twisty on 26/12/2015 at 10:57

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Ok, but I would have thought that they made some kind of statement through their official sites (e.g. steam, Facebook, Twitter etc.) rather than an affiliate. Given that they have already retracted an unauthorised statement released to gamespot by one of their employees I'd rather see an official statement for what it's worth.

Tomi on 26/12/2015 at 11:01

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Heh, you should have seen some reactions in that thread that van Hellsing linked to, or on twitter. Some people were in full panic mode, so this thread was nothing compared to that really.

However, I don't think that it's OK to just sweep this problem under the carpet. No matter what caused all this, this is still a major fuckup on Valve's part and really quite unacceptable. We may have not lost our money which is nice obviously, but I'm not a happy bunny if my personal data has ended up in wrong hands somewhere. I also find it a bit suspicious that a "database error" (or whatever they're blaming this on) just coincidentally happens on that one day of the year when this hacking stuff often seems to happen. To make things worse, Steam/Valve haven't released any kind of an official statement as far as I know, which makes them seem a bit amateurish. Why stay so hush hush about it all, and make people worry (for a good reason) whether their information is safe or not? (edit: ok, apparently they have released a statement on some website, but...) There should be an official statement or something in the goddamn startup screen on Steam for everyone who logs on to Steam, but there's nothing at all. I understand that most people are out of office at the moment, and Valve's lawyers will probably have to check and double-check any statement that they make, but the biggest game distributor in the world should be better prepared for something like this.

I'm not going to start boycotting Steam or anything silly, and I don't think that there's any great conspiracy behind this or anything, but I can't say that I'm a very happy customer right now.

EvaUnit02 on 26/12/2015 at 14:30

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So unrealistic. Nobody games on fucking Mac Pros.

Yakoob on 27/12/2015 at 04:08

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The initial reaction was a bit panicky, but what do you expect when you log into your account and see personal details of multiple other users? Some of it could be social engineered for nefarious purposes. Valves lack of communication and (false?) reports of people having fraudulent charges on their debit cards certainty didn't help. It's not unreasonable people started blocking their cards and unlinking accounts, while trying to caution others.

It took valve only an hour to fix it which is admirable, but their non existent pr leaves a lot to be desired. They didn't need to explain what happened until they knew, sure, but a simple official "we're on it " tweet would have done A LOT to assuage peoples fears and inspire trust in the company (despite being meaningless since of course they're working on it; its a psychological thing). Instead we got a court "alls good" response sent to 3rd party sites and sweeping the whole thing under the carpet in typical Valve fashion. I don't believe the worsd "we're sorry" was even uttered.

I'm not gonna stop using Steam because it is a monopoly we rely on, and I still consider Valve one of the better companies out there. But my image of them has definitely been damaged as I no longer think the "hush hush" lack of communication is sufficient. I was OK with that as far as development plans go but don't think a security fuck up at this scale (referring to user reaction and worries, not the actual effect) should just be swept under the carpet.

Sulphur on 27/12/2015 at 09:34

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You've got alternatives. Origin, Uplay, Desura, GOG Galaxy. Out of the lot, one's bankrupt, two are owned by companies whose business model is predicated on being slightly different flavours of retarded UI jammed down a corporate DRM blowhole, and the only one that doesn't do DRM also doesn't have very many current games on it. Choose your poison.