Quick Question about Steam Tech Support Employees

[Justin97927]

I have been wondering this for quite a while, I might as well ask the question now. Do the steam support tech employees have their own steam accounts? For an example, do they own say like 1,200 licenses' to games even though they work for steam? Or are they not allowed to have their own steam accounts and strictly are there as support technicians only? If Burton J, Jacob, etc. are browsing the forums perhaps they can answer. Or any other forum user that would know the answer. Thanks.

[xPaw]

(All?) Valve employees have their own Steam accounts, and each of them has all of the games.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/VALVe

[Kidofthecentury]

Everyone one of them has his Steam Account with nearly all the games available.

Best example is Drunken F00l: once a "normal" user with 45 games on his account, he got hired at Valve and got a new account with more than 2,500 games.

[FreemanForPrez]

I would just assume they would need access to every game sold through Steam in order to check to see if they can replicate users' issues.

[Europhoria]

Not allowed to have their own Steam account? I'm sure all of Steam support has their own account as well as the one they had before joining Valve (if indeed they had one prior to joining Valve...oh god I should have thought this out better. :/).

Originally Posted by Kidofthecentury

Everyone one of them has his Steam Account with nearly all the games available.

Best example is Drunken F00l: once a "normal" user with 45 games on his account, he got hired at Valve and got a new account with more than 2,500 games.

I thought he was only hired recently rather than in 2004. Maybe I'm missing something.

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

I would just assume they would need access to every game sold through Steam in order to check to see if they can replicate users' issues.

I wonder if they can replicate age.

[Zefar]

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

I would just assume they would need access to every game sold through Steam in order to check to see if they can replicate users' issues.

I doubt Valve will help people who have problems in games they do not code for. They will most likely tell them where they can seek help with their game.

[MonkeySeeker]

So if someone leaves Valve would they get to keep their 2500+ game account?

[FreemanForPrez]

Originally Posted by Zefar

I doubt Valve will help people who have problems in games they do not code for. They will most likely tell them where they can seek help with their game.

Well that would seem kind of negligent, such as if it was a problem with Steam launching a gsme correctly. But otherwise probably true that they wouldn't assist with a game bug.

[Rayman1103]

As others have said, all Valve employees receive a Steam account with every Steam game on it.

Originally Posted by Zefar

I doubt Valve will help people who have problems in games they do not code for. They will most likely tell them where they can seek help with their game.

That is correct. If it's a game by EA, the user having issues would need to contact EA Support, or Activison, etc depending on what the game is.

Originally Posted by MonkeySeeker

So if someone leaves Valve would they get to keep their 2500+ game account?

I'm not sure. I've seen two former Valve employees, where only one got to keep all of his games while the other didn't. Perhaps it depends on whether an employee quit or was let go.

[JacobU]

Originally Posted by FreemanForPrez

I would just assume they would need access to every game sold through Steam in order to check to see if they can replicate users' issues.

This is true, we use them to test issues and help resolve them.

[Justin97927]

Thanks everyone. Jacob, why isn't your forum account linked to your steam account?

Edit: Sorry, I didn't see that forget what I just wrote above.

[FreemanForPrez]

Originally Posted by JacobU

This is true, we use them to test issues and help resolve them.

Cool, and thanks for the clarification.