Steam, the super-popular gaming platform for buying and playing PC games, experienced a massive outage that primarily affected the store, stopping users from participating in the special sale event.
The Steam app is favored by people who want to get into their favorite PC games. This downtime significantly impacts millions of players seeking a good time with their games or looking to buy new games in the massive Steam Winter Sale.
At around 2:30 p.m. ET, Tom's Guide staff could get to the Steam Store to browse games and access their wishlists. However, user reports on Downdetector were still around 4,500, so it seems like Valve is rolling out a fix, just doing it gradually.
By 3:00 p.m. ET, the reports were down to less than 2,000, and everyone I asked on Tom's Guide staff was able to get access to the Steam Store and Winter Sale, which led us to believe that the outage had wrapped up.
And so it begins
Users around the internet are getting errors when logging into Steam. The timing isn't the best, as the Winter Sale is going and players are trying to get good deals on games.
Our own Tony Polanco fired up the Steam desktop app to buy Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite only to see this error page. He has also been unable to simply check the items on his wishlist.
Downdetector reports rolling in
As is usually the case with these kinds of outages, we spotted it by going to Downdetector and seeing a massive spike in user reports — and this one is particularly massive, with more than 6,000 user reports pouring in over half an hour.
Anytime we see reports jump from the baseline (six, in Steam's case) to a number in the thousands, we can tell a report is particularly widespread and something to keep an eye on.
X is for complaining
As you might expect, users jump on X to voice their disappointment during the downtime when a popular service goes down. We've seen people coming from all corners of the world to say that Steam is down. There's a mix of outrage, with one user exclaiming, "CAN MY STEAM WISHLIST LOAD PLS."
Other users report the outage to anyone who listens. Whatever the post, X users are coming out in droves looking for answers.
Unfortunately, we don't have a reason for the outage yet.
Steamstat.us finally notices
While Downdetector has up to 10,000 reports, the popular Steam status checker Steamstat.us has listed everything as working fine for a while. However, the page now has the Steam Store status as either "Just had issues" or "Very Slow."
That seems to be an understatement, as many users seem unable to load the store. We'll monitor the situation, but something isn't working correctly with Steam.
Not a happy Steamer
This user was looking to use the Steam Winter Sale to get a Steam Deck, but it didn't go well for them. "I had to wait an entire week for the steam winter sale to order the Steam Deck, and just when I wanted to order, the site was down," read their post.
A sudden drop
While Steam still seems to be down for most users, we have seen a sudden drop in reports on Downdetector. It peaked at 10,093 reports before suddenly dropping to 5,909.
That's still a lot of reports — far more than most other services see during outages, but it is a notable drop from the original spike.
Working for some...
Some users can load into the Steam Store without a problem, while others are still fighting to get it working.
I managed to load the Steam Store using my iPhone, but Tony Polanco couldn't get it to work on a PC. Neither the store nor his wishlist loaded, so your experience can vary depending on your luck.
Working for me...
I pulled up Steam on the web, logged into my account and visited the store page and everything loaded as quickly as ever for me. Of course, that's one person's experience and there are plenty of others on X still reporting they can't load the Winter Sale, so your milage may vary here.
Unfortunately, if it isn't working for you, there isn't much you can do other than wait. Valve hasn't officially acknowledged that anything is wrong, so we can't offer much in the way of advice regarding fixing the issue.
Tough to pin down a location
There doesn't appear to be one hotbed of people reporting issues with Steam, with the map showing reports spread around the whole U.S. The northeastern part of the country looks a little darker, but the population is also denser there, which would explain a rise in reports.
Still a struggle for some
As of just a few minutes ago, some users are still saying they're having a hard time getting into their wishlist, with some saying it loads eventually. One thing's for sure: this outage has been odd regarding how it's impacting some users while others are able to interact with the Steam Store as they would on any other day.
We seem to be mostly back
Based on the reports, user comments, social media posts and anecdotal evidence, I think it's safe to say that Steam is mostly back online. Of course, that could always change if things go crazy again, but it seems like this was mostly just a case of too many users pummeling Valve's servers trying to access the crazy deals offered in Steam's Winter sale (if you were holding out for a Steam Deck deal, those don't seem to be there, yet).
Less than 2,000 reports
I'm happy to report that Downdetector is showing less than 2,000 reports now, which is usually a good sign that it's just straggler reports coming in and that the worst part of the outage is over.
As always, things could change, but everyone I've asked on Tom's Guide staff was able to load the Steam Store quickly and easily.
