On Christmas Eve, the gaming platform Steam faced significant outages, with reports of downtime surging from approximately 27 to over 9,000, according to DownDetector. This disruption, attributed to increased holiday traffic, marked the second instance of the site going offline within the same day.
Users attempting to access Steam encountered an error message indicating that their requests could not be processed. The overwhelming influx of visitors has strained Valve's infrastructure, affecting various services, including the Steam Store and Community, which were marked as "Offline" during the peak of the issues.
As of late evening on December 25, Steam has reportedly returned to normal operation, allowing users to resume their holiday shopping without further interruptions. Valve continues to monitor the situation as they manage the increased demand during the festive season.