[PSA] The terrible tragedy of a stolen Steam Deck
[PSA] The terrible tragedy of a stolen Steam Deck
This is a post I wish I never had to make. Forgive my grammar and spelling as I am a bit emotional.
My Steam Deck was stolen and I just had it for less than 2 months.
It has been more than 2 weeks since it happened but it still hurts the same. I wanted to make this post because it was a very costly mistake from my side and I don't want it to happen to anyone else.
<story>
It happened when I was shifting from one house to another house and there were lots of maintenance workers at the destination house. After I kept my luggage inside the house, I left to buy some essentials. My mom was the only person left who was watching over the stuff. By the time I came back, the workers had left. I thought I have some free time so decided to pull the Steam Deck out but it was missing.
<vent>
I was absolutely devastated; I can't even begin to explain in words what it felt like. I asked, through the person who hired the workers, if they took it. But all the workers refused. I was just crushed; I could feel my heart dropping into my stomach. Even now, as I am typing this story, that emotion is replaying.
</vent>
After this happened, I removed all payment methods from my Steam account (Steam Guard 2FA was already active). I saw after 5 days that the Steam Deck was online for a brief period of time, via Steam Guard. I purposefully didn't sign out of the device because I wanted the thieves to make the mistake of signing in and giving me some clue about their location; the Steam Deck was still inside my city. I took the IPs and submitted it to the police and asked them if they could track it. They said they will try their best since getting the customer details from an IP is a "lengthy and time-consuming process". But at this point, I can't do anything; it's not possible for me to visit all the worker's home individually and check as I don't have the authority. I gave up and convinced myself to move on.
</story>
This taught me a lot of things and I wanted to share with the community, now that I have slightly recovered mentally.
Secure your luggage when moving
When you are moving, you usually have a million thoughts in your head. This can cause you to neglect your luggage's safety. If you are going to unload your luggage temporarily, KEEP IT IN A SECURE MANNER FIRST and then do everything else.
A secure manner could mean
- Under someone's watch
- Putting it far away from the exit
- Putting a lock on the luggage
- Putting it inside a cabinet and locking it
Don't just unload the luggage and start doing something mentally involving.
Be wary of outsiders
Sometimes, there will be outside people in your home. It's crucial to keep the Steam Deck out of reach of everyone. Not everyone is a thief but different people have different moral standards. Don't create a tempting scenario for others. Keep it secure when there are guests/workers at your place.
Put some form of tracking on the device
The Steam Deck is like a traditional laptop; it has no SIM or GPS. Once it's lost, it's really hard to get it back. There are methods by which you can track the Steam Deck (Steam Guard) but it involves IP and it's not enough to get an exact location. Other than law-enforcement, no one can find the customer details associated with an IP address.
An alternate approach, which can be slight pricey, is to put a Tile tracker on the device. There are tutorials on how it can be attached to the device.
Note: I'm not associated with Tile in any way.
Get the official Serial Number and MAC ID of the device
It will help you to uniquely identify the device IF it gets stolen. You may find the serial number on
- The bill of purchase
- Inside the Steam Deck settings section
- On the Steam Deck package
- You can ask Steam support for the serial number once it's associated with your account The MAC ID is present on the Steam Deck settings page (and also on your access point logs if it has connected even once).
I hope this post is educational and makes you wary of the physical dangers around us. Please keep your handhelds or any valuables safe
<vent>
What hurts even more is that the Steam Deck, which was the 1 TB OLED model, was a gift from a very special person and I feel like I have betrayed that person by losing it. I had lots of plans with the device, like making a couch plug-and-play setup, a retro gaming setup, a productivity device by using desktop mode, etc. But all my plans were shattered in an instance. I'm now convincing myself to move on to something else.
</vent>
Edit: As of 20th August, I can see via Steam Guard that the device was logged into a few hours ago (2 weeks post the burglary). I know the risks involved in keeping my device signed in. I'm counting on the person's stupidity. Any proper thief would have formatted the device.
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I feel you, mine got lost/stolen about 6+ months ago, seemingly just inside my house, since I never take it anywhere. I’m not a hoarder, keep a relatively tidy house, though I have kids (so tidiness is only ever temporary). I turned over and looked through literally every room in the house, every cupboard, shelf, drawer, and piece of furniture was checked and re-checked and still, nothing. I only just got over it a few weeks ago and broke down and got another one, but this time got an AirTag for it. I’m just more annoyed at the not knowing part, hopefully it’ll just turn up in some stupidly ridiculous place that it hadn’t occurred for me to look, but I suspect I won’t see it again. I doubt it was stolen, since that’s seemingly the only thing gone. Potentially one of the kids broke it and, rather than tell me, they trashed it, but that doesn’t seem like them either or one of them would’ve broken ranks and confessed.
It drove me insane trying to find it before and it still bothers me, but at least I have a Steam Deck again.
How old are your kids? Is it possible one of their friends could have stolen it when they were inside your home? Speaking from experience, kids don't always have the best judgment regarding who they hang out with.
Only one is old enough to have friends in that range that they might be stealing stuff without their own parents seeing them with a new handheld console. They don't normally have friends over without me knowing though, and nobody was over around the time it disappeared. Anything seems possible and I can suspect anyone, but that one seems to have a lower possibility.
Well, hopefully that means it's still around somewhere. Best of luck finding it.
Not to make light of your situation, but I cannot count the number of times I have put something in a "very secure location" then been unable to locate said item for months.
That's what I thought too, I was like, "Maybe I hid it from myself and I hid it too good," but I checked through all the usual hiding spots and unusual spots. Maybe it will show up again years from now in some stupid place like taped to the inside a toilet tank or something dumb, but I went through every room as methodically as possible and checked/re-checked anywhere I might've hidden it from myself. I'm so annoyed.
I put my Nintendo switch under a pop up panel with the spare tire in the trunk of my car and forgot about it. Searched through the whole house and most of the car a week later and assumed it was stolen. I found it when I needed jumper cables about a year later...
Yeah, that was another spot I went through too. Under the seats, took everything out one by one, emptied out the trunk and got down to the spare tire. Found out that mice were apparently living in or had lived in my car, but sadly no Steam Deck :(