October 29, 2010

This Is Stupid

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

I use Steam. I enjoy the games from Valve, and I have accounts for myself and all my kids. In fact, I just purchased the prerelease of the game Call of Duty: Black Ops. My kids are thrilled, but Steam support sucks.

My son tried to log into his account. It prompted him for his password.

It goes without saying that his computer is configured to remember the password. Apparently Steam is too stupid for that.

So I looked up his password and had him type it in. No good. A second time: No good. A third time: No good. Finally, we clicked the “I forgot my password” link.

A minute later, an email message arrived. It said to type in a secret code — just some random letters and numbers — and then answer the secret question. That’s when Steam went all stupid on us.

The secret question was something I’d never seen before, never heard before, and never input myself. So, yes, the question was secret from me, but not from Steam. Here’s the question:

What did customer support last reset your passphrase to?

I was incensed. First, what the hell is a passphrase? Second, how the hell am I supposed to remember the last passphrase?

Being an email freak, I searched my 58MB of past email to review any correspondence from Steam. Nothing. No passphrase sent, no other messages for that account. So let me summarize:

1. Steam forgot my password. Not my fault.
2. Steam won’t let me reset my password because:
3. Steam is asking me a question for which I cannot answer.

In desperation, I’ve emailed Steam. According to the various forums I’ve read, I’m not alone with this situation and it will apparently take Steam “support” two or three days to reply. In the meantime, my son can’t use his account, play his games. That means games that we paid for via Steam are inaccessible.

That’s stupid. It sucks. I am not a very happy Steam customer right now.

6 Comments

  1. Isn’t DRM fun?

    Comment by linuxlove — October 29, 2010 @ 5:40 am

  2. In this case, I blame Steam’s implementation of their verification system, not DRM. Had Steam asked me the “secret question” I input when I created the account, it would have been recovered almost instantly. The problem is with Steam, though the reason they do the security is DRM.

    Comment by admin — October 29, 2010 @ 6:06 am

  3. If all else fails, you can e-mail Valve about ‘salvaging’ your account. Its for situations where you can’t log in, or your account has been hacked. You send them some personal information on your account (i.e. your name, billing address, and the credit card you used on your last purchase, etc….) and they will transfer all your games to another Steam account.

    Comment by gamerguy473 — October 29, 2010 @ 10:56 am

  4. Also, maybe his account was hacked. And the hacker changed the security question.

    Comment by gamerguy473 — October 29, 2010 @ 11:01 am

  5. Still nothing from Valve.

    Comment by admin — October 29, 2010 @ 4:32 pm

  6. Problem resolved. As I read elsewhere on the Internet, Steam Support emailed me a new password and everything is, once again, right with the universe.

    Comment by admin — October 31, 2010 @ 3:59 pm

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