Steam and Valve have experienced a massive outage that is preventing anyone from accessing the digital store and playing games. This is relevant when many people are looking to play holiday games on Christmas Eve.
Valve has yet to acknowledge the issue, but the unofficial SteamDB status page confirms that the Steam Store, community features, and core web APIs are down. The problems started just after 1:00 pm ET; by 1:15 pm ET, the number of reports about DownDetector had grown to more than 6,000. If you're trying to access Steam through mobile apps, you'll likely have problems too, since the platform is universally inaccessible.
It's not just about shopping; The glitch appears to have affected the APIs of major online games such as Team Fortress 2, Dota 2And Counter-Strike 2. Some users claim that service returned brieflybut it seems to go back and forth without any true resolution.
The timing of this shutdown is particularly challenging as it is the day before Christmas. You'd think Valve would want to keep its services running smoothly during the holiday break. This isn't the first time Steam has struggled. Back in October, the store and services were closed for about an hour. Even more dramatic, in September there was a massive movement of traffic from Hollow Knight: Silk Song the launch managed to crash not only Steam, but also Nintendo eShop and Xbox Store at the same time.
Since gaming services are unstable, you may find yourself with some unexpected time on your hands. If you're anything like me, you're probably still trying to finish your holiday shopping. With the holidays right around the corner, shipping times are tight, but you still have several options for tech gifts that can be delivered quickly.
Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED will cost $778 on the Samsung website, but Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 for $1,500 may be more than your speed if you really want one of the best monitors available. Since we don't know how long this outage might last, you might not be able to play anyway, so waiting for a monitor won't be that bad.
There is some speculation as to what it is, but Reddit post noted that people working on Steam have to miss holidays because the software needs to be patched. Employees or management may have had to interrupt their vacation to come and fix the problems. So, try to be nice if you're tweeting to get a company's attention.
While we wait for Valve to fix the server issues, it's probably best to assume that you won't be logging into your games anytime soon. If you need to buy games for friends on PC, you might have better luck buying gift cards on Amazon, WalmartAnd GameStop. This way, you can be sure that they will receive the gift on time, even if the store has not yet been renovated by then.
Source: Downdetector, Steam Status
