Ah, Christmas, the season of generosity and gifting. If, like me, you have been enjoying the Steam sale, you have seen some awesome deals in the flash sales or via community voting. However, Valve decided to go above and beyond, and seemed to have stretched their capacity.
It all started on the Left 4 Dead blog, where it was announced that Left for Dead 2 was free until 10AM PST on 26 December:
It will be free as in, grab it now, pay no money, and it is yours to keep forever – FOR FREE!
To claim your L4D2 gift, all you need to do is install it.
If you don’t install, it goes back to its regular price and you miss out! The zombie apocalypse is more fun with friends so make sure to tell all your mates to install it as well.
That’s right – it’s still available for us in SA until 7pm this evening. Well, if you can get Steam to work, that is. It seems that many people followed that blog’s advice and told everyone they know to go install it. For the rest of us trying to get Steam, and particularly the Steam Store to work… it was not good for anyone’s christmas cheer.
Over on Is It Down Right Now, a site that tests Steam and determines if the problem is on Steam or if it’s “just you”, it appears that while Steam didn’t completely crash, many many people were experiencing problems. I was particularly frustrated as I wanted to buy Shelter on the Community-Voted flash sale. It seems I wasn’t the only one who noticed – my favorite tweet about it came from Good Old Games:
@steam_games http://t.co/oNQbTAaP2J 🙂
— GOGcom (@GOGcom) December 26, 2013
Did Steam make you feel like the grinch this Christmas? Did you experience this problem, or were you already happily oblivious in-game when it all went down? At least their game servers didn’t seem to be affected – I still happily re-earned some CIV 5 achievements I lost when I split my account off from my husband’s. At least that helped my holiday cheer. Although I am a bit worried about how Valve is planning on boosting capacity – if they’re releasing Steam Machines and the Steam OS into the wild, do they have the ability to handle all the extra demand?
Last Updated: December 26, 2013
Brian Murphy
December 26, 2013 at 10:53
Steam went up and down a couple times for me (US), but only briefly. Grinch? Heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll no. I bought so many goddamn games this Christmas it’s ridiculous! Still missing 3 snow globes for the badge though 🙁
Her Highness the Hipster
December 26, 2013 at 10:59
add me as a friend – i might have your missing globes 🙂 (steam name: moonstormer)
Brian Murphy
December 26, 2013 at 11:03
You are going to be so SHOCKED at my steam name 😉 Oh wait, nvm, I changed my name here lol.
I have a bunch of duplicates also, if you’re in need 🙂
Gustav Minnie
December 26, 2013 at 11:23
I require one… I’m going to add.
DrKiller
December 27, 2013 at 01:13
I also need one 😀 (Number 10)
bobilus
December 27, 2013 at 14:07
I have number 10 for U, just add me on steam, bobilus. I also got number 8 for anyone looking.
MichaelMatusowsky
December 26, 2013 at 11:36
Click Store -> Reload till page loads instead of erroring -> Search for Left 4 Dead 2 -> Reload till page loads -> Click on the game -> Reload till it loads and click INSTALL ASAP. If it errors, click back and do it again.
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 26, 2013 at 12:13
I had no problem redeeming it. Got the news notification when I quit Dishono(u)red last night, went to the page, redeemed. Less than 10 seconds.
Acornbread
December 26, 2013 at 16:10
Caught it but haven’t downloaded yet, backlog is too big. Is it worthwhile?
Brian Murphy
December 26, 2013 at 17:09
Left 4 Dead 1/2 are great MP games, though you can SP with bots. Lots of fun, good wholesome zombie killing with a squad of 4, trying to survive and evade the nastier mobs and such. Each level usually has some kind of objective, with interesting little gizmo’s you can use to attract zombie’s attentions.
PS. Don’t hit cars, they do have alarms 😉
Acornbread
December 26, 2013 at 18:59
Cool thanks!
Brian Murphy
December 26, 2013 at 20:47
Anytime 🙂
Eric Hoff
December 28, 2013 at 03:42
Steam does amazing things for the gaming community. Server issues? I give them a pass on this one. I am looking to build a crew to discuss and write about everything steam. If you are interested, hit me up by replying to this comment.
Maxiviper117
December 30, 2013 at 18:55
Dammit, I was away… missed it 🙁