Sending a Steam sticker 'burned through a month of mobile data in five minutes' complains unhappy gamer

Steam Stickers can be bad for your (data) health

(Image credit: Valve)

Some apps are much more data hungry than you might expect, and sadly this sometimes only becomes apparent when using precious mobile data. A case in point is provided by spacebuggles, a Redditor and Steam gamer who says they “burned through a month of mobile data in 5 minutes.” They weren’t downloading Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or Microsoft Flight Simulator, or anything so ambitious. Their questionable folly was simply “trying to send a sticker in Steam Chat.”

Comments by other Redditors regarding the mobile data overload frequently pointed the finger at animated .GIF data sizes – a popular media format on the Steam platform, along with animated and static .PNGs. These are seemingly the most popular underlying format for animated stickers and are hosted on Steam servers, not a local app cache, then streamed into the flow of the chat when chosen.

While initially some thought the data thieving culprit(s) may be autoplaying game showcase videos on Steam pages, this seems to have been ruled out, at least in spacebuggles’ case. The OP’s assertion about stickers seems to hold water, as does the wild and wanton way Steam store pages can also easily suck 20-30MB each when browsed.

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With the crazy amount of data used by seemingly benign browsing, other Redditors mentioned how they were pleased that Steam Chat was farmed out of the main mobile app a couple of years back.

Exacerbating spacebuggles’ issues with Steam Chat wolfing down 700MB of data after a short spell of trying to secure a free sticker, we note that their mobile service provider contract only supplies 600MB of data per month. Spacebuggles seems to be a New Zealand resident on the 2degrees NZ$13 (US$7.77) monthly prepay plan. That deal also includes 100 minutes and unlimited texts for use in New Zealand and Australia.

Why unexpected mobile data usage can hurt

Clearly, depending on where you live in the world and the depth of your pockets, mobile data can be a precious and scarce commodity. According to the most recent study we found, the U.S. ranks 219 in the world’s average price per gigabyte of data. In 2023, cable.co.uk concluded U.S. citizens paid an average $6.00 per GB. New Zealand is ranked a smidgen better than the U.S. with an average $5.89 per GB at the time of the linked survey.

Many countries in the survey pay a tenth of the U.S. (or New Zealand) average, like the Philippines, the UK, and Singapore only shelling out about 60 U.S. cents per gigabyte.

Meanwhile, the best places for mobile data consumers include Israel (2 cents per GB), Italy (9 cents), and Fiji (9 cents) – the only nations at under 10 cents per GB.

At the other, unfortunate, end of the table you will see Saint Helena, the Falkland Islands, and Zimbabwe – who were paying over $40 per GB as recently as 2023.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

24 Comments Comment from the forums

Konomi

While it would be wonderful if Valve took the time to care about their apps, I do have to question why the person uses Steam's chat in the first place when the majority of people are on Discord or something..
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Roland Of Gilead

Those price plans are ridiculous. In my country (Ireland), We have plans from €9.99 per month. Unlimited data, calls, and texts. And the contracts are guaranteed for ilfe! I can't believe that those plans only provide for only include 600mb of data. It's a joke.
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hypnoticlya

Konomi said:
While it would be wonderful if Valve took the time to care about their apps, I do have to question why the person uses Steam's chat in the first place when the majority of people are on Discord or something..
Discord basically has the same problem though. If you use gifs for reactions, instead of emojis/stickers, then it redownloads those *every single time*. Even ones that you fave, it redownloads them every single time you pull up the gif list. It's insane that they REFUSE to let you cache those gifs.

I do a lot of 1-on-1 personal paid interactions, and I heavily use gifs for that in DMs. I have unlimited data and usually do this at home anyway, so the data part doesn't bother me; the part where it takes 3~5 minutes to load the gif that I'm looking for, really sucks.

But even if you are doing stickers/emojis on Discord, it still redownloads those. It's just that they're (probably) more strict with the file sizes of those, than Steam seems to be.

I'd try to get around that with Google Drive; but that also won't retain the files forever. It constantly seems to wipe them from my device, despite telling it over and over to keep them local on my phone.
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hwertz

So they have a ridiculous Australia style data plan with almost no data then used up their data. Don't use your mobile data for anything if you only have like 500MB a month.
Reply
nrdwka

hypnoticlya said:
Discord basically has the same problem though. If you use gifs for reactions, instead of emojis/stickers, then it redownloads those *every single time*. Even ones that you fave, it redownloads them every single time you pull up the gif list. It's insane that they REFUSE to let you cache those gifs.

I do a lot of 1-on-1 personal paid interactions, and I heavily use gifs for that in DMs. I have unlimited data and usually do this at home anyway, so the data part doesn't bother me; the part where it takes 3~5 minutes to load the gif that I'm looking for, really sucks.

But even if you are doing stickers/emojis on Discord, it still redownloads those. It's just that they're (probably) more strict with the file sizes of those, than Steam seems to be.

I'd try to get around that with Google Drive; but that also won't retain the files forever. It constantly seems to wipe them from my device, despite telling it over and over to keep them local on my phone.

hypnoticlya said:
Discord basically has the same problem though. If you use gifs for reactions, instead of emojis/stickers, then it redownloads those *every single time*. Even ones that you fave, it redownloads them every single time you pull up the gif list. It's insane that they REFUSE to let you cache those gifs.

I do a lot of 1-on-1 personal paid interactions, and I heavily use gifs for that in DMs. I have unlimited data and usually do this at home anyway, so the data part doesn't bother me; the part where it takes 3~5 minutes to load the gif that I'm looking for, really sucks.

But even if you are doing stickers/emojis on Discord, it still redownloads those. It's just that they're (probably) more strict with the file sizes of those, than Steam seems to be.

I'd try to get around that with Google Drive; but that also won't retain the files forever. It constantly seems to wipe them from my device, despite telling it over and over to keep them local on my phone.
just curious, if you is aware about issue, why to continue to use GIF? even light text smile are fine
Reply
A Stoner

Starlink looks like it should be a winner for people in the more costly places. Mostly offering unlimited plans for people, but roaming can be had for $10 with 10 GB and $2 per GB thereafter.

Now that I look at that option, I am almost tempted to add that to my household... $10 a month to cover for emergencies seems reasonable. Too bad I did not get the free starlink system when Hurricane Helene came through...
Reply
hwertz

nrdwka said:
just curious, if you is aware about issue, why to continue to use GIF? even light text smile are fine
I imagine it's like if I would complain about an issue like this -- I have unlimited data so it's not a PROBLEM problem, and more like a nuisance (the inefficiency + the small wait for stuff that could be cached and pop up instantly.) I don't use animated GIFs but if I did, I'd have the same complaint but keep using them.

A Stoner said:
Starlink looks like it should be a winner for people in the more costly places. Mostly offering unlimited plans for people, but roaming can be had for $10 with 10 GB and $2 per GB thereafter.

Now that I look at that option, I am almost tempted to add that to my household... $10 a month to cover for emergencies seems reasonable. Too bad I did not get the free starlink system when Hurricane Helene came through...
They used up the data on their cell phone. Australia also has home broadband plans with ridiculously low data limits, but not THAT low. Although Australians also suffer (courtesy of NBN -- "National Broadband Network" -- which the ISPs all resell services off of) with ridiculous data caps on their home broadband connections too, they aren't QUITE low enough to worry about GIFs going through the monthly allowance. Maybe.

(More or less, Australia and Canada have some of the worst pricing on the planet... companies and regulators in both countries use the excuse of the countries being large... but it's really a matter of them ending up with non-competitive markets in cell phones... letting the existing incumbents buy up all new wireless spectrum as it comes out for bid so no new competitor can get any spectrum to start a new network with and perhaps drive prices down... and, in the case of Australia, their NBN ("National Broadband Network") which virtually all ISPs ultimately use has ridiculously low data caps on basically all services; and subsidize the very rural areas by jacking up prices everywhere else so prices are high too. )
Reply
USAFRet

Roland Of Gilead said:
Those price plans are ridiculous. In my country (Ireland), We have plans from €9.99 per month. Unlimited data, calls, and texts. And the contracts are guaranteed for ilfe! I can't believe that those plans only provide for only include 600mb of data. It's a joke.
Newsflash - Prices and plans differ around the planet.

'prepaid' plans are generally more expensive per minute or GB, but potentially cheaper monthly, if you don't use it that much.
I know mine is.
Reply
Roland Of Gilead

USAFRet said:
Newsflash - Prices and plans differ around the planet.
I get that (y)

The point I was making is that 600mb is very low, even for a bottom line plan.
Reply
BallsOTron137

Is this some sort of joke. People complaining about nothing. Get a better data plan. That's like 500MB per month... And I get 30GB a month.
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