Valve's all-in-one PC gaming marketplace, library, and social network Steam randomly went down and back up today, in a so-far unexplained and potentially unresolved outage. This came almost immediately after Twitch users discovered the streaming platform's chat has gone down, though, in Steam's case, something of actual value was (or, for some, still is) temporarily lost.
The timing of this sudden outage may lead some to have briefly held hope that the downtime heralded the surprise arrival of the 2020 Steam Summer Sale, but they'll be disappointed to see that the storefront is virtually unchanged from its appearance and content earlier today. As an absolutely critical digital pillar for much of the PC gaming community, it's not everyday that Steam goes down, and - when it does - it's an event of anger and boredom for many.
Today was no different as tracked by Downdetector, which spiked in user reports of Steam's sudden outage around 6 PM EDT. Over 3,000 such reports globally raised the alarm for other confused players, who were suddenly left with no means of buying or downloading new games or content, such as DLC or Steam Workshop mods, as well as cutting them off from Steam's vast network of reviews, forums, and other social functions. So far, it's unclear if the downtime was regional or if this and today's other major outages (including the aforementioned Twitch glitch, as well as issues with Instagram) are a symptom of greater broadband issues, and issues appear to still be persisting for some Steam users at the time of writing.
Luckily, Steam outages don't mean a complete freeze is placed on players' installed library, which can still be played freely, but Steam achievements and online functionality that relies on Steam networks. It does, however, result in any uninstalled games becoming off-limits until the platform comes back online, as well as leaving players who rely on Steam Cloud Play without recourse other than playing something on a competing platform or migrating back to consoles.
For now, Steam appears to be back up and running as it should, and all features new and old appear to be intact (for most players, at least). That said, users shouldn't be shocked if further outages happen on Steam or elsewhere, as today's widespread instability among huge tech platforms may point to something being afoot with US broadband infrastructure on a greater scale than just downing one or two company's servers.
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