Valve's Erik Johnson acknowledges once more that Steam Support currently is trash, but says by Chris - Polidicks

[url]http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-admits-steam-customer-support-is-awful-again-but-says-its-working-on-it/[/url] [quote=PC Gamer]Have you ever wondered why Steam's customer support is so awful? I sure have, especially over the past few weeks, which I will say no more about. Fortunately, Valve is aware of just how bad the situation is, and while it may be cold comfort for anyone currently waiting for help with a screwy Steam account [ahem], it's got a plan in place to make things better. Erik Johnson of Valve told Kotaku that there are a few issues contributing to the long waits for responses from Steam support. The need to come up with new software "to build a new support system," including the option to provide refunds, required significant amount of work. The sheer load caused by the huge number of transactions created by games like Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Team Fortress 2—which, yes, are Valve's own creations—is also a factor, as is the ability to trade and sell items on the marketplace. Efforts to find relief through third parties haven't gone well either.[/quote]

It's nice to hear them acknowledge it for the third time and proceed to hold off on improvements again

[QUOTE=Punchy;48919360]It's nice to hear them acknowledge it for the third time and proceed to hold off on improvements again[/QUOTE] He gave a set timeframe: [quote]The goal now is to have wait times reduced to an "acceptable point" by Christmas. "It's getting better internally; it just hasn't yet translated to great support for users," Johnson said. "We're going to get there, though."[/quote]

So, if we go by Valve Time that'll be christmas.. next year.

[QUOTE=TDocter;48919432]So, if we go by Valve Time that'll be christmas.. next year.[/QUOTE] you know what happened with half life 3?

[QUOTE=Trixil;48919538]you know what happened with half life 3?[/QUOTE] nobody really does

So they'll be 3 people instead of 2?

I'll believe it when I see it

[quote]"The thing that’s interesting is, you go out to third-party support providers, and—at least in our experience—most of them wanted to sell you ways to reduce the number of people currently waiting in support, but they weren’t very good at selling you ways to solve customer support issues," Johnson said. "I think we’ve all had that experience of, ‘I get it. You’re trying to get me off the line.’ We’re not super interested in providing crappy support in volume." As a result, Valve has taken to training people itself, which leads to better results but also takes more time. [/quote] Sounds fairly reasonable to me, tho I think Valve's kind of in over their head with their "gotta do everything ourselves" mentality. Like how they've branched out into VR, controllers, Vulkan, OS development and probably some general hardware for Link. From what we've heard, Valve's flat management makes new hires pretty difficult even if they're qualified.

they're probably just acknowledging it so they can say they'll fix it but never actually fix it. yet the fans will still believe that they'll do something because of their reputation. oh ya 800th

they said that in march too, so im not believing it

I wish they'd stop doing all these one off things. They introduce us a bunch of neat ideas, and then abandon them after its release. First Big Picture, then the phone app, then the OS, the list goes on and on. It's time consuming too, and I don't see it translating into anything anybody really wants.

[QUOTE=minilandstan;48920666]I wish they'd stop doing all these one off things. They introduce us a bunch of neat ideas, and then abandon them after its release. First Big Picture, then the phone app, then the OS, the list goes on and on. It's time consuming too, and I don't see it translating into anything anybody really wants.[/QUOTE] They didn't abandon the phone app or the OS, they were both recently updated pretty nicely. and it seems to me all of the things you listed are things people really want.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;48920686]They didn't abandon Big Picture Mode, they just recently redesigned it.[/QUOTE] same with the phone app

Its quite embarrassing really. Origin has a much better customer service in my opinion.

[QUOTE=-n3o-;48921155]Its quite embarrassing really. Origin has a much better customer service service in my opinion.[/QUOTE] Yeah, but Origin isn't even a fraction as big as Steam so they don't have to worry about as many support tickets. Origin is also missing very essential features that make Steam as big as it is, such as the basic privilege of gifting games to others.

I always chalked it up to Valve's old excuse back from around 2007, which is that they basically manage the entirety of steam's infrastructure internally (international servers notwithstanding), and split that between a small chunk of their roughly 200 man dev team. Now it's been a few years and I'm sure they have more people on the team, but I'm sure it hasn't gotten THAT much better for them. Most other major studios have totally separate divisions of thousands of people just for customer service and maintenance stuff, but Valve by comparison is just a handful of dudes working out of a garage. It would actually explain a lot of Valve's behavior lately, they keep making these weird decisions and occasional fuckups that would be characteristic of a small team that's in over their heads.

[QUOTE=minilandstan;48920666]I wish they'd stop doing all these one off things. They introduce us a bunch of neat ideas, and then abandon them after its release. First Big Picture, then the phone app, then the OS, the list goes on and on. It's time consuming too, and I don't see it translating into anything anybody really wants.[/QUOTE] What's wrong with Big Picture? I use it all the time.

[QUOTE=Keychain;48921230]Yeah, but Origin isn't even a fraction as big as Steam so they don't have to worry about as many support tickets. Origin is also missing very essential features that make Steam as big as it is, such as the basic privilege of gifting games to others.[/QUOTE] I feel that they should get a compliment for having live support, Steam really needs this.

I wasn't defending Steam's laziness by any means. But to say it's "embarassing" because Origin has it is a bit silly to me. It's easier to manage 30 million [I]registered[/I] users than Steam's 75 million[I] active[/I] users.