32-bit software should be functionally obsolete, but it turns out to live on in a 64-bit computing world. So, Canonical is putting 32-bit libraries back in to its next Ubuntu Linux releases.

Steam is dropping official support for Ubuntu, which is currently the world's most popular desktop Linux distribution. The bombshell news was delivered by

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is an amazing experience. The title focuses on historic armies and significant conflicts that have occurred in the past. The first game spawned a couple of sequels, but there's something about the original that stands the test of time. In our review, we said, "If you somehow managed to miss out on trying the original Age of Empires, this is your time to get stuck in. The Definitive Edition is an excellent nod to the classic title that made the series what it is today."

In a big move for its approach to PC gaming, Microsoft has announced that it's planning to bring more Xbox Game Studios games to Steam, freeing them from the confines of the Microsoft Store. That store itself isn't dead and gone—it's part of Microsoft's plans for bringing the Xbox Game Pass subscription service to PC, which it also announced today. But it will no longer be the only way to play those first-party games on PC.

Borderlands 2 has seen a huge increase in concurrent players on Steam in the last week, no doubt a result of escalating interest in the series following the reveal of Borderlands 3. The game peaked just shy of 60K players last weekend—59,033 according to Steam Charts (highlighted here on GitHype). The review scores remain Very Positive on both Borderlands 2 and the original game, though closer inspection will show that both games have seen recent 'off-topic review activity'—read more about those review bombing efforts here.

Valve’s Steam platform moderators will start responding to flagged posts on game discussion boards.

Valve has changed the way it shares revenue with developers on Steam—and it's good news for games that make a lot of money. Currently, revenue for Steam games is split 70/30 between the developer and Valve. But from now on, Valve will only take a 25% cut of any earnings over and above $10 million, and only 20% of earnings beyond $50 million. The first $10 million will still be split 70/30, and the change will impact any revenue earned after October 1 this year.

Upcoming open-world RPG Rage 2 was present at The Game Awards this week, offering up a new trailer and a release date. However, this isn’t the only new information about the game that has just been confirmed. Bethesda has also shared details about its launch plans for the title but not all fans are happy about it.

Valve has revealed that the Steam Winter Sale 2018 begins later today. Players will be able to purchase great titles that will be on sale for a limited time. In a post on its site, Valve has revealed that the Steam Winter sale 2018 will start on 20 December. In addition, Valve also revealed their annual Steam Awards, the 2018 nominees have been announced and voting begins today and lasts till 3 January 2019. The winners will be announced in February 2019.

Small developers are losing confidence that Valve is earning its 30% of Steam sales, according to a new survey. In 2017, 39% of developers agreed that Valve had earned its share, but that number has dropped to 11% in this year’s survey. Lars Doucet, who has run this survey for three years, is quick to note that these results are not scientific – but they do put numbers to issues developers have lately been in heated discussions over.

Steam, unquestionably, needs a sizeable competitor. With a significant monopoly on the PC games market, such that present rivals like GOG and Humble barely take a dent out of its audience, Valve is able to take an infuriatingly lackadaisical approach to many aspects of Steam. Something to scare them into action would be marvellous. And while not optimistic, I’d hoped that maybe Epic, with their lorries full of money, might be able to try. Except, with yet another exclusivity announcement today regarding Metro: Exodus, they’re going about it entirely the wrong way.

A newly-discovered bit of developer documentation suggests Valve has big plans in mind for third-party developers of multiplayer games. Most notably, it looks like Valve is working toward letting developers host their games through the company’s own dedicated servers. Exactly how this will work in practice remains to be seen, but the feature is currently in beta among some some number of developers.

Just weeks prior to the release of Metro Exodus, publisher Deep Silver made a very controversial decision; to make the game exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC. The game had already been available to pre-order on Steam, and so the decision prompted widespread anger from PC gamers. The Metro series was review-bombed on Steam, and although Deep Silver did honour existing Steam pre-orders, it is no longer possible to purchase the game on the platform; only those who pre-ordered are able to play Metro Exodus on Steam.

During its GDC 2019 Unreal keynote this morning, Epic announced that it has partnered with 2K's Private Division label to distribute The Outer Worlds and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey on the Epic Games Store. PC Gamer has learned that The Outer Worlds will also release on the Microsoft Store, but will not appear on other stores on PC for at least a year—that includes Steam.

After years of rumors and leaked mockup images, it's finally happening: Steam's library is getting a new look. This isn't a full-on redesign of Steam in its entirety, so the store and other parts of the interface aren't changing as far as we know. In its keynote at GDC on Thursday, Valve showed off the new library view, highlighting a redesigned page with large game thumbnails and more categorization around what's going on with your games.

Black Mesa is a fan-made remake of the original Half-Life which was excellent enough to be approved for sale on Steam. It’s been in Early Access since it hit Steam in 2015, and we’ve spent most of that time waiting for the frequently-delayed Xen release. Black Mesa has been in various stages of development for over 14 years now, and this month its development time has surpassed that of Duke Nukem Forever.

At this point, we're actually a little tired of stories about "review bombing," where various put-upon groups of gamers gather together to leave a flood a negative user reviews, often for issues that have nothing to do with the game itself. But this week's flood of positive reviews for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Unity on Steam is a different (and much rarer) story altogether.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been making some bold claims on Twitter, which is always fun for spectators and perhaps terrifying for investors. Once again, the subject is the Epic Games Store's divisive exclusivity strategy, which has ruffled feathers while taking a fair number of prominent games off Steam. Sweeney claims all of that will end if Steam commits to an 88 percent revenue share for developers.

While it’s ostensibly pretty amazing that Steam’s population now equals almost a seventh of that of the entire world, a significant number of these are undoubtedly spam, scam, alt, and bot accounts. Probably tens, maybe hundreds of millions. One in seven people on the planet are not PC gamers.

/u/Autumnal created a steam group for us Snapzites to game in. Come join!

We are currently organizing a Civ 5 game with only snapzu members and no AIs

I am Bread is the dumbest thing to come along since Goat Simulator.

Displays status of Steam client, Steam store, Steam community, Dota 2, TF2 and CSGO

TotalBiscuit introduces his second Steam curator page, committed to documenting all the games locked to 30fps on Steam. It will also provide a useful acid test as to who gets offended over a light-hearted curator group name.

I requested the refund for both games at 10:53PM and by 12:15AM, both games had been refunded. This was refreshing that it was this easy.

t's difficult to pinpoint what type of gameplay genre for this game, which makes it interesting from the get go. It's true that the Linux platform has more than enough action games, but one more that doesn't fit any genre could be quite welcome.

Since the time Valve began publicly tracking hours-played in July 2009, I’ve launched 341 different games from Steam. Today, Steam adds at least that many games each month and a half—55 each week, on average, or almost eight per day. There’s no question that Steam is saturated. Steam grew by 561 games in 2013, but added 1,814 in 2014. Seven months into 2015, there’s already 1,592 new games on Steam. But is that truly a problem?

The Talos Principle is a first-person puzzle game in the tradition of philosophical science fiction. Made by Croteam, the creators of Serious Sam, and written by Tom Jubert (FTL, The Swapper) and Jonas Kyratzes (The Sea Will Claim Everything).

PC players have long been used to an “all sales are final” policy on their games. In the US, most shops wouldn’t accept a return after the box had been opened (at least, not without a knock-down, drag-out fight at the customer service desk). In the digital era, refunds have been extremely rare, and most digital stores wouldn’t offer them except in truly unusual circumstances. But two months ago, practically out-of-the-blue, Valve turned that on its head. You could get refunds on Steam...

Energy Hook, the new swinging game from the creator of the swinging mechanic from Spider-Man 2, launches on Steam Early Access this week.

Handheld player for your Steam library.

Windows 10 may already be used by over 5% of all PCs worldwide, but the hardcore PC gaming community has apparently taken to Microsoft's latest OS on an even bigger scale. Just over a month after its launch, over 17% of the tens of millions of PC gamers who use Valve's Steam service are already using Windows 10. Valve's hardware survey of its Steam users, updated for the month of...

Steam offers PC gamers the option to return video games. I used to be skeptical of the notion. Video games can be big. They can take time to reveal their best self. I am only a couple hours into Mad Max, and if I hadn’t received the copy for review, I would be demanding a refund. Mad Max isn’t a mediocre video game, doomed by technical flaws or shoddy art design. Mad Max is beautiful, and, unlike so many better games released this year...

An educational video game has been edited following a social media backlash over a scene depicting slaves being packed into a ship. The creators of "Playing History: Slave Trade" removed a level Monday which featured black slave characters being dropped into a ship similar to the video game "Tetris." "Apologies to people who were offended by us using game mechanics to underline the point of how inhumane slavery was," read a statement posted on the game's page...

Idea Factory International announced on Monday that it will bring its 'Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3 V Generation' game to the PC via Steam on October 30. The company previously released the game on the PS Vita in Japan last December, and in North America on June 30.