Steam client "should allow you to run in Offline Mode for as long as you like" say Valve

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The fact that Steam requires you to pop online once every few weeks is a bug rather than intentional design according to an official forum response spotted by Blue's News . "There are many components involved in Offline Mode," writes Valve poster Henryg, "some of them have known issues and bugs which we are continually working to improve. We're aware that it doesn't always work as flawlessly as we want it to, but please keep reporting bugs with Offline Mode. It is not broken 'by design'."

Steam's offline mode has never worked quite correctly, to the irritation of many, including the OP on this forum thread. The poster works five week shifts offshore, but can't access Steam games for more than a couple of weeks because of the impromptu online authorisation issue. Henryg suggests that "Offline Mode is designed to be indefinite. You can't access any of Steam's online features such as friends lists or saved game synchronization, of course, but the client should allow you to run in Offline Mode for as long as you like."

A fix is on the way then, but why have Valve kept it so quiet? Henryg says "We have no community managers or PR people, so all the time that we spend on forums is taking away from development time." Ah, I see. well in that case GET BACK TO WORK HENRYG.

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Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.