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On December 25 of 2015, there had been some technical issues, which occurred on Steam and it had caused some concern to its users. As a number of people have randomly seen account information of other users through the account page. Valve has been alert to this issue, and they have gone out to fix the problem, shutting down the store in the process. Under the Steam forums under Steam Discussions the topic “Account information incorrect,” originally posted by Steam Community Moderator KillahInstinct, had informed the community about the situation and that there was no hacking involved, and credit card and phone number information are censored and not visible to users as required by law.

The issue has been resolved shortly afterwards. Valve official statement, as seen in the quote from the image below, is that due to a configuration earlier, the caching issue allowed some users to see generated pages for others during a period less than an hour.

The panic spread like wildfire on Steam last night, but there was no need to panic. However, “some” news sites made a big thing out of Steam´s cache issue last night.

While the cache issue is resolved and, thankfully, this was not a hack job but the rumor mill has certainly spun for that time, and it doesn’t help that some news outlet and social media added some lighter fluid to the fire. I can understand that paranoia can’t be helped being a paranoid individual myself, but it certainly doesn’t help that people, whether unintentionally or mischievously, tell gossips of events before the official word has been relayed to them. Some people will tend to believe the first thing they hear or read (I will admit that I have been one of those people) and take it as fact until proven otherwise.

Everything should be alright with Steam now, but last night Steam had huge problems with its accounts.

The thing that we must do as an audience is to look for fact opposed to hearsay. I know that it can be difficult to seek out the truth even before an official statement has been released to the public, but we should at least look for an article that says, “No official statement has been made but we will keep you posted” instead of “No word but we think there be hackers afoot. Your credit cards belong to them now!”

And now that Steam is back again everyone can return to their post-Christmas shopping. So, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Happy Holidays, and since The Force Awakens has been out this month, enjoy your Star Wars games and toys!

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***Second opinion by Robin Ek***

I had a feeling that things would become really ugly when I first heard about Steam´s technical issues last night. However, I could never imagine what the aftermath would be like. Because I honestly thought that most news sites would sit calm in the boat and wait for the final word from Steam, BEFORE they started to publish tons of articles on what went down at Steam. Because that´s the right thing to do in a case like that, as you could cause a lot of damage to users and the company in question if you publish incorrect information on what to do (and not to do). Well, Sadly enough that was not the case since Kotaku urged the Steam users to remove their credit card and Paypal information from Steam. In other words, they spread quite a lot of panic throughout the Internet. And that “might” have resulted in having even more people logging into Steam in order to change their password and so on.

This was NOT a wise advice by kotaku…

dont log in or change your steam password

I waited for Valve to give a final word on the Steam situation BEFORE I acted up on it.

And Kotaku´s advice was actually the right opposite to the given advice by Steam themselves (their advice was to stay away from Steam until they had sorted everything out. In other words, Steam told people to NOT log into Steam). So Kotaku put even more gasoline on the fire with their “Steam Goes Nuts, Offers Access To Other People’s Accounts” article. And it didn´t take all that long before Internet celebrities such as Mark Kern, Totalbiscuit, and Milo Yiannopoulos, started to talk about Steam´s problems (as seen in the pictures down below). And while everyone talked about Steam and Kotaku, the panic was rising among the Steam users (as more and more news sites spread miss information about the whole situation).

totalbiscuit and mark kern on steam part 1

And that´s exactly why I stayed away from Steam last night (I don´t use auto log in either).

totalbiscuit and mark kern on steam part 2

Sadly enough though, quite a lot of people logged into their Steam accounts in order to change their passwords. As some “certain” sites urged people to do so. And that was the right opposite to what Steam recommended people to do.

So what did I do? Well, first of all. I wasn´t even logged into Steam last night (I was chilling out with my family at the time), and I don´t use the auto log in feature for Steam either (I always check if Steam is having security issues and such before I log into Steam). So I had no reason at all to panic, thus, there was no need for me to log into Steam and change my password, remove my credit card nor Paypal information. However, I did talk to quite a few people about Steam´s problems and Kotaku´s article on the matter. And one of those conversations were the one that I had with Eric J. (his a former US soldier and part-time writer). And have to say that Eric made some really good points about Kotaku´s decision to rush out their article about Steam´s problems, because they did indeed cause unnecessary panic with no doubt (they might also have jeopardized the security of the Steam users as well).

Kotaku made the Steam situation worse by spreading panic and incorrect information on what Steam users should and shouldn´t do.

I always apologize if I make a mistake, and then correct and update my content. However, Kotaku doesn´t seem to do that all that often.

Yep, Steam us up and running again.

And that´s also why I decided not to publish anything about Steam´s issues last night. As I wanted to hear an official statement from Steam before I (we) would write something up, because I didn´t want to spread even more panic among the Steam users (nor cause them any security problems). And that´s something which all news sites should have in mind at all times. Because, in my opinion, it´s their responsibility to prevent any further damage or panic by checking up on facts before publishing breaking news articles (or any articles for that matter). Luckily enough though, this time the Steam “Christmas nightmare” story had a good ending to it. As Valve have sorted everything out now. So it should be safe for you to log into Steam now.

With that said, what do you think about all of this? (Kotaku´s article and Steam´technical issues). Let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comment section down below!

Credit:
Santa Bandit
Eric J.

Source:
Kotaku

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.

David Lucas
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @GamerFoxem