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Hardware will be the least of our concerns when this bubble bursts.

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Godot Tarkov was not on my 2026 Bingo Card!

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I use Flatpak on the Arch-based EndeavourOS, so I don't have to install the 32bit libraries.
I wish Steam would release a 64bit launcher for Linux. 😫

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You should start to use whole years for reference. Monthly noise means nothing, just like in the stock market. For January 2026 Linux usage is up roughly 1.5% on the chart from January 2025. This is a much more meaningful number. You could go a bit farther and be a lot more sensationalist. Actual Linux usage is up what, 80%? In term of net users increase, the jump is much higher, with the number of users almost doubling.

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Well, we must never forget that Steam total numbers keep going up. Especially after the holiday season, I expect more mainstream systems to be installed and join the Steam pool. So, a decrease in percentage could be a normal post-holiday adjustment.

I would love to see a raw numbers dataset for these surveys, and not just percentages.

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That is fantastic news! Though i will play it mostly on my Laptop, because i am still learning to use console controls. Any performance upgrade is appreciated.
Sadly, my former troupe isn't enjoying Valheim as much as i still do, so i have to do (another) solo or find a new group.

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And if we check the dedicated tracker page, we find...yup. Linux share for English users is steady. Unchanged, even, which makes enough sense. It's a wretched time to buy new hardware, nothing has really happened last month to push people to switch, etc.

The drop is just the proportion of English-language Steam accounts.

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Quoting: such

Quoting: kaktuspalmeThough I personally get it, VIII for example, there's the Remastered and just VIII, which one should I choose?

Neither. Emulate the PSX version. You'll have all the QOL you'll ever want, the game will look much better, and you won't be tied to any online account.

Do PSX emulators even have PocketStation emulation? It's also very bold of you to assume kaktuspalme can read Japanese. The better answer would be 'the Remaster is on GOG, so you can get it DRM-free'.

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What I've been playing? Digimon Story Time Stranger and DiRT Rally 2.0. Especially DR2, I'm absolutely addicted.

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Worried about when this Playtron thing inevitably implodes that the open source devs they hired will quit working on projects out of disillusionment.

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Apparently the ai companies have all the hardware they need but they are still buying to stock pile all of it. Theres going to be a massive flood of hardware being dumped onto the 2nd hand market when the bubble bursts and the companies are liquidating.

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Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%

That was me, yesterday. ;)

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a healthy correction before another leg up ;-)

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Nice seeing the Deck at the top almost all time.

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Quoting: F.UltraBut his point wasn't that they where singled out, his point was that they where not alone in taking 30% and that both Apple and Sony did take 30% as well, something that you contended.

Just stop misquoting people. I was very specific on what I was contending - that's why I was quoting it.

Let me quote it again - this time only the part you haven't read:

Quoting: LupertEverett[…]
yet somehow it is only Steam who is constantly put on target for it.

Do you understand this now?

Quoting: F.UltraThe DSA is not at all about the 30%, in fact the DSA says nothing at all about what cut you are allowed to make, all it says is that certain services have gone big enough that they are now designated as gatekeepers by the EU and as such they are now under different legislation, one of them being that they are not allowed to lock in customers to their in-house payment system. The App Store being designated a gatekeeper is thus not allowed to force apps to user the Apple payment system, whatever payment system they choose to use is however free to take a 30% cut if they want.

And yet, it's an ongoing process because Apple still claims the 30%. How can that be? Nobody cares about Apple's payment processing but the 30% attached to it. That the market power the DSA is fighting. Do you understand this now?

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It's the Badzzite News Bears 😁

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Quoting: kaktuspalme

Quoting: Durandal... and the current version being delisted, as usual. A bit of burying the lede there.

Though I personally get it, VIII for example, there's the Remastered and just VIII, which one should I choose?

Neither. Emulate the PSX version. You'll have all the QOL you'll ever want, the game will look much better, and you won't be tied to any online account.

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January was mostly spent playing Cyberpunk 2077 (87 hours). I've started playing Eriksholm (continuation from when I played the demo last year).

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My biggest issue with Minetest is its soundpack. They just don't feel right at all! If only there was a mod to use Minecraft sounds...

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It always suprises me that there are always barely any game that lets the battery go for more than 3 or 4 hours. Also A lot of shooters and games that are best played with a mouse.

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Quoting: poiuz

Quoting: F.UltraAgain none of this, including the DSA, have anything to do with the 30% that is under discussion. Also the Fortnite vs Apple have no releveance for Steam since Steam does not have the same "you must use our payment platform for in-app purchases" as Apple have. I still fail to understand what point you are trying to make here?

Then that's on you if you can't make the connection. That's all I can do to show that Valve is - in fact - not singled out - i.e. LupertEverett's statement is false.

To the rest of your claims:
There's even a message (e-mail? I'm pretty sure it was covered here, too) from Sweeney directed at Newell which explicitly states it's about the 30% of the App Store.

The same with the DSA: One part is explicitly about the 30% because it forces Apple to allow payment processing outside the App Store.

But his point wasn't that they where singled out, his point was that they where not alone in taking 30% and that both Apple and Sony did take 30% as well, something that you contended.

The DSA is not at all about the 30%, in fact the DSA says nothing at all about what cut you are allowed to make, all it says is that certain services have gone big enough that they are now designated as gatekeepers by the EU and as such they are now under different legislation, one of them being that they are not allowed to lock in customers to their in-house payment system. The App Store being designated a gatekeeper is thus not allowed to force apps to user the Apple payment system, whatever payment system they choose to use is however free to take a 30% cut if they want.

Since Valve never ever have forced games to use the Valve store for in-game purchases (or even for DLC purchases) and since the DSA contains no legislation about the 30% cut then none of this is relevant for Steam at all. Do you understand this now?

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: F.UltraWell in the sense that the public at large is the government, they are by definition the only thing that allows the business to exist in the first place and therefore also have a say in how they conduct their affairs. One such say is e.g outlawing predatory and unfair pricing.

The main issue is instead (in my view) that no one so far have managed to prove that 30% is either unfair or predatory.

Corporations, certainly, exist at the government's sufferance but, at least here in Canada, the various levels of government don't say much about sole proprietorships. Some local governments require registration to do business in their district but for the most part all levels of government are somewhat indifferent to businesses of that nature. Taxes are filed via your personal income tax filing as a form of income with certain allowable deductions (whereas, corporations file as a distinct entity of their own).

Predatory pricing wouldn't apply in this case. Typically, that is a long-term strategy to create a monopoly and violates antitrust laws.

Definition: (noun) a strategy of selling a good or service at a very low price so as to drive one's competitors out of business (at which point one can raise one's prices more freely).

Unfair pricing is a little more nebulous to define. It can include practices such as price-fixing. It has to be shown to be anticompetitive, with a predatory, exclusionary, or disciplinary negative effect on a competitor. From what I can see, it tends to occur more often at the wholesale pricing level than at the retail to consumers level.

So, yes, I agree that it will likely be difficult to show that a 30% commission fee (which amounts to a 30% margin from the retailer's point of view) is predatory or unfair.

FYI - 20% to 30% margin was pretty typical for software around the time I ran my computer retail business.

Besides, as I understand it, this lawsuit is not a government action under antitrust or anticompetition laws.

Yes this is a civil suit, not a criminal one. In Canada you have Bill C-56 that is aimed at tackling "greedflation," "shrinkflation," and exploitative practices by large corporations. Key measures include penalties for price-fixing, bid-rigging, and, under amended Section 74.01 of the Competition Act, deceptive "drip pricing". So yes even in Canada the government can impose restrictions on how companies perform pricing and they do not have to be monopolies in order to do that.

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Over to you in the comments - what have you been playing the most recently?

For January I completed Unpacking, Hellblade 2 (streamed from my desktop to the Deck), Gabriel Knight and most of Gabriel Knight 2 (with Luxtorpeda).

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I can't remember if I read it here or elsewhere but the developers of CachyOS don't focus on or really consider it a gaming distro anyway..

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Quoting: F.UltraWell in the sense that the public at large is the government, they are by definition the only thing that allows the business to exist in the first place and therefore also have a say in how they conduct their affairs. One such say is e.g outlawing predatory and unfair pricing.

The main issue is instead (in my view) that no one so far have managed to prove that 30% is either unfair or predatory.

Corporations, certainly, exist at the government's sufferance but, at least here in Canada, the various levels of government don't say much about sole proprietorships. Some local governments require registration to do business in their district but for the most part all levels of government are somewhat indifferent to businesses of that nature. Taxes are filed via your personal income tax filing as a form of income with certain allowable deductions (whereas, corporations file as a distinct entity of their own).

Predatory pricing wouldn't apply in this case. Typically, that is a long-term strategy to create a monopoly and violates antitrust laws.

Definition: (noun) a strategy of selling a good or service at a very low price so as to drive one's competitors out of business (at which point one can raise one's prices more freely).

Unfair pricing is a little more nebulous to define. It can include practices such as price-fixing. It has to be shown to be anticompetitive, with a predatory, exclusionary, or disciplinary negative effect on a competitor. From what I can see, it tends to occur more often at the wholesale pricing level than at the retail to consumers level.

So, yes, I agree that it will likely be difficult to show that a 30% commission fee (which amounts to a 30% margin from the retailer's point of view) is predatory or unfair.

FYI - 20% to 30% margin was pretty typical for software around the time I ran my computer retail business.

Besides, as I understand it, this lawsuit is not a government action under antitrust or anticompetition laws.

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[quote=Doktor-Mandrake][quote=eggrole]

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: MinoscerebMy use case for Lutris over Heroic is for those game setup files I find laying on the ground after they fell off a truck full of game setup files. The customizability shines better there, even if both programs are capable of the same end results eventually.

Quoting: Doktor-Mandrake

Quoting: MinoscerebI like lutris for the setup scripts for old gamss

I have almost completely switched to Heroic for no good reason other than "I like it", and I too find old setups that have fallen off of the back of the truck from time to time. You can install them fine with Heroic. It is as simple as Add Game -> Select Executable (or installer) and go.

I'm referring more to the community scripts on lutris

Take something like Quake for example, that might only include the windows version, lutris will give options to install linux source ports, or automatically apply fixes to old games. Heroic doesn't have such feature AFAIK.

Another reason I like to keep both around is because they both seem to handle controller inputs differently. I've had some games where controller doesn't register on heroic, but registers on lutris

Granted I could just add it as a nonsteam game and enable steam input, but that kind of defeats the purpose for me having drm free games not reliant on a closed platform

With Heroic with my DS4 controller i use environment variable PROTON_DISABLE_HIDRAW=1 to get my controller to work for all games. With some games like Metro Exodus though the Playstation mode is better, but then it's as easy as just removing the environment variable from the games list of env variables.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI said Valve wasn't a natural monopoly,

I was thinking about that natural monopoly thing as it relates to these lawsuits. I wonder if part of the problem is that some people are actually thinking of Valve's Steam store as if it is a utility that distributes video games rather than the for-profit business it actually is? A side affect of being the best-known and pioneering player in digital game retail, perhaps?

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: CaldathrasThe fact that the library administration is getting rid of all the self-help / how-to books troubles me, however.

I wouldn't care at all about getting rid of the self-help books, but the how-to is a different story. How-to books are useful. Self-help books are for the most part a racket, and one which is actively bad for people both psychologically and politically.

Yea, I was thinking more of the "how-to" and "do-it-yourself" categories and somehow "self-help" fell in there. Definitely meant how-to and DIY. Thanks for catching that.

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So Nvidia GeForce Now will get native Linux,
GOG will get native Linux hopefully with Proton support.

Steam still has the majority of games playable on Linux

And if you want anything else there is always Etch.io or any emulator you want to install.

Plus GOG would be crazy not to include native support for the Steam Controller 2, if they want to get on to the Steam Machine.

Crazy times for Linux

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: CreepioI still play Dirt 3. It runs perfectly on the Steam Deck and provides loads of fun even to this day. I cannot say the same for many modern racing titles. I waited years for Forza Horizon 4 to reach a reasonable price, but by the time I was ready to buy it, it had already been pulled from the store. What is the point of waiting for a game to be affordable only for it to be killed at the six-year mark?

It's absolutely not the same. FH4 still works well as of today, including online features such as pvp races and eliminator game mode. The only exception is that they killed the festival playlists, effectively making some of the achievements impossible to unlock, which is a bummer. Anyway, delisting a game from the store because the licences expired is absolutely not the same as making the game not launch after the servers are shut down.

Yeah, I guess you're right. And to add further insult to injury, I can't even buy DiRT 3 from Steam anymore. So, yeah. I gave a bad example. Sorry about that.

I think the principle of what I'm saying is, I wish they would sell games forever, and at the very least, if they don't want to sell them forever, they should still be completely or almost completely functional. I don't understand why they won't just sell the games forever.

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I didn't really expect Square Enix to allow Final Fantasy to be DRM free.

Good to see these available. I have them in my Steam account, but I think the 3D remakes are delisted now. That said, they are the worst versions of the games.

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