Services related to the popular game hub were down for much of Wednesday.
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Your Christmas Eve gaming session might not have gone as planned. Online gaming hub Steam went down on Wednesday. As of late Wednesday night ET, it seemed to have returned.
The Steam outage appeared to begin mid-afternoon Eastern time on Dec. 24, according to Downdetector, which monitors site outages. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
A representative for Steam did not respond to a request for comment.
Steam's official X and Bluesky accounts did not post anything about the outage. But gamers certainly noticed. "Steam down, Steam down!!!" wrote one Bluesky user.
Others commented on the bad timing of the outage, as it coincided with gamers enjoying time off or receiving gaming gifts. "'You got a gift on Steam!' oh cool 'Steam is down' oh cool," wrote another Bluesky user.
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line. See full bio
