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Valve has a customer for life
by /u/AHappyGummyWormx | 113 comments | 2026-06-15T12:56:39+00:00 Central
Post
Messaged support hoping to buy a new case and this
is the response I got from support.
Comments
| /u/Jpmm-21 Imagine treating your customers with respect and as if you value them. |
| /u/Kazer67 Please don't write it like that. |
| /u/alltehmemes I suppose writing it in the Latin "...ASIFYOVVALVETHEM" is also not appropriate, too. |
| /u/ZookeepergameLess748 https://giphy.com/gifs/kRmg8zeReOYXm |
| /u/lailusion I didnt, can you please valvucate me? |
| /u/uwhy It's when a lady's name rhymes with a body part but you can't remember what that was. |
| /u/theytookallusernames que sin ti la vida se me va |
| /u/ErenYaegersAbss Anyone remember like 10 years ago when valves support was notorious for being the worst? I'm glad that the perception changed so much. |
| /u/Fedoraus I never knew it was ever considered bad. They we're particularly verbose or flowery but I never had them deny any refund requests I've submitted over the years or give me the run around. I never bought any of their og hardware other than the first steam controller tho |
| /u/Straight-Opposite-54 I never knew it was ever considered bad. Not necessarily bad in a quality sense, but excruciatingly slow for a company of Valve's stature regardless of the urgency of the ticket (such as taking 2 months to recover a stolen account...) They're still not the fastest, but they've gotten a lot better |
| /u/StvrmG3iST They may not be the fastest, but they are human agents that will solve your problem in most of the times. Whereas blizzards „supports" needs a total of 0.005ms to figure: you have no problem. You are the problem. Now pay up and leave, bitch! |
| /u/p1nkfl0yd1an It's been pretty hilarious to watch the gaming community's opinion of Steam/Valve go from "gif of being railed in the ass by the Steam logo" in 2004 to what it is today lol. |
| /u/Kaboose666 They were never the worst, EA existed at the time afterall. They WERE far worse than they are today, but I don't think they were ever actually vying for the title of "worst". |
| /u/RaykoX I think they were notorious for being hard to get in touch with/having long response times. Probably understaffed as fuck since Valve wants to keep it small. But I don't think they were ever known for being bad per se. |
| /u/Mr_Foxer Meanwhile, the rest of the gaming industry: "Beware of Overdelivery" |
| /u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD That's not very shareholder friendly of you comrade |
| /u/bozoconnors Au contraire. ~$7 (cost + shipping?) spent, that has now been screen-shotted & posted to social media, plus the existing customer retention / loyalty perception? Pretty damn good return on investment I'd hazard. |
| /u/Arihel Imagine believing that the way to beat piracy isn't by trying to fight it, but by offering a better value on your service. |
| /u/mal4ik777 Dont wanna advertise here, but I had the same with a secret lab chair. After about 2,5 years the handles had some rips in them and the main seating area started to open up on one side. I wanted to buy some replacement, contacted them and they sent me new tops for the handles and a new fucking main seating part for free. (it was 3 years ago, companies change their policies all the time, so cant guarantee anything) |
| /u/Informal_Hat_8075 I call bullshit. I'm Singaporean where secretlab is from. The service recovery is crap. |
| /u/phnomet I complained about my coaster bearings falling apart. Got new wheels and a whole new wheelbase immediately without any hassle. |
| /u/mal4ik777 I mean, in Europe they shop from Poland and they send it from there also. no idea where customer support is located though |
| /u/Fasicek Yeah unless you play CS2 😂 |
| /u/JohnGalactusX Valve doing Valve things. Love it. |
| /u/Yanzihko Also engagement and PR for a price of 5$ it took to manufacture this case |
| /u/Prestigious_Copy154 Yup, basically free advertising |
| /u/SharkAttackOmNom Also, they're probably way off balance on stocking the cases vs new steam decks to ship. Write it off as marketing expense and make some space? Win-win. |
| /u/FTownRoad I got a steam gift card for Christmas one year that had been essentially redeemed before I even got it. The retailer did sweet fuck all. The card distributor did sweet fuck all. Steam couldn't give me the gift card but I got a free game. And that's why they get 99% of my gaming spend. |
| /u/thisisatestaccount17 They understand the social contract. |
| /u/Inner-Medicine5696 also, it's a self-supporting system in a way. OP gets excited (rightfully so), posts it on social, boom; tons of good-will earned (also rightful), and the cost of a measly case is easily recovered. I'm not saying it's calculated and cynical even, just that the gesture organically comes back to help them many-fold. ... i may be on hopium here, but that's how society is supposed to work; we look for the helpers. |
| /u/Wingsnake I don't understand many companies. Social media is such a big factor and making a customer happy. And in a case like this, it costs them maybe 5$ . For most companies that is nothing. |
| /u/cptjpk The number of people who will takes advantage of your goodwill budget grows exponentially. |
| /u/UiVegetaUi https://giphy.com/gifs/x6wzvcDqPRTO0 |
| /u/santiagobaronz This is why Valve earns loyalty over competitors. |
| /u/citizen42069101 And is starting to get threats of monopoly probably funded by competitors. |
| /u/AlmondManttv 100% funded by competitors |
| /u/Basb84 Which is kind of ironic. It is the competitors' lack of caring about the customers that created this perceived monopoly. |
| /u/WaffleDonkey23 What do you mean you don't like our EA games launcher? Don't you want to use the Xbox Windows game bar? What about the Activision Plus? |
| /u/Puzzled-Science-1870 Such amazing customer support time and time again. |
| /u/Fach-All-Religions imagine if this was asus. they would require you to send the steam deck itself INCLUDING THE CASE THAT HAS BABY THROW UP ALL OVER IT and when they get it they say oh you have to pay 500 because the case has baby sick all over it and you either pay us or we open your deck and send it disassembled just because. |
| /u/PizzaCatLover This was also my experience with MSi I had a board failing and they made me send the bad board in first and they'd send a replacement in 3-4 weeks. I was like, what am I supposed to do for a computer in the meantime??? They had no answer I had to buy a new one and then sold the MSI when I got it back a month later |
| /u/GoochRash I wish I could say the same. The display port is messed up on my Steam Dock. Explained everything in great detail. Even bought new cords for the testing they wanted me to go through. Then after getting replies that didn't even relate to my issue they finally asked me for a video of the issue. I just gave up. I emailed them a few weeks after I got the dock and all I wanted was a replacement (I was willing to send the one I have back). They acted like I was trying to scam them. It was one of the worst customer support experiences I've ever had. I just gave up because I was already busy and didn't have to time set everything up again just to record a video of the problem just to have them ask for some other arbitrary thing. It sucks because I was looking forward to having a multi screen setup with the deck but it just wasn't worth it anymore. I'm glad other people have had good experiences but for me I file their customer support under garbage. |
| /u/Zale0 Probably just a bad batch of support you got. At the end of the day support consists of real people. So sometimes you get a shitty employee, sometimes a good employee. |
| /u/GoochRash I had multiple replies from multiple people. There were a few times I couldn't reply fast enough so the ticket auto closed and I had to file another one. Always referenced the older one. Got the same treatment every time. |
| /u/Humble_Disk7992 This company is a "monopoly" though apparently. Maybe everyone else needs to just do better. |
| /u/Brie9981 If Epic fixed their launcher I'd actually think about using it, but part of Steam's monopoly is also due to "my games are already here, why would I switch?" |
| /u/Kemic_VR I couldn't uninstall a game through the epic launcher on my laptop, because I didn't have an active internet connection. Why do I need to connect to the internet to remove something from my computer?!? |
| /u/Whiteshadows86 Seriously? That's soo weird why would they implement something like that?? |
| /u/kahlzun [YOUR QUESTIONING OF THE CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE HAS BEEN NOTED, CITIZEN. PROCEED WITH YOUR DAY.] |
| /u/maalfunctioning Thank you, Friend Computer :) I am grateful for your help and presence, Friend Computer :) |
| /u/Winjin Also if you add a free game to your library you can't delete it. You're stuck with it. Loser. And they can't force Hoyo to fix their updater. I hope Steam at least can force them to actually update the game without having to do the ten-step-process of Update launcher > pre-download the patch > install the patch > wait for the game to open > game downloads some patch again > game installs the patch > game checks the files > recompiles the shaders > enter again > now you can play Honestly what's the point of both clients AND updater then? It's so bizarre when 99% of games you just update through Steam (or even Epic) and open it. Overall honestly I understand why Epic are upset, they're just so much worse at it. |
| /u/Whiteshadows86 They need to fix a new CEO too, one that isn't a whiny little bitch.... |
| /u/jack-of-some I'm genuinely already ok with their launcher in its current state but they're not getting my money until they stop doing exclusives |
| /u/Etzello For me it was the fact that the launcher spied on me by scanning the contents of other directories on the drive including the steam directory and my account and friendliest etc. scummy as hell, they claim to have stopped but that was enough to keep me away |
| /u/da_blue_jester Well yeah because they take a cut of what you sell through them...like all the other companies. Honestly Valve is just pissing the rest of the capitalist oligarchs off by not being a shitty company. Is 30% high...sure you could argue yes, but it is no different to other platforms. |
| /u/repocin Maybe everyone else needs to just do better. This right here. I'm all for competition in the PC market but literally nobody else is even trying to compete. Steam is one of few pieces of software I can say has gotten better and better over the years rather than being enshittified to hell and back. And their hardware support is legendary, which is one of the main reasons I bought a Deck in the first place. I mean, c'mon, how many other companies are still updating their 10+ year old hardware products that were discontinued ~3 years after release? I genuinely can't think of any other. |
| /u/UnquestionabIe Absolutely. Yeah I'm against monopolies and all (unlike what seems to be happening in forms of media as of late...) but Value doesn't go out of the way to shut out competition so much as the competitors mostly sucks. Epic Games took years to implement basic features, and are still missing things Steam has had for over a decade, and most others are basically glorified store fronts for a single publisher. About the only service I find worth using is GoG due to a mix of being DRM free, having a selection of older games not found elsewhere (usually including patches and the like to make easily playable on modern hardware), and being a decent company from what I've seen. But yeah those who cry monopoly generally have no idea what they're talking about and simply see a successful company they want to be able to steal from. Thus is the way of late stage capitalism. |
| /u/A_locomotive For real, steam is just a far superior experience there is a reason for them being so dominant. Take EA for example. I had a bunch of games on Origin. When the cancelled Origin and changed to their new nameless app it bricked every single one of my games. Deleting the app and installing the new one... and I was locked out of every single one of my games. Followed EAs support advice and still locked out, eventually gave up. It wasnt until a later reformat that whatever was wrong was resolved by the complete wipe of my computer. I have never once had an issue with steam in the near 2 decades I have had my account. |
| /u/healthycord If valve and steam sucked then people would flock to literally anything else. But since valve and steam are so good and customer friendly, why try anything else? People like a good product. Until they get screwed over or something much better comes out, they don't change. |
| /u/First-Junket124 They are a Monopoly for all intents and purposes. They've captured majority of the PC market and even though they have competitors they don't have the sales to compare to Steam/Valve in any way. GOG is probably the biggest contender but they barely make a profit year on year with Epic Games being skewed by the free games. The thing that really concerns me is the complete and utter infatuation with Steam/Valve and seeing as they can do no wrong, they can and they have. The only reason they are so lenient with customers is because they know competitors can't afford to and they've previously been fined/sued a significant sum for screwing over consumers. A Monopoly doesn't mean they are the only business but simply that they hold majority market share. That's not to say it's not without reason as many competitors like Epic Games, Uplay, Origin, Blizzard.net don't have a lot of the QoL features that Steam has. Remember at the end of the day they want your money. |
| /u/Aaronhightower If Steam is a "Monopoly" it is because we make it so. At least I rather skip a game than not getting it on Steam. I will remain a diehard Steam fan for as long as they are such a great store. |
| /u/wuxia_doomed_yuri Those lawsuits "representing gamers" are such bullshit. Valve deserve the business and market share they have, others might get a slice of the pie if they made something actually worth using |
| /u/Akitiki I washyped for Voidtrain when I saw it and wanted to get it so much! Then the release date vanished, just went to "Q3 [year], and when that hit it went TBA. No update why. Finally the news came out: they were launching exclusively on Epic for a year. After they spent so long hyping the game up on Steam. Yeah... that pissed off a lot of people. |
| /u/Responsible_Law_9023 it's not a just a store, it's one big happy family. |
| /u/BotsTookTheOGNames It's always helpful reaching out to companies. Corsair did the same for me when I broke or stripped a screw out on a water cooling plate. I emailed them asking if I could buy a new screw/plate or whatever it was, and they instead sent me the whole fitment kit. Was years ago but I still remember and consider them for new purchases. It's a very cheap way to get a long term customer imo. |
| /u/FreshLaundry6769 After you post this suddenly loads of people will such problem with their case. |
| /u/AWildEnglishman Birthrates suddenly skyrocketing. |
| /u/SkellyMania Exactly. My first thought would instead be to check eBay. |
| /u/Maxo996 Well, ironically my daughter did rip the handle off my case xd |
| /u/Raverrevolution What's the world come to where customer service being nice and courteous is a unique thing. It's like, how awful have companies collectively become. |
| /u/UnquestionabIe Many larger companies have hit the point where they consider themselves above needing to care what the customers think, presuming they're at the level of being a necessity. I work in a small store for a rather small regional company (something like a dozen locations) and while we can't always match up to the prices of bigger chains I try to make up for that by trying to make the customers feel cared about. Yeah I don't let people walk all over me (had an issue with that with my previous boss, being far too willing to let people do whatever they wanted) but try to go above and beyond. Good example is during the winter a customer mentioned casually she was out of salt for her driveway and local places were sold out. I had some overstock from the store supply so just let her have a bag. She was super grateful and it made someone's day better. It's probably one of the things I like most about my job. Yeah the pay isn't particularly good but have great benefits and limited oversight. And most satisfying is I have the freedom to improve people's day, even if it's just a little bit. Life is hard enough and everyone is constantly conditioned to make it harder for each other, have do what we can to push back against that mindset when possible. |
| /u/NSMike I've had a few interactions like this over the years with other companies, but not many. Most customer service philosophy focuses on how to offload as much responsibility to the customer. As soon as you hit a barrier with a customer service rep, you almost always have to ask to escalate. Good story: I had a Vornado fan that got knocked over. Most of the fan was fine, except for one of the most crucial parts - the blades. They somehow broke when it was knocked over. I contacted Vornado and asked if there was any way I could buy replacement blades for the fan, and they just sent me new ones, no charge, no questions asked. Meh story: I ordered some thermal grease off Amazon for a new PC build I was doing. The package arrived in a timely manner, but... it wasn't what I ordered. It was silicone toe separators. WTF. I tried to go through their normal online channels, but they wanted the item returned, and my only options were to take it to some place to have them ship it out, or pay $8 to have an Amazon driver pick it up. I got on the phone with a rep, who gave me the same options, and I said, "Look, this isn't my mistake or dissatisfaction with something I ordered. You guys sent me the wrong thing entirely, and now you want me to drive somewhere or pay $8 to resolve your mistake. Have your driver pick it up and waive the $8 fee." The rep I started with couldn't do that, but I asked her to escalate and got what I wanted. But Amazon should've offered that from the start. They screwed up, and solving the problem should've been theirs wholly. |
| /u/wangnutpie1 Well to be honest, the nice and courteous thing to do would be to sell them a new case (especially if not normally sold separately). This is straight up generosity. |
| /u/ConsciousStretch1028 Just don't ask for a third case |
| /u/AHappyGummyWormx If it happens again that's all on me I don't want to abuse generosity |
| /u/No-Juggernaut8847 Nah monopoly though. /s And other companies ask why Valve is dominating so much. |
| /u/TypicallyThomas "Valve and Steam are a monopoly because they have an unfair market dominance" Gee, I wonder why everyone is using Steam |
| /u/thetramelgamer It's almost like if you treat users as human they tend to stick around https://giphy.com/gifs/udmx3pgdiD7tm |
| /u/ZOLTANstudios Steam customer support is the best in the biz. |
| /u/jth94185 Nice...now never use it until they are 6 and let them keep beating up your current one...trust me people will get the damage 😂 |
| /u/reo_reborn I do t care what any body says STEAM is legit the best platform/store and over the years (41 years) I've used pretty much every one of them |
| /u/GISP Its becouse they have smart executive that knows customer service/post like this results in more/repeat sales. Instead of seeing it as a loss, they realized that it is infact a future sale. Its amazing how many companies dosnt realized that future sales are just as, if not more, important than an imidiate sale and an angry/dissatified customer. |
| /u/Skylantech When other competitors won't attempt to provide a customer service experience as good as this, they have no right to complain that "Steam is a monopoly!" |
| /u/Peaceul Please never change Valve.... |
| /u/sirferrell Damnit give gabe another yatch!!!! |
| /u/iamnotokaybutiamhere and yet they wouldn't even let me purchase a charger :( (a charger that never even worked) |
| /u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD Didn't you say your new puppy bit the charger and died |
| /u/SkellyMania You didn't have the right sob story |
| /u/stockusername123 You got downvoted but it's true... |
| /u/RamiHaidafy What is your newborns sick made of to completely ruin the case? Boiling acid? Take the case to the cleaners. They'll know what to do. |
| /u/trq- I mean, there is a lot of criticism for their games, like CS2 not getting VAC updates and being too much about gambling and many other things about many other games. But in terms of customer support, especially when it's about refunding games or something related to their hardware - they're outstanding. I had issues with my Steam deck case smelling way too much, as maybe there was a bad batch of plastics involved, and they've sent out a new case the next day without any questions or anything. |
| /u/AnneFlankinbot So far I've had steam replace two base stations for the index and the steam deck charger at no cost to me. They have my loyalty. |
| /u/mlvisby So cool when a company gives you a freebie replacement! When I was a teen, I lost the plastic cover on the N64 where the expansion pak went into and it drove me nuts. Wrote a letter to Nintendo asking to buy a replacement, and they just sent me one. |
| /u/Summer4Chan I mean, yeah of course they're gonna have a customer for life. There's no such thing as the Ubisoft deck. |
| /u/Yoh__Asakura Honestly they are so good man. I had a fucked up oled on release and was too depressed about it to ever bother getting support. Already past my warrenty date I thought I may aswell ask them if I can pay to get it repaired or something but instead they decided to just send me a brand new steam deck oled free off charge. Never had such good customer support before 😭 |
| /u/Chizakura Valve doesn't need to do this, yet they do. This is great customer service. This is how you treat your customers and keep them |
| /u/MultiVortexGuy Valve is genuinely such a good company I bought a used steam deck oled that just randomly turned off and wouldn't boot anymore but the fans were blasting for like 2 minutes before shutting down. They told me they had a few solutions that could work. Nothing did so they just said that they were going to send me a new deck. I'm not in a supported country till September tho. But I can just send them my ticket number and then I will get a new steamdeck in September. I don't know if this is standart but I still think it is amazing |
| /u/Fach-All-Religions damn bog win once again. how many companies are still consumer friendly really? |
| /u/Zeth_Aran It's a very "hopeful" sight when a company becomes a the leader in an industry; not by beating the competition into submission through dirty tactics, but by actually just providing better service. |
| /u/AMB07 Well that is definitely cool of them. Congrats on the replacement case! |
| /u/bbarham99 Show this screenshot to all the people/lawyers/judges involved in all the Valve lawsuits claiming they're a monopoly. This is why they have a large portion of the marketshare. Treating your customers with respect and dignity earns customers and keeps them. |
| /u/captaindealbreaker I really hope Valve can maintain being a private company for the foreseeable future. The second they go public or get bought up, this stuff ends. |
| /u/Sir_Tacco1 Dam when I asked about buying a new case after losing it I was told it wasn't possible |
| /u/darkjuste This is why, according to the other services, "Valve has a monopoly" |
| /u/Zurwyn And somehow people STILL want to hate on Steam/Valve? |
| /u/Deremirekor Mfs be in my ear like "your sucking billionaire monopoly meat! Steam is dirty! They shut down the competition and don't give them a chance! They invented gambling and force little kids at gun point to participate!" Meanwhile steam: oh sure, you can have a replacement part Literally just do the bare minimum of human respect and weirdly people will love you for it |
| /u/Friendly_Recover286 This is NOT normal valve support and you need to remember for every one good story there are tons of unhappy ones. I also asked valve for a new case as both zippers on mine broke. They pointed to me iFixit who obviously don't sell cases. When I told them that they told me to kick rocks. Now I don't have a usable case. Screw valve support. |
| /u/Possible-Cash-308 fuckn Valve being amazing. the audacity /s |
| /u/DestinedToGreatness When can I get my own :( |
| /u/grizzlybuttstuff "replacement part" is so funny |
| /u/Aquagrunt I wonder if their customer support agents just have that much leeway or if it's something that a manager has to approve first |
| /u/ElectricPoo932 https://giphy.com/gifs/3oEjHCWdU7F4hkcudy |
| /u/SlimLacy Had a valve index controller out of warranty, wrote and asked if I could buy batteries from Valve. They made an RMA request on a 3 year old controller, and asked if that was all right instead. Definitely wasn't complaining! Still had to buy a battery because obviously within months the 2nd controller developed the same issue, and now I had done more research, so I bought a battery and replaced it on the 2nd controller. Issue was the controller would have roughly 15 mins of battery life after being charged for 24 hours and reporting 100% battery. But would just turn off, and could be turned on a few more times and then instantly shut off again, until you drained the battery so much (i assume) that it wouldn't turn on until you put it back in the charger for a few hours. |