Request to Allow Changing Steam ID / Account Name

Alle diskussioner > Steam-fora > Suggestions / Ideas > Trådoplysninger

Timmey For 9 timer siden

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I find it quite limiting that, in 2025, users can keep their account for decades but are tied to an old and often outdated name.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 For 8 timer siden

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 For 8 timer siden

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™ For 7 timer siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af 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 For 6 timer siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af  KARR™:
Oprindeligt skrevet af 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 For 6 timer siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af  KARR™:
Oprindeligt skrevet af 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.

William Shakesman For 2 timer siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af 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.

This is false as Valve has never said it would destroy the database to do that. The last official word was that Valve was unable to resolve the account ownership verification requirements. The SEARCH function would show you this if you ever used it.

Sidst redigeret af William Shakesman; For 2 timer siden

Hikari Light For 2 timer siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af William Shakesman:
Oprindeligt skrevet af 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.
This is false as Valve has never said it would destroy the database to do that. The last official word was that Valve was unable to resolve the account ownership verification requirements. The SEARCH function would show you this if you ever used it.

And here you show your lack of knowledge.

The user database would need to be rebuilt from scratch to allow them to allow username changes.
Because the current system was never designed for it, they would need to completely rebuild it.
This is due to the usernames being the primary key to access the servers, so thus the database would need rebuilt to allow changed usernames to connect different usernames to the same account.

William Shakesman For 1 time siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hikari Light:
Oprindeligt skrevet af William Shakesman:
This is false as Valve has never said it would destroy the database to do that. The last official word was that Valve was unable to resolve the account ownership verification requirements. The SEARCH function would show you this if you ever used it.
And here you show your lack of knowledge.

The user database would need to be rebuilt from scratch to allow them to allow username changes.
Because the current system was never designed for it, they would need to completely rebuild it.
This is due to the usernames being the primary key to access the servers, so thus the database would need rebuilt to allow changed usernames to connect different usernames to the same account.

Valve employees have never said usernames were the primary key to access the servers. Not once. If you use the SEARCH function you would know this.

Sidst redigeret af William Shakesman; For 1 time siden

Timmey For 1 time siden

I know it’s certainly not easy. But as some people here have already said: it’s not impossible.
I think that, especially as a major gaming platform, Steam should offer such options. Even if it means that support manually changes the name directly in the database on a 1:1 basis.

But come on — it’s 2025, and humanity landed on the moon more than 55 years ago (!).
And Steam still isn’t able to provide the community with a proper feature for this?!

Especially with AI nowadays, so many things can be revised quickly and efficiently. They just need to actually tackle the problem.

Brian9824 For 58 minutter siden

Oprindeligt skrevet af William Shakesman:
Oprindeligt skrevet af Hikari Light:
And here you show your lack of knowledge.

The user database would need to be rebuilt from scratch to allow them to allow username changes.
Because the current system was never designed for it, they would need to completely rebuild it.
This is due to the usernames being the primary key to access the servers, so thus the database would need rebuilt to allow changed usernames to connect different usernames to the same account.
Valve employees have never said usernames were the primary key to access the servers. Not once. If you use the SEARCH function you would know this.

That is false, they literally said it right here which i linked - https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3481913471

Oprindeligt skrevet af John Cook:
We don't currently have the facility to change account names, as it is still used as a primary key for various pieces of data.

Ironically you've also posted the same image of the prior response confirming it was used as the primary key for some tables

Not sure what you mean by accessing the servers, as a primary key has nothing to do with if you can access the server. Its not a physical key. So it sounds like you didn't bother reading the official responses and have never actually dealt with databases and primary keys

Sidst redigeret af Brian9824; For 52 minutter siden

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