To Steam:

Yesterday I wasted a bunch of my day trying to play Half-Life 2. However, the Steam network client wouldn’t connect. I couldn’t authenticate, thus my software sat there on my machine. Locked. Waiting. Unusable. I spent hours in support FAQ’s and trying to traverse the non-sensical horror that is their public forums. I submitted a support request which they promised to answer the next business day. Awesome, that comes after the weekend. You know, those two consecutive days where I have “free time” to play “games”?

Two key things bother me enough to mention:

• I find the lack of fallback functionality in the Steam client to be a major design flaw. Shouldn’t the fact that I’ve authed into the network in the last month be enough to prove I own it? They must balance the needs of the consumer (and simple fairness) with their need to protect your IP. Draconian policies like this are difficult to enforce, and only serve to alienate people when enforcement takes precedence over enjoyment.

• The lack of communication with the community was detestable. I think much of Steam is a good thing. But when it breaks, it is very bad. I spent hours reconfiguring my computer (changing myriad firewall settings, patching the OS) in attempt to make it work. They have both a “News” and “Status” page, and failed use them! Had I been informed that there was a server-side problem that you were working on, I would have done something else with my day. Instead, needlessly wasted my time on something I couldn’t fix.