Steam is Down: Know the Reason Behind the Downtime

(CTN News) – Steam is down for maintenance in seemingly all areas, according to steamstat.us, an unofficial report.

Since it’s Tuesday, we know that this is just routine maintenance, but Valve inexplicably doesn’t offer specifics on it.

When will Steam be working again?

In this case, Valve isn’t helpful, but we know from experience that it usually takes half an hour to come back online, so we’d expect it to come back around 7:00 PM ET.

Steam should be back up and running soon, so switch to another gaming platform or grab a snack while you wait.

What is Steam?

There are social media features on Steam, community message boards and video game distribution. One of the most popular gaming platforms is Steam, developed by Valve — the same Valve that made Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Left4Dead. It’s like a combination of an online store and a community portal.

Steam is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and ChromeOS. The app lets you buy and organize games. It’s like a media player app, except you’ll see your games and play them, as well as links to forums and social features. Sign up for an account for Steam for free. The Steam mobile app lets you use Steam’s social features and buy games on the go—more on that below.

Steam is great for gamers and developers. In addition to distributing their games, big companies and small indie creators can use the Steam app to push updates and new features, interact with their audience, and communicate with their players.

A Brief History of Steam

Steam started quite small, even though it’s huge in gaming now. Valve introduced Steam back in 2003 as a way to push automatic updates to its games. Back then, it was mostly used to install patches and upgrades. In 2004, Half-Life 2 was the first game Valve distributed digitally through Steam that required the app. This release was rocky, with crashes and sluggishness plaguing players. After Valve fixed this issue, the service’s reputation and performance improved.