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I remember back in 2004/2005 how a PR company was hired by certain companies (microsoft) to act as if they were a grassroots movement of software developers that demanded patents on software, while practically all software developers were out on the streets in Brussels to protest against the ridiculous patents on software.
They got found out. This has lead to major restrictions in ways you are allowed to lobby in the EU.

But since the UK isn't part of the EU anymore, they can ignore that of course and lobbyists are free again to make those "grassroots" websites...

Do not ever think that a single steam customer is behind that site... It's paid for by multinationals.

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Quoting: ArehandoroWhile I agree with you, in this case the person that did the estimate is the same that did the work in one day 😅

" Hey look boss the thing i said would take 8 months took one day ! ,
Am i a good boy now, do i get a promotion ? Ohh OK, then maybe just another new project i guess.
... wait , you don't need me as much for the next 8 months ... wait you don't need me as much at all now, what's going on .. " 😆

At least extend the job a few months, jeez. There's always more work to do, and a company will typical NOT value something like this as much as you would like to think in terms of employee relations. And i know this is going to sound bad to some, but it kind of puts a lot of strain on the rest of a team to do the same, making the demands on everyone much higher & leading to everyone now having to rely on Ai more than critical thinking to pump out projects as fast as the previous bar was set. Playing right into the management / CEO's hands. At some point this 'extra efficiency' leads to a nice game of roulette as to which Dev gets to tell their family there not economically viable anymore. I mean, don't shirk your responsibilities but you have to work out a good work life balance within your role.

So do your work well. Efficiently but learn how to play the game at least a little bit. Remember the management already learned how to play the game hence why they have so many 'strategic meetings' and paid for business trips to fancy hotels in foreign countries.

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Now Heroic has a nifty feature of asking you what exe to actually use. That way i can easily start the expansions in MOHAA for example.

The 2.19 version was buggy with non working Epic games, but they very quickly pushed out an update 2.19.1 to fix the issue.

I like more of the simplistic Heroic compared to Lutris which is riddled with funky installers that sometimes work and sometimes not. For example GOG version of Cyberpunk was a pain to install in Lutris where with Heroic it was just clicks to install.

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I could not care less for any galaxy. Never been a prerequisite for buying games from GOG.
Never been into "achievements", never used a game launcher for "connecting" with friends (it's been always a third-party app for that).
It was their attitude that pissed me off. Their shortsightedness of treating a whole community like %^$#
because a bunch of toxic reviewers gave em once a hard time.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain ManYou really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers.

Sure you can. Just like the Chinese were able to demand that milk producers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like watering it way down and thickening it with malamine. We demand that people not take advantage of cost savings all the time, if taking advantage of them would cause some disadvantage to their customers or the common good. We demand that factories spend money on scrubber thingies in their smokestacks so we don't get acid rain; that's why there is still maple syrup.

Watering down milk and adding thickeners without disclosing this to the consumer is fraudulent, so of course it's illegal. That's not at all the same as a developer using existing cloud services rather than expending the resources to create their own online infrastructure. As long as they disclose the fact upfront that future functionality is not guaranteed, then there is no fraud. And I think that's ultimately where this is going, that any product that depends on servers will be required to carry a prominent disclaimer that necessary online services could be discontinued at any time without warning.

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Quoting: Mountain ManYou really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers.

Of course you could.

But that isn't the goal - as I already wrote, those mock servers are already a reality in almost any project.
It would be work to make these more user-palatable, but not much. Paling in comparison to the dough raked in by online games that were even just a bit successful.

It is also by far not the only way to go about this, nor the cheapest.
You are drinking the publisher cool-aid already and they haven't even really started firing their propaganda - weird, dude!

You could absolutely - and reasonably! - demand that an end-of-life plan must be made before an MMO/Online-focused game is released, and that end-of-life plan MUST include a way to play in a "reasonable, minimal way" (eg. say offline only, or self-hosted, etc) past end-of-life.
Or you can't release/sell it in the EU.
Simple, really.

If those few weeks of work and minimal amount of resource cost would keep a game from being developed, then developing that game was never a viable business decision anyway.
Publishers really have no leg to stand on here.

You also can't forget: When you ignore the suits, the vast majority of developers is in favor of this.
Understandably so, as nobody wants to see years of their work just ceasing to exist.

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Quoting: MinoscerebI like the look of Heroic, it's a lot better designed visually than Lutris and feels more user friendly, but since Lutris can run all the stores Heroic can, and at least for GoG has access to lots of useful scripts for things like mods or just actual playability, I don't see a use case for Heroic for myself. I'm curious where other people fall on this though. Have I missed something about Heroic?

This is so curios. For me one of the most annoying thing about Heroic is… it's UI. It uses custom "webby" stuff instead of using native OS controlls like Lutris and it makes it's Look&Feel utterly annoying… Also Lutris just works better overall

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Quoting: Mountain ManYou really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers.

Sure you can. Just like the Chinese were able to demand that milk producers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like watering it way down and thickening it with malamine. We demand that people not take advantage of cost savings all the time, if taking advantage of them would cause some disadvantage to their customers or the common good. We demand that factories spend money on scrubber thingies in their smokestacks so we don't get acid rain; that's why there is still maple syrup.

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Quoting: soulsource

Quoting: Mountain ManHow broad do we expect this law to be?

The original introduction video to the campaign talked about this. They also mentioned that in an ideal world, all of what you mentioned would be regulated in a way that allows people to keep accessing the content they bought a license for. However, the initiators were aware that it would never happen if it was that broad, so they picked games as a smaller target. That's not perfect, but it's a start.

I think that will ultimately kill any chance of this becoming a reality, especially since most lawmakers consider video games to be nothing more than childish amusement. Game developers could also make a good case that they are being unfairly singled out when even by this groups own admission, there are many other consumer products that depend on network services.

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I wonder how many times these same arguments have been made at this point.

Someone needs to tell them what the definition of insanity is.

1: Steam "price parity clause"

This is only for Steam keys that are sold OUTSIDE Steam.

2: In-game purchases yadda yadda

"Hey Sony, so I have this DLC for a game I bought from GOG, can I play this on PlayStation?", said nobody ever.

3: Commissions commissions

The fee, that is... 30%...

You know... the same amount Sony and Apple also gets, yet somehow it is only Steam who is constantly put on target for it.

Lol, lmao even.

Just like someone else said above, I wouldn't be surprised if Epic was behind this, as the speaking points are more or less the same as what Timboi keeps saying.

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Quoting: Mountain ManHow broad do we expect this law to be?

The original introduction video to the campaign talked about this. They also mentioned that in an ideal world, all of what you mentioned would be regulated in a way that allows people to keep accessing the content they bought a license for. However, the initiators were aware that it would never happen if it was that broad, so they picked games as a smaller target. That's not perfect, but it's a start.

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PCR stands for Parasite Corporation Representatives, or...?

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I honestly don't see this going anywhere. You really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers. What's next, demanding that music and video streaming services make their content permanently available to customers in the event that they shutdown? And what about software other than games that depends on servers and key activations? Phone apps? Digital thermostats? Network connected security cameras? The long list of "smart devices" that require some sort of online service to function? How broad do we expect this law to be?

Frankly, I think this is never going to happen.

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@soulsource how much difference is there between a cloud platform and, say, a Linux PC? Besides the scale of the cloud. Is it possible to reuse the software designed for a cloud and run it on a conventional x86_64 Linux device with perhaps minimal changes to the game client so it can locate the custom server? Same for Arm64 Linux, I don't know which one is more popular on cloud

The big difference is the software. Which is owned by the cloud platform providers and not available to the game developers. Of course it can be mocked (as TheShEEEP pointed out), but that's work too, that needs to be paid for.

I, as a player, would rather prefer that games will never be designed around an ingame store anymore.

As a gamedev: I wished so too. However, often the options a publisher gives are "live support title with in-game store", or "the project won't happen". Since it isn't easy to find game project funding at the moment, the second option might very well mean having to fire people, or even closing the studio, so it's about as much a choice as the Patrician's offer of "freedom" in Going Postal.

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Quoting: RussianNeuroMancer

Quoting: PyrateAffinity Studio teasing Linux support

Could you please provide a link where they did so?

https://techcentral.co.za/affinity-for-linux-canvas-next-big-move-could-reshape-the-desktop-software-market/274861/

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Say this fine is paid, where does the money go? I highly doubt to the consumers the suit claims to protect. Does it go to the UK government? To the people filing the suit (in which case, why do they deserve this money?)?

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I'd like Kickstarter to make statements of the projects that put a very low pledge goal, like this one at just 50K, so we know if the low goal is because they already have a lot of backing behind or if it's so they reach the goal and get to keep the money independently of finalising the project.

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very nice! At some point this winter / spring I'll probably wipe my system and start over with a fresh cosmic install of Cachy. I'm on gnome Cachy now and love it, but really want to use the cosmic de, and now that it's out of beta I think it'll be a good time to do so.

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[quote=mindedie]

Quoting: Arehandoro

Quoting: ShadowXeldronhad been estimated in 8 or 9 months of work.

Quite common to hear same or similar lines, decade after decade, specially from corporate/proprietary software side... and some hobbyist programmer do same or better in weekend, while playing quake, scratching backside or something...
Gaming side full of that too... modders fixing crap, adding stuff without having access to source code, documentation, etc., in hours, after yet another buggy and broken releases/patch.

While I agree with you, in this case the person that did the estimate is the same that did the work in one day 😅

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Seems partly reasonable to me.

I've always said that Valve's cut is undeniably too large. I just don't see any legal grounds to lower it - but hey, who knows.
And that their practices especially for charging with in-game purchases are double dipping in many cases is also quite clear.

I'm not too sure about the PPO stuff, I've read too many conflicting statements here.

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Even if Valve survives this if it's successful, this will set legal standards and they'll be forced to change the amount of money they get from publishers.

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They recommend the flatpak but by default the locations in the flatpak are different from the shipped binary. I didn't look at the details yet but the flatpak isn't a drop-in replacement for me.

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[quote=Arehandoro]

Quoting: ShadowXeldronhad been estimated in 8 or 9 months of work.

Quite common to hear same or similar lines, decade after decade, specially from corporate/proprietary software side... and some hobbyist programmer do same or better in weekend, while playing quake, scratching backside or something...
Gaming side full of that too... modders fixing crap, adding stuff without having access to source code, documentation, etc., in hours, after yet another buggy and broken releases/patch.

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Quoting: ArdjeAnd all because of these "protect the children" fake organizations that clearly have a second agenda, and it is not about protecting the children. [...]

The "second agenda" is actually the first and only one. Children are just used as an excuse, just like how governments are using it as an excuse to implement mass surveillance on the internet through ID verification, message scanning, and other measures.

Quoting: LinasWhat a load of bull... To summarize the claim even more: I want to use Steam infrastructure, but I don't want to pay for it.

Pretty much. And I wouldn't be surprised if Epic was behind the whole movement, because Tim Sweeney was the first to claim platforms charge their 30% cut *on top* of the price set by developers/publishers (even though it's not the case at all, because you don't see games be cheaper on the EGS despite the 12% cut, or on Itch.io despite the 10% cut, or become cheaper on Steam as they reach revenue milestones that make them eligible for the lower cuts).

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For anyone having issues installing (for me on ROG Ally with the handheld edition) I managed to work it out here: https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/cachyos-january-2026-release-changelog/21783/68

Preliminary opinion is that it is blazing fast. I know I'm coming from a jank NixOS with cobbled together Jovian (Game Mode) and nix-cachyos-kernel, but even compared to Bazzite it still feels very fast. I like a lot of the included or easily-installable gaming packages as well - `proton-cachyos-slr` offering a Proton that is managed by the package manager.

There are still a lot of things for me to go through. Their wiki do assume a decent level of familiarity with Linux though. See [here](https://wiki.cachyos.org/cachyos_basic/why_cachyos/), [here](https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/gaming/), and [here](https://wiki.cachyos.org/installation/installation_on_root/). This really isn't a Manjaro, Garuda, or Endeavour style of "baby's first Arch-based install", it's more of "Okay, we assume you know the basics - here is what we offer and you may make a value judgement based on it." For the most part? It seems to offer some great stuff.

Quoting: scaineI suppose the performance thing is cool, but the bit of CachyOS I love is that it integrates snapper into grub seamlessly, so if you break your system (say, an aberrant Arch update), you just reboot into an earlier snapshot and you've learned your lesson. Takes all the pressure off the fact it's Arch. Or being an idiot like me and constantly experimenting with stuff and breaking things.

I'd like them to include ChaoticAUR by default, like Garuda does, but it's straightforward enough to add manually. If you haven't used ChaoticAUR before, it's a precompiled version of the AUR - very fast, because it acts like any other Arch source. No waiting around for AUR compiles.

My next challenge with CachyOS is integrating the boot with TPM, so I don't have to manually unlock my disks at startup. If that's successful, I don't think I'll be distro-hopping for a long, long time.

Yes, the installer is kinda ehh. Coming from Bazzite that sets everything up for you, I had chosen to just forgo encryption setup because I can't be arsed to manually set it up.

I liked Chaotic AUR, but it requires trusting someone else to build the AUR packages correctly and without any bad intention. I personally trust the team, but should a distro maintainer make that judgement for their users? Also, what happens if it gets abandoned a la their [Chaotic Nyx](https://www.nyx.chaotic.cx/) project?

And snapper function isn't unique to CachyOS - I think Manjaro already have it since 3 or more years ago (if you installed with btrfs filesystem) and before then I used Garuda with it as well. But yes, it should be standard in all Arch and Arch-based install IMO, saved my butt multiple times before (though there was nothing it could do if the issue was bootloader or you messed up a nofail fstab entry).

Quoting: Curupira

Quoting: Liam DaweI'm not too clued up on it, but it seems it was done differently before. Direct from their blog post "bootloader selection has been moved directly into the installer".

Oh yeah, the bootloader selection screen appeared before the installer. Now it makes sense, thanks.

In the previous version, it asks you which ones you want to choose BEFORE the Calamares installer starts (see Mutahar's video [here](https://youtu.be/DsTlxRKkPyY?t=744)).

That's because for each of the different bootloader you want, it seems a different Calamares package is called. So there are four Calamares packages. I'd imagine that's a bit complicated and fragile (judging by the links in my link above, there has been a noted installation issues with mirrorlist and Calamares versions since October 2025).

And Limine seems interesting. I'd love it if they use it and offers an automated/simple encryption setup a la Bazzite and touchscreen support like rEFInd apparently does, while maintaining the current stated speed of it.

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What a load of bull... To summarize the claim even more: I want to use Steam infrastructure, but I don't want to pay for it.

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I believe AI would not be problem for GOG Galaxy.

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Quoting: Pyrate

Will 2026 truly be the real year of Linux gaming on the desktop?

Between this, and Adobe Photoshop getting a Wine fix, Affinity Studio teasing Linux support, and the new Vulkan extension that will apparently fix the performance loss on Novidia..

Yeah, I'd say this is the year 😁.

We memed so much about for so many years that the Linux Gods (a.k.a. Gabe and Linus) are using their mystical power to pull it off in order to make us shut up about it for good.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: Curupira

a significantly reworked installer, which also now includes bootloader selection

I can vouch that CachyOS installer included a bootloader selection screen since I've first tried it (more than a year ago). Maybe even earlier. :)

I'm not too clued up on it, but it seems it was done differently before. Direct from their blog post "bootloader selection has been moved directly into the installer".

Yeah, it's weird. When I fist installed this, about 8 months back, it asks if you want Grub, SystemD-boot or a couple of others. So it's technically been there for a while. I wonder how it's changed that warrants that update message?

The bootloader selection was updated to offer summaries of the choices to better help people choose, but most importantly the default selection was shifted from systemd-boot to Limine. This means that bootable snapshot integration will be available to the people that don't know enough to select something other than the default. Prior to this, new users just going with systemd-boot were at a pretty big disadvantage to those who selected Limine or Grub.

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Quoting: Liam DaweI'm not too clued up on it, but it seems it was done differently before. Direct from their blog post "bootloader selection has been moved directly into the installer".

Oh yeah, the bootloader selection screen appeared before the installer. Now it makes sense, thanks.

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