Request to Allow Changing Steam ID / Account Name

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Timmey 4 hours ago

Dear Steam Support Team,

I have been using Steam for a long time and am generally very satisfied with the platform. However, I have a request that is very important to me personally and would likely be of great interest to many other users as well:

It would be wonderful if, in the future, there were an option to change the Steam ID (or account name) — either once or under certain conditions.

I understand that currently only the profile name and custom URL can be changed, while the actual Steam ID remains permanently fixed. I realize this is related to security, licensing, and abuse prevention. Still, I find it quite limiting that, in 2025, users can keep their account for decades but are tied to an old and often outdated name.

A possible approach could be to allow changes:
• for a one-time fee,
• or only at certain time intervals,
• or after a clear identity verification process.

This would help prevent abuse while giving players more flexibility.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this request to the appropriate team at Valve. It would be a significant improvement and surely a much-appreciated feature within the community.

Thank you very much for your attention and for the great work you do on Steam!

Kind regards

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Hikari Light 2 hours ago

If you use the SEARCH function, you would find out why it cannot be done.

The database would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, and doing that can possibly result in EVERYONE losing EVERYTHING tied to their account as the account username is the primary key.

Tito Shivan 2 hours ago

There is an alleged route through support, according to some Reddit comments where some people said had achieved it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/transgamers/comments/1kex1c8/is_there_a_way_to_change_my_steam_username/
Results don't seem consisten, apparently.

Steam has never offered an open service to change the username on demand.

 KARR™ 1 hour ago

Originally posted by Hikari Light:
If you use the SEARCH function, you would find out why it cannot be done.

The database would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, and doing that can possibly result in EVERYONE losing EVERYTHING tied to their account as the account username is the primary key.

Nahhh. They could create a new column, would need to be UNIQUE, probably a guid or sequencial number and make that the PK - then a new "login ID" field, again, UNIQUE. As long as external databases have the new "login ID" as the FK it should work. They just need to copy the existing login names into the new "login ID" field which can then be updated - bit of tweaking to authentication so it knows which field it needs to work with and ... done.

But i wouldnt want to deal with a database of the size of Steams and i have no reference as to how external databases link in to each other making things harder. It would also make hijacking and recovery difficult as you'd need a new table to store any new/old names and the time/dates they were updated. Take over an account, rename the login - its then harder for users to recover.

Brian9824 56 minutes ago

Originally posted by  KARR™:
Originally posted by Hikari Light:
If you use the SEARCH function, you would find out why it cannot be done.

The database would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, and doing that can possibly result in EVERYONE losing EVERYTHING tied to their account as the account username is the primary key.

Nahhh. They could create a new column, would need to be UNIQUE, probably a guid or sequencial number and make that the PK - then a new "login ID" field, again, UNIQUE. As long as external databases have the new "login ID" as the FK it should work. They just need to copy the existing login names into the new "login ID" field which can then be updated - bit of tweaking to authentication so it knows which field it needs to work with and ... done.

But i wouldnt want to deal with a database of the size of Steams and i have no reference as to how external databases link in to each other making things harder. It would also make hijacking and recovery difficult as you'd need a new table to store any new/old names and the time/dates they were updated. Take over an account, rename the login - its then harder for users to recover.

They could make a new field but it wouldn't be a new PK and it would mess with indexing and optimization they have done. The official confirmation from a Valve employee is that there is no method to do so and there has never been any confirmation that those who claimed it was possible on reddit or elsewhere actually had it done

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3481913471

nullable 26 minutes ago

Originally posted by  KARR™:
Originally posted by Hikari Light:
If you use the SEARCH function, you would find out why it cannot be done.

The database would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, and doing that can possibly result in EVERYONE losing EVERYTHING tied to their account as the account username is the primary key.

Nahhh. They could create a new column, would need to be UNIQUE, probably a guid or sequencial number and make that the PK - then a new "login ID" field, again, UNIQUE. As long as external databases have the new "login ID" as the FK it should work. They just need to copy the existing login names into the new "login ID" field which can then be updated - bit of tweaking to authentication so it knows which field it needs to work with and ... done.

But i wouldnt want to deal with a database of the size of Steams and i have no reference as to how external databases link in to each other making things harder. It would also make hijacking and recovery difficult as you'd need a new table to store any new/old names and the time/dates they were updated. Take over an account, rename the login - its then harder for users to recover.

Well, changing the database isn't impossible. But with a large system like Steam's most of the time with "just do X" idea's is it's easy to say and the reality is usually a bit more complicated.

So you change the database, make a lot of changes actually. Plus all the stored procedures or other applications that will need to utilize the new id's will need to be updated. We're talking planning, development, testing. It's not a quick and dirty change.

And what's all this for again? Because some people are fickle about their username? Sometimes the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. And OP's idea trying to make it more attractive by limitations or monetization doesn't really solve the underlying issue: It's a lot of work for not much benefit. And Valve just hasn't shown much interest it it in all the years people have been making similar requests.

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Date Posted: 20 Oct @ 3:06am

Posts: 5

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