So, you're just gonna sweep this one under the rug?

[Hazode]

I notice that all the threads asking what happened during the 1 1/2 hour outage were deleted. I think we're owed at least some kind of response, no? It was hardly a day, and you could still play all (or at least, almost all) of your games in offline mode, but the point is that during the outage Valve was very quiet, not a peep from anyone saying what has happened, how long it may be down or even a quick message saying "We're experiencing problems, be back shortly".

Some of you may just think I'm complaining for the sake of complaining, but I'm not. I'm complaining because no one at Valve has done anything to reassure us, the community, the lifeblood of Steam, that everything is ok. For all we know, we could have been hacked, I mean, according to http://steamstat.us pretty much every server worldwide was down. That's not a tiny "Ooops, shouldn't have unplugged that moment", in my book that's a catastrophic failure. Props to Steam/Valve for getting it sorted in just under 2 hours, but I still believe we should have some kind of comment on what happened. It's poor business practice to not talk to your customers when something bad happens. If my ISP suddenly had a problem and their whole service went down, you could be damn sure that they'd let us know what was going on, why and how things happened. In the end pof the day, we're paying customers, and I believe we should be treated better by actually being told what is going on to the service that we pay for. (Some of you will argue we don't pay for the service, we just buy games - well, we DO pay for the service, since we are buying these games from Steam, to play on Steam servers.)

It takes less than two minutes to write a comment on what was happening, and it's especially aggrevating to not hear a single peep, especially when they have a thread DEDICATED to outages, whether they be planned maintenence or unplanned outages right here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=784745

Worst part is, last time it was updated was about 7 months ago. This honestly makes me question how much Valve care about their customers.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

I don't work for Valve, nor am I making excuses for them. Just trying to speculate rationally about what might be realistically happening.

[Undergrowler]

Origineel geplaatst door QuintSakugarne:

I don't work for Valve, nor am I making excuses for them. Just trying to speculate rationally about what might be realistically happening.

Sorry for snapping but that one is a VERY unlikelly cause for them not telling us.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Actually, the bigger a company, the more institutional complexity it would have, which would increase its likelihood.

Also, as far as I know, Valve doesn't seem to have public relations staff.

[Undergrowler]

Origineel geplaatst door QuintSakugarne:

Actually, the bigger a company, the more institutional complexity it would have, which would increase its likelihood.

No way. Nope. Never ever in a million times if you are in a service business. There is one rule above all else when dealing with customers for them and that is to always have a answer. Doesn't matter if it's a good one. There is always a answer.

Edit: Though I admit that Valve have been the glaring exception to that rule before.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Well, as I mentioned, Valve doesn't seem to have public relations staff; their technical staff seems to do double duty.

Also, you mean to say that Valve shouldn't not say a word about this. And I totally agree. But what I'm trying to address is why they're not doing so, rather than what they ought to be doing.

In any case, I don't work for Valve, so I don't know the real reasons, so I'll just shut up now.

[Undergrowler]

Origineel geplaatst door QuintSakugarne:

Well, as I mentioned, Valve doesn't seem to have public relations staff; their technical staff seems to do double duty.

Also, you mean to say that Valve shouldn't not say a word about this. And I totally agree. But what I'm trying to address is why they're not doing so, rather than what they ought to be doing.

In any case, I don't work for Valve, so I don't know the real reasons, so I'll just shut up now.

Well we're free to speculate. :)
I'm just saying that coming up with a answer to pretty much anything is not a problem for companies that knows what they're doing. And since Valve are so involved with their customers there's no way coming up with a answer is the problem we're not hearng from them.