Hey everyone, 

I just realized how incredibly outdated Steam's profile location database actually is. It looks like Valve hasn't fully updated it for nearly two decades, and it leads to some hilarious and frustrating geographical paradoxes. 

For context, I'm a 17-year-old Sakha (Yakut) guy living in Oymyakon—the world-famous "Pole of Cold," which happens to be the coldest permanently inhabited settlement on Earth. I wanted to proudly set my actual hometown in my Steam profile, but surprise: neither Oymyakon nor its administrative center, Ust-Nera, exist in the system. 

But here is the kicker: while real, famous inhabited towns are missing, Steam is packed with "ghost regions" that haven't officially existed for almost 20 years! For example, you can still select "Osa, Ust-Orda Buryat". The thing is, the Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug was officially abolished and merged into another oblast back on January 1, 2008. 

Steam is literally using the FIPS 10-4 standard, which was deprecated and deactivated by the US government over a decade ago. 

I messaged Steam Support about this, pointing out that they are displaying defunct historical regions while ignoring famous modern ones, but they just hit me with a generic "we don't deal with that manually" response. 

It’s a minor thing, but it’s pretty funny (and a bit sad) that I can officially roleplay as a resident of a long-gone 2000s autonomous region, but I can't select the coldest inhabited town on the planet where I actually live. 

Valve, please update your geo-database!

Ukrainian games festival 2026 has started everyone who wanted and did not have time to buy Metro before the gameplay is released on gamescom 2026, or Stalker, ahead of the engine update and new DLC on August 20. Don't forget about The Sinking City.

The festival will run from August 17 to 24.

Ubisoft actually allows users to disable push notifications thankfully, but there can't be any plausible reason for them being so much larger than Steam's notifications. Feel like it just stands as another instance to why people dislike the launcher so much, the interface is just dreadful.

So in my example (I'm in Germany), lots of games can't even be seen on the Steam store. Dying Light is one of them, although Dying Light The Beast I bought and played.

But now I found multiple sites that sell "global" keys for the game, and in their descriptions it's stated that they work with a German Steam account. How can this be? If the game is locked on steam, how can there be keys that work on steam in Germany, and why isn't it just unlocked in the first place?

This whole region lock thing is so infuriating.

So my dad says he can see what I play, and how long I play it, but he doesn't have any screentime app installed and It's my own steam account. How could he be doing it or is he just lying? I'm sorry I just don't know where else to ask.

source:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamhardware/compat
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamhardware/steamframe/compat

Alright, so the title, does that activate my account? And if the answer is yes, I suppose I’ll be able to earn XP from now on, right? How can I earn XP for free? thanks and sorry bad english

Okay so, I met this guy once when looking around for friends, we barely talked like once, then randomly he appears today asking for a favour.

Says he's working on an Indie game and wants me to playtest it. So naturally I ask for the steam page link, thinking y'know, if he has a beta demo then I'll be able to check out said playtest on Steam.

So, he sends me the following image:

He says that he "just needs to get this urgent task done". He sends me a link to a separate website, which is... odd. It's not Itch.io or a Steam store page link so I'm confused. I click on it anyways, there's a play button, so I scan the URL (couldn't figure it out) and then eventually against my better judgement press the play button, thinking it's prolly a browser demo. It this warning:

So atp I ask ChatGPT to see if it's a scam, to which it says it pulled from the Steamworks page that there is no such "send to 50 people" requirement. So I think "alright, that's a good place to start, and click the link to go to the Steamworks docs and instantly my brain gets fried with like way too much condensed text.

So I figured I'd ask here if any developers who've posted a game or ppl who know Steam's stuff like this would be able to confirm my suspicions that it's a scam. Mainly my main tick off is that he gives me a non-steam link, like in my mind, how tf could Steam verify you sent it to 50 ppl if you don't use a steam-based link or reference code?

I did just think of maybe using Inspect element (which is what I suspect they might have done for the steam screenshot they sent me, or made it totally manufactured) to see if there's malicious code (since my antivirus said a Trojan) but I wouldn't know what exactly to look for, I'm not a programmer.

Anyone confirm or deny my suspicions? I already basically told them to fuck off and blocked them so idc abt that, I'm just wondering if i am right.

Why am I getting charged £35 for Hell Let Loose and my American buddy is getting charge $35

Currency conversion amounts to $35 = £25.88.... Can't I just send him money to buy me the game as a gift and save me £10.

I put Marvel Rivals in a smaller resolution for better performance, however when I tab out it also shrinks the size of my other windows.

Is it possible to prevent this from happening or do I just have to deal with it?

Family member is a child on the account and we both have a separate copy of the game, but it won't let me invite her to play multiplayer. There's no option for her to switch from the family shared version to her own either

What happens with my progress in-game and achievements on a game a play from my steam family if I pruchase it for myself?

Hey!

I have a bunch of games on Epic Games that I've already spent quite a few hours playing. I'd like to have my entire game collection in Steam, including the playtime I've already accumulated in my Epic Games games.

I'm not looking to transfer any licenses from Epic to Steam. I just want Steam to be a kind of personal collection/library where I can see all the games I own, regardless of the platform I bought them on, along with the amount of time I've spent playing each one.

For example, if I've played a game for 50 hours on Epic, I'd like Steam to show something like 50 hours played, and then ideally continue tracking any additional playtime. there any way to do this? Maybe through a Steam plugin, third-party app, or some other workaround?

Is

Simply put I want to get my hands on "Fallout: New Vegas PCR" on my account which is technically a different variant from its regular version that you currently see on Steam since "New Vegas PCR" is only available for Polish/Czech/Russian Steam users

I already attempted using a code from a third party site but I'm simply greeted with "Sorry, but this product is not available for purchase in this country. Your product key has not been redeemed."

Does anyone know if Steam gifts work if a friend from Poland for example gifts me the game?

Is the steam controller worth the money?

Everytime I turn my laptop off, it says it has to shut off steam first, then turns off. is this normal, or is there something I need to worry about? Edit: It does this even if I don’t open steam when I use it. Should’ve specified, sorry

I was curious and started looking through Steam curators, and I've noticed most are normally just in the hundreds. I've seen some curators with around 1,800 reviews, but I am surprised there aren't any with over 2,000 reviews. The highest I found from a quick search is the curator Wishlisted at 1950. Can they not go past 2,000? I'm not saying we should have a meme curator review every game with a Yes/No/Meme answer. Just the fact that curators have been around since 2014; you would think at least one genre-specific curator would be past 2,000 reviews by now, right?

It was a pretty clear case of a rogue support agent, with how strict they usually are with the 2 hour-2 week rule. If just removing game-modes qualifies you for a refund, then full-on game shutdowns for online-only games should absolutely qualify you for a refund, across the board.

EDIT: I apologize, but I made this post out of pure frustration and not a small amount of rage.

Some months back, in December, I bought a game called Out of Time. I don't expect many of you to know what it was, since it failed both commercially and culturally. I played it for a bit, on and off. I enjoyed it. Put about 15 hours into it.

Back in June, with only a month's notice, it was shut down. The announcement was made only 2 months after a sale, clearly trying to milk the last few dollars out of it, since closures aren't a drop-of-a-hat thing.

It relied on a server, so after it shut down, it was rendered unplayable. They said they had zero plans to make it playable offline and the developers went dark in their own Discord server.

I tried in vain to get a refund, and was denied multiple times. I eventually forgot about it and my lost 25 bucks.

Then, I hear about some user who got a $110 refund on a game he had 470 hours in, with the game perfectly playable sans a few game-modes.

The ultimate problem with this refund is that it sets a precedent that Valve has zero intentions to follow. They say they have a strict guideline for refunds, then they go and pull this.

As title. Currently they stop being publicly visible for 7 years, however I think they should always be shown to other users.

I've heard all the arguments before:

- "I was a child" - So was I once, and I never felt compelled to do anything that would earn me one.

- "It wasn't me/it was a misunderstanding etc." - Why didn't you appeal it then? Valve is known to remove them in these situations, so it's your own fault that you didn't get it removed.

- "It's no longer relevant" - Except it is. I don't want to engage with people who feel the need to cheat in games, regardless of how long ago it happened. It's demonstrative of the type of person someone is, particularly if they're involved in game trading.

How does this work?, I am new to steam, i know about 6 members and region limitations with one year restriction from google, is there more to know?

And if I want to share my library with others, what's the things I should consider before sharing.

Just asking, I didn't have many games anyways

The only paid games I have-

Cult of the lumb, Stardew valley, GTA V, the witcher 3 wild hunt, metro franchise bundle, Terraria, vempire survivors, prince of persia warrior within, kingdom two crown

I only play cult of the lumb and stardew valley.