Valve’s massive gaming platform, Steam, is grappling with a widespread outage worldwide today. User reports from multiple continents, including North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, indicate the service has been severely impacted. Service monitoring site Downdetector recorded over 34,000 user reports at the peak of the outage.
What error are Steam users receiving?
Players trying to log in to Steam are encountering connection errors. Those trying to access the platform’s website are experiencing frustrating issues such as crashes, blank pages, and the inability to load or download content.
The impact of the outage has also spread rapidly on social media:
- Game Sessions Suddenly Interrupted: Many players are reporting being kicked, particularly from multiplayer games, with their sessions interrupted and kicked. They are reporting that the servers are under heavy load and are struggling to reconnect.
- Downloads and Reviews Halted: One streamer complained that Steam had crashed just as they were starting to work on a game review, while another user shared screenshots showing the Steam client stuck during downloads.
The number of user complaints continues to rise rapidly on platforms like Reddit.
As of now, there has been no official statement from Steam or Valve regarding the cause of the outage.
However, the unofficial Steam status page also confirms a disruption in platform services.
Reports on Downdetector suggest that an unexpected Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage may have occurred simultaneously with the Steam outage. Given that Steam also operates through AWS, this could explain the source of the global issue on the platform. However, the official AWS dashboard has not yet been updated to reflect this potential outage.
