Just had a pretty negative experience with Steam support and just wanted to post about it here to inform others of my experience. What you do with this information is up to you!
- I bought a Steam Deck OLED 1TB in November 2023 for $723 USD
- I take really good care of it (still looks brand new)
- Last week I ordered an official Steam Deck Dock because I use the Deck so much.
- After disconnecting the Steam Deck dock one night, the Steam Deck completely dies.
- The Steam Deck is 16 months old (4 months out of warranty)
- I contact support, and after doing some cursory troubleshooting, they let me know that it needs repairs and the quote is $197 USD
- I reply saying that’s quite a bit of money for a product just out of warranty, but if they can guarantee the repairs for 12 months I would do it
- They dodge the question for a while, but after several messages finally say that they can only guarantee up to 90 days after repair
At this point, I’m no longer interested in being a Steam Deck owner nor am I planning on using any Valve service in the future. I will pay the repair fee†, but I intend on selling it immediately after to recoup some of my losses.
†I’m sure that some of you are going to say repair it yourself! However, the issue is that the repair is a 3 hour long process that needs the battery to be drained first. Due to the current state of the Steam Deck, it is impossible to drain the battery. If I had access to a garage that I could have a metal bucket full of sand in case things go bad, I would consider doing it myself, but hitting a fully charged Li Ion battery with a heat gun in a small carpeted apartment is just too risky for my risk tolerance.
I’m sorry that you’re getting less than sympathetic replies here. I don’t know what the original was since you’ve edited the post and I don’t have anything constructive to add as I assume you’re in the US, but in the EU/UK goods have to last “a reasonable amount of time” regardless of the warranty term.
Some cheap plastic tat might reasonably be expected to last a few months, a washing machine maybe 10 years provided it’s not misused. The further out you get from the warranty period, the more the onus is on the customer to prove it’s a manufacturing defect, and the less you can expect in monetary compensation.
For a high value item like a computer, TV, or the Steam Deck no reasonable person would consider it a good run, shrug their shoulders, and rush out to buy a new one when it unceremoniously died 4 months outside of the warranty period. If that happened to me in the UK I’d be throwing the consumer rights book at them.
Sorry, I know none of that helps if you’re not in the EU/UK, but contrary to what other are saying I don’t think you’re being unreasonable in complaining at all.
Personally I think most of these sorts of things should have a 3 year warranty - but very few offer that. If you can’t handle the 1 year you need to plan on the reality in the US IMHO. This isn’t a Valve thing, its a USA thing. So ranting against Valve feels a little disengenuous. AFAIK there’s no competitior that’s better. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would say the same thing.
So - in the future buy with a card that extends the warranty by a year or buy an extended offering from the company or square or whatever, if you can’t self insure the 200 repair or 600 ish replacement costs.