Steam Chat 12+

I remember how good back then when you were able to send messages through the original Steam app and get notifications and then it broke. A few months later this app comes out with more features and with the ability to send images and use all the emotes I have collected over the years.

Now as of posting this review it has been just a downhill ride to the point that it no longer works. First it was the notifications breaking again and now I’m unable to get past the login screen that every time I try to rejoin it fail.

Valve do something about this and fix it. Why bother making this and then never updating it again. You make bank and can hire someone to fix this terrible messaging app or are you just going to look the other way and abandon it like most of the other products you have made that are no longer of interest to the company.

If I could rate ZERO stars, I WOULD.
This app exists to fill a gap that was already filled. The Steam Mobile app exists now to serve only as a Steam Guard authenticator, when several years ago it was a fully fledged mobile device Steam catalog where you could message your friends too. Clunky; yes. But it worked. I could message my Steam-only friends about CounterStrike games before I booted my computer up, and catch up with my long distance gamers, but now I have to add my whole friend list to Discord, which I only use sparingly (believe it or not), just to message them if they wanna play, if I’m on my way home from work this is a huge inconvenience to then have to sit down, boot up, load up steam, and then WAIT for a response, when my 40 minute commute and an app THAT WORKS could easily solve this. This Chat app won’t even get past logging me in, and even when it’s loading it just says failure loading (retry) on an infinite loop. I don’t think I would even redownload this if it got fixed. I’d rather just take the time like I used to and get on PC to message my friends…useless.

So where do I start with this app? When this app first came out years ago, I was happy I could at least send photos via Steam Mobile in a way. However, the app would constantly display the wrong time since last online for friends, and wouldn’t update that correctly (friend could be offline for 2 hours, but “Last Seen” would display over a day ago for example). Not a big, big issue, just a bit misleading, however it didn’t stop there.

This app has gotten nothing but worse over the years, mainly because it’s barely updated, and has a variety of issues, and new issues love to manifest themselves over time.

Over the course of 2023, I’ve stopped getting any and all notifications from the app, and yes, I have notifications enabled. I’ve checked my phone’s notifications settings, and the app’s settings, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be working.

Today (which is also my 26th birthday) was the final straw. It kept reverting my alias all on its own, and now chats don’t even update whatsoever. I have to actually close the app down completely if I get a message while I’m not in the app or even the same chat with a friend.

Between the new buggy mobile app and this horrendous attempt to be like Facebook Messenger, you’re better off just talking to friends via Discord or whatever else you like to use. Sadly, if you have friends on Steam, this app is the only way to talk to them via mobile unless you have an alternative method of talking to them (again, like Discord).