comment accomplish other than reiterate the dominant, boring, and predictable sentiment that corporations are not to be trusted?
My intent was to commend Valve for what they have accomplished! I'm sorry I didn't convey this clearly, but that was not my intention to simply bash despite being a bit contrarian. This wasn't a...
My intent was to commend Valve for what they have accomplished! I'm sorry I didn't convey this clearly, but that was not my intention to simply bash despite being a bit contrarian.
This wasn't a Valve press release article, so I thought it appropriate to discuss how it was viewed 20 years ago, adding to what the article mentions about its initial use was appreciated as a server browser. My point is that public sentiment towards Steam has largely improved because they add to the market, and I believe that is why their 20th year is worth celebration.
Yeah I think it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't examine the circumstances for pr reasons, and rather treat it more like a birthday celebration for the platform. Personally, I think it's...
Yeah I think it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't examine the circumstances for pr reasons, and rather treat it more like a birthday celebration for the platform. Personally, I think it's interesting how there's a good chance that the first steam user didn't even join willingly, just made an account it to play CS or half life 2 or something because they couldn't otherwise.
I think I will officially be old if I am given this badge. I do remember using WON and Gamespy to connect to CS and TF1 servers as a little scrublet...so, probably old. But yeah, if any younger...
I think I will officially be old if I am given this badge. I do remember using WON and Gamespy to connect to CS and TF1 servers as a little scrublet...so, probably old.
But yeah, if any younger people are mystified why there would be hate for early Steam, there was a lot of mistrust around the platform when it came out because this was also around the time that companies were experimenting with all these really restrictive DRM schemes (ex. Limiting how many times you could install your own game with the CD you owned). And the music industry was doing the same thing with content (giving rise to the Pirate Bay and stuff).
I think people naturally suspected it was going to be companies being abusive and tyrannical given that was the general direction.
The biggest issue with Steam now is their customer support. I put up all my CSGO items on the marketplace for above market average during the price boom (around the CSGO2 announcement this...
The biggest issue with Steam now is their customer support.
I put up all my CSGO items on the marketplace for above market average during the price boom (around the CSGO2 announcement this spring). 3 months later one of them unexpectedly got sold (average price was $4. I put it up for $50).
The following night my account got locked, with a message telling me to contact customer service. I sent in a ticket as soon as I got up and saw the message. It took them several days to get back to me - and when they did they hard accused me of market manipulation and accepting money from fraud/stolen accounts. Got off with a warning, but I was told that my account will stay locked if it ever happens again.
I just put up an item on the marketplace? Of course, the value was way inflated, but the prices had gone way up on several other items so I was hoping I'd get lucky. I have no say in who buys my items or how their money was acquired - that is all controlled by Valve/Steam.
I then replied to the ticket, giving a bullet point list of questions like how to follow the recommendations they gave me (for example not accepting steam funds on the marketplace, even though there is no option for that when posting an item for sale), and how I'd never risk my account for such a petty amount - my account is almost 20 years old and worth close to $8'000 USD. I was very stressed out by the previous CS response - almost on the verge of crying - and wanted some reassurance from them and clarification on how I could avoid another ban.
Do you want to know what they did? They gave me probably the coldest and shortest non-response I've ever received from any customer support. They permanently closed my ticket telling me that they've solved the initial problem, and if I had any question regarding something /not/ related to the account closure issue I'd have to submit another request.
Before this happened I didn't have any qualms about buying stuff on Steam, but it's been a month now and I'm still not sure if I ever want to put another dollar into my account. The way customer support threatened me made me really unwell, and I can feel my stomach and chest tightening just writing this comment.
I had a few interactions with customer support in 2008-ish, and back then it felt personal and human. Nowadays I guess they're on the grind and pressured by numbers, and as a result it feels like they have zero compassion with the end user.
If I had to guess, your account's activity just happened to match certain conditions that flag it for scamming or money laundering or something. Relatively normal action and then suddenly one...
If I had to guess, your account's activity just happened to match certain conditions that flag it for scamming or money laundering or something. Relatively normal action and then suddenly one "massive" transaction out of the blue beyond the sale expectation. Their automated system locks your account because it (ironically) behaved like a bot, and then by responding you prove you're a person and not an a bot so they unlock you, but with a warning instead of an apology.
It sucks because you didn't do anything wrong, presumably. You, a user, put up an item for sale that another user purchased on valve's platform. Valve is the one managing this store, they approve all transactions, so it's pretty rich accusing you of foul play by simply behaving like a normal user and getting a lucky sale. It's on valve to make a less abusable system, not guess which users are up to trouble in their financial sandbox.
The flagging was definitely automated - in the same e-mail notifying me of the sale they included the following text: But my account didn't get suspended until 12 hours later - during early office...
The flagging was definitely automated - in the same e-mail notifying me of the sale they included the following text:
The purchase price for this item is unusual. Funds received from this sale will be held temporarily.
Funds from this sale will be held by Steam for up to five days. In the meantime, the funds will be included in your pending wallet balance. In some situations, Steam Support may reverse the transaction and return the item to your Steam Inventory.
But my account didn't get suspended until 12 hours later - during early office hours in USA - leading me to believe that the suspension itself was manually reviewed. I looked it up online and it seems others have received the same message (and threat of account closure) for even smaller amounts. Depending on the marketplace history of the item, people have had it trigger on things sold for a few cents above the average value. It seems that it startet happening mid spring this year (march/april), so it is likely a very new system with quirks that need to get worked out.
But yes, I totally agree with your second paragraph - instead of creating a system that flags and/or ban accounts that sell items at a suspiciously high price, why not deny the transaction from going through in the first place? Put a price cap on items (200% of the average value) or something.
Fun fact: They only reversed the money part of the transaction. I never got my item back despite their own text stating otherwise.
Regardless I'll shy miles away from marketplace trades going forward. No way am I going to risk my account for a tiny amount of money (relative to the account value).
Now that I am on my PC I also have access to the ticket log. Here is the word for word reply I received from support:
You arranged the sale of one or more items at inflated prices on the Steam Community Market. All of the funds you received from these sales were obtained through fraud.
We have removed items and games added to the account since these transactions as well as any remaining fraudulent wallet funds. These items, games, and funds will not be restored.
Avoid all offers of Steam Wallet funds through the Steam Market or you may inadvertently become involved in payment fraud.
For more information, please review our Market Scam FAQ.
I have unlocked your account at this time. Please note that this will be the only warning you will receive. Similar behavior on this or any related account in the future will result in a permanent lock without further notice.
So If I had bought anything on the Steam store - even with my own credit card - in the 12 hours between me receiving the funds and when they locked my account I would have lost that money forever. Thanks Steam.
I would be surprised if the "manual review" was anything more than a 5-second vibe check. At that scale, they're waking up to a ridiculous number of flags to review every day.
I would be surprised if the "manual review" was anything more than a 5-second vibe check. At that scale, they're waking up to a ridiculous number of flags to review every day.
I'm terribly sorry that happened to you, I can't imagine how I'd handle it in your shoes. I wish I could say it was the only story I've heard like this, but it isn't. It only drives home the point...
I'm terribly sorry that happened to you, I can't imagine how I'd handle it in your shoes. I wish I could say it was the only story I've heard like this, but it isn't. It only drives home the point that you aren't really buying games on Steam, but renting them.
I was definitely one of the early users that refused to make a Steam account just to play a single player PC game (Half-Life 2, which I realize had an online component as well, but I wasn't...
I was definitely one of the early users that refused to make a Steam account just to play a single player PC game (Half-Life 2, which I realize had an online component as well, but I wasn't interested). I eventually buckled when I got the Orange Box a couple of years later because at least that contained a game that was fully online (TF2) and Steam had already started adding some value to having an account by that point.
How incredible is this, really? That's like being enamored that early Gmail adopters are still using their Gmail accounts. Turns out the old people from when I was young were wrong: Videogames...
Incredibly, some of Steam’s early adopter accounts are still actively in use today, a full two decades after their creation.
How incredible is this, really? That's like being enamored that early Gmail adopters are still using their Gmail accounts.
Turns out the old people from when I was young were wrong: Videogames aren't just for kids.
Yeah my account is 7 days away from being 18 years old, and I was a teenager when I made it. I think if anything, the only "incredible" part about it could be that people may have lost accounts...
Yeah my account is 7 days away from being 18 years old, and I was a teenager when I made it.
I think if anything, the only "incredible" part about it could be that people may have lost accounts over the years, especially if they started them when they were young. I looked at a couple of my close IRL friends steam account profiles, and we all played games together growing up so if I had a steam account back then, they almost certainly did too, and their current steam accounts are not nearly as old as mine. So they seemingly lost access to their original accounts and made new ones.
Wow, I feel really old. I was there and was a day one/day two (at least for the public release, my badge says since September 12th, but using other tools online says the 13th and honestly its been...
Wow, I feel really old. I was there and was a day one/day two (at least for the public release, my badge says since September 12th, but using other tools online says the 13th and honestly its been so long I can’t remember). I remember being strong armed into steam because I was heavily into Team Fortress Classic, and to a lesser extent Count Strike, and found out that the online services would stop. I was livid and tried steam out and HATED IT. It froze up, was incredibly slow, super ugly, and crashed all of the time. There are the infamous gif of a guy bending over and the steam logo….doing unpleasant things to him, which is how we all felt at the time. It took quite a while to get better too. I remember playing TFC on the old system until the very last minute and had to essentially be forced kicking and screaming into using steam. Steam was one of the few services I didn’t have on the email account that I own today because gmail was still in beta. I had gotten a beta invite maybe a few months after setting up my steam account. It’s crazy to reflect how awesome it is, especially compared to how it started, especially thinking about the steam deck!
I'm a day one user. My ritual was come home from school. Sign in to MSN Messenger. Check message boards. Hop on Counterstrike servers. My account registration is 4PM September 12. School let out...
I'm a day one user. My ritual was come home from school. Sign in to MSN Messenger. Check message boards. Hop on Counterstrike servers. My account registration is 4PM September 12. School let out at 3PM.
Steam was widely hated for a long time. Some refused to adopt all together. There was a popular meme gif where the animated Steam piston has a guy bent over because waiting for Steam to load was a such a pain. This was when multitasking was barely a thing yet. Couldn't switch your workflow to doing something else all together while other stuff runs unnoticeable in the background.
Darn, my account was made in 2004 with the release of Half-Life 2, the first game I needed Steam for. I just hit 19 years. I missed out on being an "early adopter" but I'm sure I'm going to be...
Darn, my account was made in 2004 with the release of Half-Life 2, the first game I needed Steam for. I just hit 19 years.
I missed out on being an "early adopter" but I'm sure I'm going to be part of the huge wave of people hitting 20 years next year.
Yup, 19yr club. Feb 2004 was when I made my account. My brother and I used to play a lot of Counter Strike, even before Steam accounts were a thing, so that's why I have an account. We actually...
Yup, 19yr club. Feb 2004 was when I made my account. My brother and I used to play a lot of Counter Strike, even before Steam accounts were a thing, so that's why I have an account. We actually shared the account for some years, but then he'd occasionally mess with hacks and I was afraid my account was gonna get a VAC ban. So I told him to get his own.
Downside of having such an old account is that my username is an email address that I don't even have access to anymore. Not that it matters, since it's literally just a username, but it still annoys me!
Anthony Wood Incredibly, some of Steam’s early adopter accounts are still actively in use today, a full two decades after their creation
Anthony Wood
Incredibly, some of Steam’s early adopter accounts are still actively in use today, a full two decades after their creation
Some of Steam’s oldest user accounts are turning 20-years old this week, and Valve is celebrating the anniversary by handing out special digital badges featuring the original Steam colour scheme to the gaming veterans.
Steam first opened its figurative doors all the way back in September 2003, and has since grown into the largest digital PC gaming storefront in the world, which is actively used by tens of millions of players each day.
“In case anyone's curious about the odd colours, that's the colour scheme for the original Steam UI when it first launched,” commented Redditor Penndrachen, referring to the badge's army green colour scheme, which prompted a mixed reaction from players who remembered the platform's earliest days. “I joined in the first six months,” lamented Affectionate-Memory4. “I feel ancient rn.”
“For those wondering how most of us initial users of Steam found it at the time, the answer is extremely simple,” wrote Redditor HeavenlyPT. “It was Counter-Strike. Before Steam, the servers to play CS were randomly hosted by different companies, most of us at the time, would use a program called TheAllSeeingEye, which would compile the servers list for the game, and that's how we would join the public servers of the time.”
They left out how some folks didn't like it back then. Viewed a separate launcher as unnecessary and invasive. Mind you most games came on a CD/DVD with a license. So in some cases you were buying a physical game already licensed and needed a separate online launcher to run it.
That same complaint we've leveraged at every launcher since. They need to justify their existence. Valve did so by providing services with the platform. As mentioned in the article, it was great for aggregating servers right off the bat. And now we've got handheld PC gaming on gaming on Linux. How will other platforms distinguish and justify themselves? We've seen several fail to do so, and some even were even shuttered for it. GOG did away with DRM and aggregates games across launchers all in one program. Epic's got cross platform compatibility built in and their Unreal engine (though admittedly not launcher specific). Microsoft is going big on game streaming.
But Steam came first and keeps doing it right. Or at least not wrong enough for us to vacate.
I understand corporations are evil and it's okay to bash them, but why would Valve rehash 20-year-old criticism when celebrating their oldest users? What does this comment accomplish other than reiterate the dominant, boring, and predictable sentiment that corporations are not to be trusted?
My intent was to commend Valve for what they have accomplished! I'm sorry I didn't convey this clearly, but that was not my intention to simply bash despite being a bit contrarian.
This wasn't a Valve press release article, so I thought it appropriate to discuss how it was viewed 20 years ago, adding to what the article mentions about its initial use was appreciated as a server browser. My point is that public sentiment towards Steam has largely improved because they add to the market, and I believe that is why their 20th year is worth celebration.
I understand. Sorry for jumping on you. I understand your intent now that you clarified, and it does make sense. Thank you for explaining.
Yeah I think it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't examine the circumstances for pr reasons, and rather treat it more like a birthday celebration for the platform. Personally, I think it's interesting how there's a good chance that the first steam user didn't even join willingly, just made an account it to play CS or half life 2 or something because they couldn't otherwise.
I think I will officially be old if I am given this badge. I do remember using WON and Gamespy to connect to CS and TF1 servers as a little scrublet...so, probably old.
But yeah, if any younger people are mystified why there would be hate for early Steam, there was a lot of mistrust around the platform when it came out because this was also around the time that companies were experimenting with all these really restrictive DRM schemes (ex. Limiting how many times you could install your own game with the CD you owned). And the music industry was doing the same thing with content (giving rise to the Pirate Bay and stuff).
I think people naturally suspected it was going to be companies being abusive and tyrannical given that was the general direction.
The Sony rootkit scandal was 2 years later.
But yes, they tried some shady shit back then
The biggest issue with Steam now is their customer support.
I put up all my CSGO items on the marketplace for above market average during the price boom (around the CSGO2 announcement this spring). 3 months later one of them unexpectedly got sold (average price was $4. I put it up for $50).
The following night my account got locked, with a message telling me to contact customer service. I sent in a ticket as soon as I got up and saw the message. It took them several days to get back to me - and when they did they hard accused me of market manipulation and accepting money from fraud/stolen accounts. Got off with a warning, but I was told that my account will stay locked if it ever happens again.
I just put up an item on the marketplace? Of course, the value was way inflated, but the prices had gone way up on several other items so I was hoping I'd get lucky. I have no say in who buys my items or how their money was acquired - that is all controlled by Valve/Steam.
I then replied to the ticket, giving a bullet point list of questions like how to follow the recommendations they gave me (for example not accepting steam funds on the marketplace, even though there is no option for that when posting an item for sale), and how I'd never risk my account for such a petty amount - my account is almost 20 years old and worth close to $8'000 USD. I was very stressed out by the previous CS response - almost on the verge of crying - and wanted some reassurance from them and clarification on how I could avoid another ban.
Do you want to know what they did? They gave me probably the coldest and shortest non-response I've ever received from any customer support. They permanently closed my ticket telling me that they've solved the initial problem, and if I had any question regarding something /not/ related to the account closure issue I'd have to submit another request.
Before this happened I didn't have any qualms about buying stuff on Steam, but it's been a month now and I'm still not sure if I ever want to put another dollar into my account. The way customer support threatened me made me really unwell, and I can feel my stomach and chest tightening just writing this comment.
I had a few interactions with customer support in 2008-ish, and back then it felt personal and human. Nowadays I guess they're on the grind and pressured by numbers, and as a result it feels like they have zero compassion with the end user.
If I had to guess, your account's activity just happened to match certain conditions that flag it for scamming or money laundering or something. Relatively normal action and then suddenly one "massive" transaction out of the blue beyond the sale expectation. Their automated system locks your account because it (ironically) behaved like a bot, and then by responding you prove you're a person and not an a bot so they unlock you, but with a warning instead of an apology.
It sucks because you didn't do anything wrong, presumably. You, a user, put up an item for sale that another user purchased on valve's platform. Valve is the one managing this store, they approve all transactions, so it's pretty rich accusing you of foul play by simply behaving like a normal user and getting a lucky sale. It's on valve to make a less abusable system, not guess which users are up to trouble in their financial sandbox.
The flagging was definitely automated - in the same e-mail notifying me of the sale they included the following text:
But my account didn't get suspended until 12 hours later - during early office hours in USA - leading me to believe that the suspension itself was manually reviewed. I looked it up online and it seems others have received the same message (and threat of account closure) for even smaller amounts. Depending on the marketplace history of the item, people have had it trigger on things sold for a few cents above the average value. It seems that it startet happening mid spring this year (march/april), so it is likely a very new system with quirks that need to get worked out.
But yes, I totally agree with your second paragraph - instead of creating a system that flags and/or ban accounts that sell items at a suspiciously high price, why not deny the transaction from going through in the first place? Put a price cap on items (200% of the average value) or something.
Fun fact: They only reversed the money part of the transaction. I never got my item back despite their own text stating otherwise.
Regardless I'll shy miles away from marketplace trades going forward. No way am I going to risk my account for a tiny amount of money (relative to the account value).
Now that I am on my PC I also have access to the ticket log. Here is the word for word reply I received from support:
So If I had bought anything on the Steam store - even with my own credit card - in the 12 hours between me receiving the funds and when they locked my account I would have lost that money forever. Thanks Steam.
I would be surprised if the "manual review" was anything more than a 5-second vibe check. At that scale, they're waking up to a ridiculous number of flags to review every day.
I'm terribly sorry that happened to you, I can't imagine how I'd handle it in your shoes. I wish I could say it was the only story I've heard like this, but it isn't. It only drives home the point that you aren't really buying games on Steam, but renting them.
I was definitely one of the early users that refused to make a Steam account just to play a single player PC game (Half-Life 2, which I realize had an online component as well, but I wasn't interested). I eventually buckled when I got the Orange Box a couple of years later because at least that contained a game that was fully online (TF2) and Steam had already started adding some value to having an account by that point.
How incredible is this, really? That's like being enamored that early Gmail adopters are still using their Gmail accounts.
Turns out the old people from when I was young were wrong: Videogames aren't just for kids.
Yeah my account is 7 days away from being 18 years old, and I was a teenager when I made it.
I think if anything, the only "incredible" part about it could be that people may have lost accounts over the years, especially if they started them when they were young. I looked at a couple of my close IRL friends steam account profiles, and we all played games together growing up so if I had a steam account back then, they almost certainly did too, and their current steam accounts are not nearly as old as mine. So they seemingly lost access to their original accounts and made new ones.
Wow, I feel really old. I was there and was a day one/day two (at least for the public release, my badge says since September 12th, but using other tools online says the 13th and honestly its been so long I can’t remember). I remember being strong armed into steam because I was heavily into Team Fortress Classic, and to a lesser extent Count Strike, and found out that the online services would stop. I was livid and tried steam out and HATED IT. It froze up, was incredibly slow, super ugly, and crashed all of the time. There are the infamous gif of a guy bending over and the steam logo….doing unpleasant things to him, which is how we all felt at the time. It took quite a while to get better too. I remember playing TFC on the old system until the very last minute and had to essentially be forced kicking and screaming into using steam. Steam was one of the few services I didn’t have on the email account that I own today because gmail was still in beta. I had gotten a beta invite maybe a few months after setting up my steam account. It’s crazy to reflect how awesome it is, especially compared to how it started, especially thinking about the steam deck!
I'm a day one user. My ritual was come home from school. Sign in to MSN Messenger. Check message boards. Hop on Counterstrike servers. My account registration is 4PM September 12. School let out at 3PM.
Steam was widely hated for a long time. Some refused to adopt all together. There was a popular meme gif where the animated Steam piston has a guy bent over because waiting for Steam to load was a such a pain. This was when multitasking was barely a thing yet. Couldn't switch your workflow to doing something else all together while other stuff runs unnoticeable in the background.
Darn, my account was made in 2004 with the release of Half-Life 2, the first game I needed Steam for. I just hit 19 years.
I missed out on being an "early adopter" but I'm sure I'm going to be part of the huge wave of people hitting 20 years next year.
Yup, 19yr club. Feb 2004 was when I made my account. My brother and I used to play a lot of Counter Strike, even before Steam accounts were a thing, so that's why I have an account. We actually shared the account for some years, but then he'd occasionally mess with hacks and I was afraid my account was gonna get a VAC ban. So I told him to get his own.
Downside of having such an old account is that my username is an email address that I don't even have access to anymore. Not that it matters, since it's literally just a username, but it still annoys me!
Mine hits 20 tomorrow. This is the kind of mundane stuff that makes you recognize how quickly time passes.
Wow, mine is young compared others, 2013.
Anthony Wood
Incredibly, some of Steam’s early adopter accounts are still actively in use today, a full two decades after their creation
Mine will turn 20 in three months! Still active too.