Steam is one of the most popular video game distribution apps on the market, so when it goes down, people notice.
The site is the go-to location for PC gamers, with a massive collection of small and under-development games, as well as the AAA headliners that populate options like Xbox and PlayStation. It’s known to experience issues from time to time, unfortunately, particularly during periods of high volume. Like during the Steam summer sale, which just so happens to commence today.
Is Steam down?
Just as Steam was settling into its summer sale — which is set to run between June 23 and July 7 — the site began experiencing issues. Users are reporting outages all over the globe, likely as Steam’s servers overload from the sudden uptick in visitors. While these issues will likely resolve themselves soon, it’s hard to say how long they will last. Thankfully, Steam’s sale is set to last for several more weeks yet, which gives users plenty of time to revisit the site and make their purchases.
Users who have partial access to the site, but are still experiencing issues, should probably hold off on attempting any purchases until the issues are resolved. Leaning on the site’s “wish list” option will allow users to continue their browsing — and continue to make selections — without risking the loss of their entire cart when the site hits another bump. They can also check in on several sites to report issues and keep track of progress as Steam works to get everything up and running again.
How to check Steam’s status
There are a few ways to keep track of Steam’s status as the site works to resolve any issues. Steam’s own support site is a great option but can be a bit overwhelming. It lists a huge number of regions — from the U.S. to Europe and Asia — as well as the various Steam services that are currently in use. According to Steam’s status site, parts of the service are still running smoothly, but others appear to be down completely. The site doesn’t allow visitors to report issues, but it does provide a location from which they can check in on their specific region to see how outages are affecting their area.
Another option is Down Detector, a site specifically dedicated to tracking various online outages. This option does allow users to report issues — which often makes it a more reliable source of information — and keeps track of the timeline of issues and fixes. According to Down Detector, Steam experienced a major — but brief — outage at around 7pm yesterday, and another, lengthier outage began around 1pm today. The current outage has yet to be resolved, and users are reporting issues with server connection, login, and download. Server connection seems to be the most widespread issue.
Users can also keep track of issues and follow the progress toward a solution via Steam’s social media channels. Twitter is the most likely place to keep consistent track, but the site also has a prominent presence on Reddit. Checking both the official Steam account and the unofficial SteamStatus accounts will help users to keep informed on how things are progressing.
It’s important to remember that there’s a clear reason for Steam’s current outage. The summer sale often leads to performance issues on the site (as do all its other sales), but the problems likely won’t last long.