Poll: Steam and your opinion

[BigTeef]

I personally enjoy steam a lot and use it to my full extend, and take full advantage of the sales.

But there is one thing I really don't like about steam is how their support team handles things.
See I am a victim of stalking, I am apart of the empires mod community and I have been targeted by a long time user who has been harassing this community because of bitterness hate.

I have reported this person so many times, and it frankly got scary to the point I have sent them an email and open a ticket regarding this user. It took them a week and a half to get back to me and all they said was.

"Hello Joshua,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

We apologize for the delay.

Please use the "Report Violation" feature to report inappropriate behavior on the Steam Community.

Please do the following:

Go to the profile of the offending user.
Click the 'More' drop-down located at the top right of the page.
Choose "Report Violation"
Select the violation and hit "Submit Report"

All complaints are reviewed by the Steam Community team.

If you have any further questions, please let us know. "

Me and my friends have reported this person so many times, and this is all they tell me after dealing with another week of this person. He is thoroughly blocked but somehow manages to send chat invites, and its scary to see the first thing I login into steam when I get home from college is this guy sending me a chat invite. I had a nervous breakdown and it's just shocking to see how they just refuse to stop this person. I have sent in so much evidence via the support ticket and all I get is that standard response.

I have been a loyal user of steam for 7 years, and they just don't seem to help me when I really need it.

What is your opinion on steam, and are you content with how they run things?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So, do you actually know this person in real life, is this someone who actually knows who you are and is actually stalking you, or is it just some guy who won't stop messaging you on steam?

Because if it's the later, what exactly has you in such a tizzy? He can't hurt you, all he's doing is sending you chat requests. There doesn't seem to be any reason to have a nervous breakdown over something like that, just ignore the guy, it's relatively easy.

 

[BigTeef]

So, do you actually know this person in real life, is this someone who actually knows who you are and is actually stalking you, or is it just some guy who won't stop messaging you on steam?

Because if it's the later, what exactly has you in such a tizzy? He can't hurt you, all he's doing is sending you chat requests. There doesn't seem to be any reason to have a nervous breakdown over something like that, just ignore the guy, it's relatively easy.

It gets worse when he goes to your friends just to get to you.
I don't really know the person but he has had a constant presence on harassing members of the community outside of it.

I heard a story from somebody how he got a moderators work phone number, and sent in false information. Then he started a rumor about a admin being bulimic.

I just don't understand why they wont ban this person from using steam community since it's the tool he uses to get to us.

 

[Doom972]

I love Steam and how it changed gaming for me, but their customer service is the worst I have come across. I used it about 3 times and I never got a solution to my problem. Luckily, my problems were the kind that I could solve myself, which I managed to do after a Google search and some reading. The Steam community forums in particular tend to be helpful.

As for your problem, if you are that annoyed by strangers sending you invites (It doesn't bother me that much, I just click "ignore"), you can always make your account private so that only friends can see your profile, send you invites, etc. However, that would mean that any third-parties (like The Escapist or Gala Giveaways) won't be able to see your data.

 

[BigTeef]

I love Steam and how it changed gaming for me, but their customer service is the worst I have come across. I used it about 3 times and I never got a solution to my problem. Luckily, my problems were the kind that I could solve myself, which I managed to do after a Google search and some reading. The Steam community forums in particular tend to be helpful.

As for your problem, if you are that annoyed by strangers sending you invites (It doesn't bother me that much, I just click "ignore"), you can always make your account private so that only friends can see your profile, send you invites, etc. However, that would mean that any third-parties (like The Escapist or Gala Giveaways) won't be able to see your data.

I set mine to private years ago, however this doesn't stop them.
I am confused how somebody who is blocked can send you chat invites.

 

[Doom972]

I love Steam and how it changed gaming for me, but their customer service is the worst I have come across. I used it about 3 times and I never got a solution to my problem. Luckily, my problems were the kind that I could solve myself, which I managed to do after a Google search and some reading. The Steam community forums in particular tend to be helpful.

As for your problem, if you are that annoyed by strangers sending you invites (It doesn't bother me that much, I just click "ignore"), you can always make your account private so that only friends can see your profile, send you invites, etc. However, that would mean that any third-parties (like The Escapist or Gala Giveaways) won't be able to see your data.

I set mine to private years ago, however this doesn't stop him them.
I am confused how somebody who is blocked can send you chat invites.

Well, that sucks. I hope that whoever handles those violation reports will do something about that guy. In the meantime, looks like your only option is to ignore him to death.

Who invests so much time in harassing someone, anyway? Any chance that it's a bot?

 

[BigTeef]

I love Steam and how it changed gaming for me, but their customer service is the worst I have come across. I used it about 3 times and I never got a solution to my problem. Luckily, my problems were the kind that I could solve myself, which I managed to do after a Google search and some reading. The Steam community forums in particular tend to be helpful.

As for your problem, if you are that annoyed by strangers sending you invites (It doesn't bother me that much, I just click "ignore"), you can always make your account private so that only friends can see your profile, send you invites, etc. However, that would mean that any third-parties (like The Escapist or Gala Giveaways) won't be able to see your data.

I set mine to private years ago, however this doesn't stop him them.
I am confused how somebody who is blocked can send you chat invites.

Well, that sucks. I hope that whoever handles those violation reports will do something about that guy. In the meantime, looks like your only option is to ignore him to death.

Who invests so much time in harassing someone, anyway? Any chance that it's a bot?

No, I don't think a bot goes through your friends list and asks them they want to talk to me.
Or send me a message.

 

[Bellvedere]

I've never had to contact Steam support so I can't really say how I feel about that side of things.

It definitely does seem like a problem that a blocked person can send you chat invites though... I rarely use the Steam community features (I have a handful of real life friends on my friends list but that's it) so I wouldn't know but surely the block is not functioning correctly if you're still seeing any activity by them let alone chat requests?

Anyway in regards to the topic question, "content" would be an adequate description of my feelings towards Steam. I went through a stage of hating Steam when I first had to install it, followed by a loving stage when I first experienced a Summer Sale. Now I view it as an option, though not necessarily a first preference. I do love to purchase digitally (DRM free is preferable where available though), sale prices are sometimes very good (timed sale items are a bit tedious), my biggest issue is probably that the offline is fairly hit and miss.

 

[Caiphus]

Generally a fan of Steam. It paved the way for digital distribution to take PC gaming by storm, and saved PC gaming in some ways.

However. Not a huge fan of some of their policies:

Allowing publishers to put extra DRM on certain games, looking at Ubisoft in particular, is both redundant and stupid.

Their refund policy could use some work, and EA is actually beating them on that point, which should never happen.

Greenlight could use some love, although I'm not sure how to fix it.

Quality control could also use some work - although they could fix either the quality control, or the refund policy. There was a recent RPG that released, Realms of Arkania I think, that still had placeholder names for items and was bugged up the wazoo. People were having trouble getting refunds. That's frankly silly and not good enough. It's not like Valve's hands are tied. They have more than enough industry clout to tell developers 'this shit isn't good enough'.


As for OP's problem, wow that sounds bad. I really hope you get it fixed, because it sounds like if the guy was doing this in the real world he'd be facing criminal charges.

 

[GoaThief]

I recently had a very pleasant experience with Steam customer support regarding disappearing items in my inventory which surprised me as I've heard so many people moan about them. Maybe I got lucky or people exaggerate, either way I was very satisfied.

As to your problem, do as they say then if the stalking/cyber bullying happens outside of Steam take it to the police who are cracking down on just that at present.

 

[Bertylicious]

If this were happening in real life it would be a difficult thing for the authorities to deal with, as the uniformly grotesque domestic abuse cases across the globe can attest.

Steam can attempt to block this user but if he is determined to cause you distress, which he clearly is, then you will need to escalate this beyond the normal channels.

I am fascinated by what could cause someone to go after you with such belligerence though,could you link the forum post/s where this all kicked off?

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I think it's alright. I don't like downloading games a lot and prefer to have boxed versions so lately I only buy games I can't find in retail.
Need a bit more work, I wanna be able to stop automatic update, staying offline to people I don't wanna talk to but can't remove because of personal reasons and freely customise my profile background.

 

[Anachronism]

Steam is to digital media what Amazon is to physical media.

I may not particularly like their policies: as Critical Miss said, Steam uses convenience and congeniality to hide the fact that continued access to my property is provided at Valve's discretion and is dependent on their continued success.

However, Steam is just so damned convenient, and provides such a good service, that I use it all the time anyway. Just like Amazon.

 

[Abomination]

You had a "breakdown" because of some random who keeps messaging you on Steam?

Sorry, but I think there's far more to this story than you're letting on.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I like the cheap games of course, but otherwise the program is pretty terrible.
It loads like a snail, it takes 15 minutes to start up because of constant checking for updates, its voice chat screws with my speakers, its offline mode and rules are stupid, and it is a leading cause of making me download games instead of just installing them from disc if I buy a hard copy.

So yeah, it annoys me.

 

[Daniel Janhagen]

Steam is ok, but I wish I didn't have to deal with it. It's possible I still wouldn't have an account if Civilization IV (and other later games) hadn't required it. It's basically the same reason I tolerate Origin, because there's no other way to play certain games (I've not had to deal with Uplay only because no Ubisoft games ever interest me).

If I can get a DRM-less version of a game I will (Go, GOG, go! ).

captcha: hoi polloi - I like that phrase.

 

[XSTALKERX]

No I'm not. It's an inconvenience, and gets in the way of me playing my games. I don't care how good their sales are if it's always a mission to try and play games in offline mode or when I don't have internet access.