Google Ends Its 30% App Store Fee, Welcomes Third-Party App Stores
Google is eliminating its traditional 30% Play Store fee and introducing lower commissions, while at the same time allowing alternative billing systems and making it easier for third-party app stores to operate on Android. The changes stem largely from Google’s settlement with Epic Games. Engadget reports: The biggest change is to how Goo … ⌘ Read more

Sony Pulls Back From PlayStation Games on PC
Sony is reportedly abandoning its recent push to bring major PlayStation games to PC and will instead keep most single-player titles exclusive to the PlayStation 5. According to Bloomberg, the shift back toward console exclusivity may be driven by weaker PC sales and concerns about diluting the PlayStation brand. From the report: Online games such as Marathon and Marvel Tokon will sti … ⌘ Read more

‘Game of Thrones’ Movie In the Works
Warner Bros. is developing a feature film set in the world of Game of Thrones with writer Beau Willimon of Andor and House of Cards. “That’s about all we know right now, and as with everything ‘Thrones’ things could change, but the film is firmly in development,” reports TheWrap. Page Six Hollywood was first to break the news and speculated that the story could revolve around Aegon I, the legen … ⌘ Read more

AMD DPTCi Driver Posted For Linux To Better Enhance Ryzen Gaming Handhelds
A request for comments (RFC) patch series was posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list to introduce the AMD Dynamic Power and Thermal Configuration Interface “DPTCi” driver. With this driver it would provide better upstream Linux kernel support for tuning the power / performance / thermals of modern Ryzen-powered gaming handheld devices. Though don’t get too excited right away as the driver was assembled in part by AI that is already ca … ⌘ Read more

Steam Survey Results Published For February 2026
Valve just published the latest Steam Survey monthly figures to provide insight on various software and hardware trends across this dominant gaming ecosystem. One of the most interesting measurements is the monthly changes in the size of the Linux gaming marketshare… ⌘ Read more

AIs Can’t Stop Recommending Nuclear Strikes In War Game Simulations
“Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises,” reports New Scientist:

Kenneth Payne at King’s College London set three leading large language models — GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash — against each other in simulated war games. The s … ⌘ Read more

Human Brain Cells On a Chip Learned To Play Doom In a Week
Researchers at Cortical Labs used living human neurons grown on a chip to learn how to play Doom in about a week. “While its performance is not up to par with humans, experts say it brings biological computers a step closer to useful real-world applications, like controlling robot arms,” reports New Scientist. From the report: In 2021, the Australian compan … ⌘ Read more

AI Mistakes Are Infuriating Gamers as Developers Seek Savings
The $200 billion video game industry is caught between studios eager to cut ballooning development costs through AI and a player base that has grown openly hostile to the technology after a string of visible blunders.

As Bloomberg news, Arc Raiders, a surprise hit from Stockholm-based Embark Studios that sold 12 million copies in three months, was br … ⌘ Read more

Metacritic Will Kick Out Media Attempting To Submit AI Generated Reviews
An anonymous reader shares a report: While some see AI as a tool to be used, its specific use and how it is deployed responsibly is being heavily debated online across a wide range of industries. In terms of journalistic content, and in this particular instance, reviews, review aggregator Metacritic has taken a firm stance on con … ⌘ Read more

@kingdomcome@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz Oh, that brings back memories! I’ve played minetest one and half centuries ago. Some classmates and I tried to recreate our computer science building at the time. The proportions didn’t work out, but it still kinda worked. Minetest was one of the very few games I played a bit more extensively.

New York Sues Valve For Enabling ‘Illegal Gambling’ With Loot Boxes
New York state has filed a lawsuit against Valve alleging that randomized loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2 amount to a form of unregulated gambling, letting users “pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value.” From a report: While many randomized video game loot boxes have dr … ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net I see. Well that’s not how I think of the term “Isomorphic” 🤣 I keep thinking about graphics and isomorphic games 😅

Intel Vulkan Driver Sees Some Minor Optimizations For DX12 Games On Linux
Merged to Mesa 26.1-devel this week is a minor improvement to the Intel “ANV” Vulkan driver providing some slight enhancements to DirectX 12 games running on Linux by way of Valve’s Steam Play with VKD3D-Proton… ⌘ Read more

Xbox Co-founder Says Microsoft is Quietly Sunsetting the Platform
Seamus Blackley, one of the original founders of Xbox who helped convince Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to back a console project more than 26 years ago, told GamesBeat in an interview that he believes Microsoft is quietly sunsetting the platform under the guise of an AI-driven leadership transition.

Microsoft recently announced that Asha Shar … ⌘ Read more

Lutris 0.5.21 Adds Support For Running Games Inside Valve’s Latest Steam Runtime
Lutris 0.5.21 is now available as the latest version of this open-source Linux game manager. With Lutris 0.5.21 comes some new runners for executing games in different environments… ⌘ Read more

Billions of Dollars Later and Still Nobody Knows What an Xbox Is
Microsoft has spent more than $76 billion acquiring game studios and publishers over the past few years in an attempt to turn Xbox into a Netflix-like subscription platform, and the result is that nobody – possibly not even Microsoft – can clearly articulate what Xbox actually is anymore, The Verge writes.

The brand started as a powerful video … ⌘ Read more

New Microsoft Gaming CEO Has ‘No Tolerance For Bad AI’
In her first major interview as Microsoft’s new gaming chief, Asha Sharma said that “great games” must deliver emotional resonance and a distinct creative voice, while making clear that she has “no tolerance for bad AI.” Stepping in after Phil Spencer’s retirement, she’s pledging consistency, community trust, and a human-first approach to storytelling as Xbox enters … ⌘ Read more

I just found out this super cool Arkanoid / Breakout style game: Breakout 71!

Pro-Gamer Consumer Movement ‘Stop Killing Games’ Will Launch NGOs in America and the US
The consumer movement Stop Killing Games “has come a long way in the two years since
YouTuber Ross Scott got mad about Ubisoft’s
destruction of The Crew in 2024,” writes the gaming news site PC Gamer. “The short version is, he won: 1.3 million people signed the group’s petition, mandating its considerati … ⌘ Read more

The Salvation Army Opens a Digital Thrift Store On Roblox
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: The Salvation Army has launched what it calls the world’s first digital thrift store inside Roblox, an experience named Thrift Score that lets players browse virtual racks and buy digital fashion for their avatars.

While I understand the strategy of meeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha where they already spend time and money, I fe … ⌘ Read more

Meta’s Metaverse Leaves Virtual Reality
Meta is pivoting Horizon Worlds away from its original VR-centric metaverse vision and toward a mobile-first strategy, “explicitly separating” its Quest VR platform from the virtual world. TechCrunch reports: By going mobile-first, Horizon Worlds is positioning itself to compete with popular platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. “We’re in a strong position to deliver synchronous social games at sca … ⌘ Read more

Phil Spencer Retiring After 38 Years At Microsoft
Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company. “Meanwhile, Xbox President Sarah Bond, “long thought by many both inside and outside of Microsoft to be Spencer’s heir apparent, has resigned,” reports IGN. From the report: The new CEO of Microsoft Gaming will be Asha Sharma, currently the President of Microsoft’s Cor … ⌘ Read more

Intel Hiring More Linux Developers - Including For GPU Drivers / Linux Gaming Stack
As some good news out of Intel today on the Linux/open-source side following last year’s layoffs, they’re hiring for some new Linux software development roles – including for enhancing their Linux graphics driver stack that also includes a focus on Linux gaming with the likes of Valve’s Proton (Steam Play)… ⌘ Read more

Intel Vulkan Driver Lands One-Line Change That Can Bring Minor Performance Benefits
Merged today to Mesa 26.1 Git is a one-line change to the Intel “ANV” Vulkan driver that is showing to deliver some slight performance benefits or up to 3% noted in some select games… ⌘ Read more

GameHub Will Give Mac Owners Another Imperfect Way To Play Windows Games
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For a while now, Mac owners have been able to use tools like CrossOver and Game Porting Toolkit to get many Windows games running on their operating system of choice. Now, GameSir plans to add its own potential solution to the mix, announcing that a version of its existing Wi … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Released
Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: KDE Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile too) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.6.

In this new major release, Spectacle can recognize texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keyboard and new login manager a … ⌘ Read more

A YouTuber’s $3M Movie Nearly Beat Disney’s $40M Thriller at the Box Office
Mark Fischbach, the YouTube creator known as Markiplier who has spent nearly 15 years building an audience of more than 38 million subscribers by playing indie-horror video games on camera, has pulled off something that most independent filmmakers never manage – a self-financed, self-distributed debut feature that has … ⌘ Read more

Valve’s Steam Deck OLED Will Be ‘Intermittently’ Out of Stock Because of the RAM Crisis
Valve has updated the Steam Deck website to say that the Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock “intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.” From a report: The PC gaming handheld has been out of stock in the US and other parts of the world for a few days, and thanks to this update, we … ⌘ Read more

Lutris 0.5.20 Linux Game Manager Brings New Features, Wine Wayland Option
For fans of Lutris as the open-source desktop client for installing and playing many games on Linux, Lutris 0.5.20 is out today with new features that further enhance the integration with different emulators and compatibility layers… ⌘ Read more

Sony May Push Next PlayStation To 2028 or 2029 as AI-fueled Memory Chip Shortage Upends Plans
Sony is considering delaying the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029 as a global shortage of memory chips – driven by the AI industry’s rapidly growing appetite for the same DRAM that goes into gaming hardware, smartphones, and laptops – squeezes supply and sends p … ⌘ Read more

InputPlumber 0.74 Released With Hardware Support Improvements
InputPlumber 0.74 is now available for this open-source input routing and control daemon for Linux systems. InputPlumber enables combining of multiple input devices, emulating different inputs, and a variety of other features particularly of benefit for Linux gaming… ⌘ Read more

Godot 4.7 Making Progress On Vulkan Ray-Tracing
One of the latest exciting developments for the open-source Godot game engine is beginning to lay out support for Vulkan ray-tracing… ⌘ Read more

Well it’s ~2am and I finally defeated the AI player in a game of Frontier Crown 👑 – On that note I’m now going to bed, I’ve made so many improvements to the aesthetics (UX) of the game, the mechanics, and it’s now quite nicely playable 👌 G’night! 😴

HP Now Rents Gaming Laptops
HP has quietly launched a gaming laptop subscription service called the OMEN Gaming Subscription that lets customers pay a monthly fee to use one of several gaming laptops but never actually own the hardware, even after paying well past the machine’s retail price.

The service ranges from $50 a month for an HP Victus 15-inch laptop with an RTX 4050 to $130 a month for an Omen Max 16 with an RTX 5080. At current sale prices, … ⌘ Read more

CrossOver 26 Released - Powered By Wine 11.0 For Windows Apps/Games On Linux + macOS
CodeWeavers just announced CrossOver 26, the newest version of their commercial software built atop Wine for running Windows games and applications under Apple macOS and Linux… ⌘ Read more

Autodesk Takes Google To Court Over AI Movie Software Named ‘Flow’
Autodesk has sued Google in San Francisco federal court, alleging the search giant infringed its “Flow” trademark by launching competing AI-powered software for movie, TV and video game production in May 2025.

Autodesk says it has used the Flow name since September 2022 and that Google assured it would not commercialize a product under the sam … ⌘ Read more

National Football League Launches Challenge to Improve Facemasks and Reduce Concussions
As Super Bowl Sunday comes to a close, America’s National Football League “is challenging innovators to improve the facemask on football helmets to reduce concussions in the game,” reports the Associated Press:

The league announced on Friday at an innovation summit for the Super Bowl the next round … ⌘ Read more

Prankster Launches Super Bowl Party For AI Agents
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: The world’s biggest football game comes to Silicon Valley today — so one bored programmer built a site where AI agents can gather for a Super Bowl party. They’re trash talking, suggesting drinks, and predicting who will win. “Humans are welcome to observe,” explains BotBowlParty.com — but just like at Moltbook, only AI ag … ⌘ Read more

Wine-Staging 11.2 Brings More Patches To Help Adobe Photoshop On Linux
Building off Friday’s release of Wine 11.2 is now Wine-Staging 11.2 as this experimental/testing version of Wine with hundreds of extra patches that have yet to be introduced in upstream proper for this open-source software enabling Windows games and applications on Linux. Notable in this bi-weekly update are more patches for continuing to improve the Adobe Photoshop installer support on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Toyota Developing A Console-Grade, Open-Source Game Engine - Using Flutter & Dart
Well, here’s an unexpected combination… Toyota’s Toyota Connected North America unit is developing a console-grade open-source game engine. Making it even more unusual is their engineering choices of building around the Flutter toolkit and in turn the Dart programming language. This new game engine creation is called Fluorite… ⌘ Read more

System76’s COSMIC Desktop Planning Vulkan Renderer, Improved Gaming Experience
Following December’s release of COSMIC Epoch 1 along with the Pop!_OS 24.04 release by System76, today they shared more of their feature plans for the next two major COSMIC desktop updates… ⌘ Read more

One Line Fix Coming For Achieving Better Linux Performance On The HP OMEN 8E41 Laptop
A one-line patch to the HP WMI x86 platform driver for Linux was posted for allowing the HP OMEN Transcend Gaming Laptop 14-fb1xxx to correctly hit its rated TDP limit for allowing better performance outside of the Microsoft Windows confines… ⌘ Read more

AMD Hints the Next-Gen Xbox Console Could Launch Next Year
An anonymous reader shares a report: Speaking during an earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Lisa Su stated that its development of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox SoC is “progressing well to support a launch in 2027.”

While the comment doesn’t outright confirm the next Xbox will release next year, it indicates that the Microsoft could be ready to launch soon.

[![](ht … ⌘ Read more

Leveraging urunc For Efficiently Running BSD Applications In Linux Environments
While there is the Linuxulator as a kernel-level solution on FreeBSD for running unmodified Linux binaries that can even work for gaming on FreeBSD, running BSD applications on Linux isn’t talked about as much. But developers have found that for those wanting to run BSD applications in Linux environments, the urunc lightweight container runtime can work out rather well for efficiently handling BSD apps on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Adobe Is Killing A Popular Animation And Game Development Program
Adobe has emailed users of Adobe Animate to let them know the popular animation and game development program will be discontinued on March 1, an abrupt decision that has angered animators and game developers who say the tool remains an industry standard in television and game production.

Animate, the successor to the once-popular Flash, is wid … ⌘ Read more

The Switch is Now Nintendo’s Best-Selling Console of All Time
The original Switch is officially Nintendo’s best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. From a report: In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintend … ⌘ Read more

Steam Survey Results For January 2026
After Steam on Linux gaming hit a record high in December of 3.58%, the January 2026 numbers are now published… ⌘ Read more

Five French Ubisoft Unions Call For Massive International Strike Over ‘Cost-Cutting’ and Ending of Remote Work
Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers “have called for a ‘massive international strike’,” reports the gaming news site Aftermath.

The move follows a “series of layoffs and cancellations” at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls … ⌘ Read more

Linuxulator-Steam-Utils To Enjoy Steam Play Gaming On FreeBSD & Other Options
Presented today at FOSDEM in Brussels was the state of gaming on FreeBSD by Thibault Payet. Besides various open-source games able to be compiled natively for FreeBSD, this BSD can get in on the Steam Play gaming scene thanks to the “linuxulator-steam-utils” project as a set of workarounds for the Steam Linux client on FreeBSD 14 and newer. Linuxulator-steam-utils builds off FreeBSD’s Linuxulator support for running Linux binaries to enjoy t … ⌘ Read more

Videogame Stocks Slide On Google’s AI Model That Turns Prompts Into Playable Worlds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Shares of videogame companies fell sharply in afternoon trading on Friday after Alphabet’s Google rolled out its artificial intelligence model capable of creating interactive digital worlds with simple prompts. Shares of “Grand Theft Auto” maker Take-Two Intera … ⌘ Read more