Valve & Steam support is useless
About a week ago I posted that I was having trouble with Valve and Steam support in fixing a region coding problem with their software called The Orange Box that I purchased in Hong Kong.
According to Valve Corporation’s first line support, all packaging is clearly labeled that the software is region restricted to the region it was purchased in. I would never buy software for the PC that was labeled like that and because of that I read the box and asked questions about EVERY piece of software I purchased while I lived there. I still have the retail box that I purchased which says nothing, anywhere, not even in the fine print about having ANY region or territory restrictions.
Since my last post, I have made full color scans of both the retail box and the quick reference card from inside the box that has the CD Key. I sent them these so that they could see for themselves that there is nothing on there about region or territory restrictions. I asked them to please escalate the issue to management if they still could not help me.
Here’s the response I got:
A staff member has replied to your question:
Hello Vincent,
We cannot accept pdf files for image verification.You must submit your photos as a jpg, or gif.
That said, in restricted territories all official packaging for our games contains wording indicating if the game has any restrictions.
We will not be able to lift the restriction, nor provide you with a replacement CD Key for this issue.
So much for attempting to be helpful.
So today I have again, politely asked them to escalate this to their management or give me the contact information of their management so I can talk to them directly. I paid roughly $45 USD for this game and I don’t feel that I should be punished because some of their packaging is not labeled as they THINK it is.
I don’t really want to spend hours creating accounts on forums and creating posts about how horrible Valve Corporation and Steam software is but if they can’t even be bothered to replace a simple CD Key that has no monetary value (since I already bought the game) then I don’t see a whole lot of choice. It won’t be the first time I’ve made a formal complaint to the Better Business Bureau either.
Just telling me to buy their software a second time is not a good enough response. It’s ridiculous and callous and is the face of everything that is wrong with modern tech support and business today.
There’s no reason to think that you will have a similar problem with a company until it happens to you. What will you do when that day comes? Roll over and accept being screwed over or try to put up a fight? Help me get the word out. I can’t be the only person having this problem and if their tech support is this useless in this case I’m betting there are a lot of screwed over former Valve users out there.
Link back to this post if you want to help out. Every bit of exposure helps.
Tags: bad business, Business, customer support, Steam, Steampowered, useless, Valve, Valve Corporation
Business, Computers, Rant, Software | cybrpunk | 
May 14, 2009 1:41 pm
6 Comments
Other Links to this Post
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Region restricting games - ridiculous! at hello! yoshi — May 14, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
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The Valve saga is over | cybrpunk.com — May 20, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
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By crockdaddy, May 14, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
I was looking for a contact address for valve so I could complain …
By Rev Matt, May 14, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
This sort of geographic market segmentation is increasingly idiotic. DVDs are the prime example, but this is another excellent one.
By cybrpunk, May 14, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
It’s one of the reasons that Blu-Ray won out over HD-DVD. Blu-Ray has region restrictions. HD-DVD was universal. Imagine that.
By Insomnic, May 14, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
I am guessing you already submitted this to Digg and Reddit … do you have links to them so I can upvote them for your exposure?
A company not being able to support PDF documentation is pretty crappy and they shouldn’t have shut you down like that because obviously you are submitting it because it is different than they say. I can only guess it is some script reader on 1st level with a 3rd party “internet response” team that doesn’t think but just gets joy out of saying “No” without actually using brain cells.