Valve released a new Steam client update on March 9. Notably, users can now attach hardware specifications when writing or editing reviews on a game’s store page. The client can also optionally collect anonymized gameplay framerate data.

When enabled, Steam records framerate information based on hardware type, without linking it to specific accounts. Valve states this data will improve compatibility insights across systems. The feature is currently in beta and initially targets SteamOS devices.

Valve Corporation makers of Steam are facing yet another lawsuit, this time around video game audio from the Performing Right Society (PRS) in the UK.

That's on top of the ongoing issue in the UK from Vicki Shotbolt that was recently given the go-ahead, and from New York on their lootboxes. Although, Valve did recently win their case against patent troll Rothschild and associated companies.

What's interesting is that this new lawsuit is centred around games generally being sold and downloaded on Steam, it's not specifically to do with Valve's own games. It's about Valve being the supplier of the games under the UK's Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (Section 20). So not only do games need their music licenses, but Valve as a store is supposed to have a license too.

Valve released a new stable Steam Client update today, which brings a few interesting new features related to their hardware surveys and Steam user reviews, as well as improvements for Proton games on Linux, and other changes.

The new Steam Client update introduces an option to attach hardware specs when writing or updating a Steam User Review on a game’s store page, adds notification settings for showing a toast and playing a sound when an achievement is unlocked, and adds an option to provide anonymized framerate data.

SteamInputDB recently launched as a new third-party community site to help you find Steam Input configurations for various gamepads with Steam games.

It was inspired by an older site that's no longer around called SteamControllerDB, that helped you find Steam Controller configurations for various games. The developer of SteamInputDB decided to take that idea and make it much bigger - to cover lots of different gamepad controllers. No more messing around in Steam directly trying to find what you need, now you can just easily search online and it all hooks directly into the Steam API.

Just bought it and have some questions about legacy characters

If I keep leveling them up, will they eventually die of old age?

Can I reuse legacy characters if the next chapter is hundreds of years in the future?

Inside this spoiler: boring yapping that gives more context ↓

I've been playing demos from the Steam Next Fest religiously since it started (back then it was just called Steam Games Festival I think, it was around 2021).

(seen on the picture attached) I have one sheet of A5 paper per edition, around 60 to 90 demos played every time, and notes written on the back, I keep notes of the demos I play, and highlight those that are interesting enough, those that I wishlisted, those that aren't worth my time, etc. forgive the dirty mousepad lol

I never shared those, except to friends by just copy pasting links, but I thought it would be interesting to share a "top" 5 in multiple made up categories that I pay attention to, there's no specific ranking within this top 5, so it's more like the 5 best X I noticed in no particular order

I'm not done playing my list so this post may be incomplete, and I will update it throughout the weekend

5 Takeaways:

• This is the best edition yet, with a lot of diversity in genres and gameplay ideas (the worst two editions were in 2025 I believe, which had an overwhelming amount of survival crafting / farming games)
• AI and asset flips games are still rising, per https://nextfeststats.com/ when it launched, half of the ~3500 submitted games had disclosed generative AI usage, they later updated that number (it's down to 700 now)
• The most successful demos were those that saw marketing efforts being put in motion 1 to 2 months before the festival, and have their release planned within the next 3 months. The bigger games aren't necessarily the most interesting, I only base this on my pattern recognition, but more often than not, 20+ Gigs games were not that interesting, while "lighter" games had more creativity. I'm extremely biased because I favour indie games rather than AA+ productions.
• Prevalent genres : still a lot of balatro-likes and survivor-likes. The extraction shooter genre is on the rise too.
• More and more games are trying to be optimized for the Steam Deck, I saw two or three demos with a dedicated "Steam Deck" graphic options!

My 5 favourite demos:

• Whisk is incredible, so many movement options contained within the few mechanics available, great speedrun potential, great art
• The Magus Circle is Vampire Surivors but you draw your spells on the screen like Arx Fatalis, it's super creative in how it completely changes the gameplay, I'm not the audience for this genre, but I will play this one because of how unique it is
• Denshattack! is completely crazy and feels super good to play, I liked it more than Deadline Delivery in which driving felt off for me
• Enter The Chronosphere superb twist on Superhot-but-topdown, love the artstyle, love the introduction to the game mechanics, for me this is textbook perfect demo to present an upcoming game
• ...

5 Disappointments

• SpaceCraft was released too early imo, the build is incomplete, unstable, the demos doesn't properly show its gameplay appeal, I expected a better marketing cycle from Shiro Games, but I remember Wartales had the same problems
• People of Note I don't know how to explain it but it fails to be an interesting rhythm game, it works alright as a music themed turn by turn combat game but why not fully lean into the genre?
• Truckful A demo build existed prior to this festival (without participating in the October '25 edition), but the one available this time is much worse in terms of gameplay available (lots of back and forth), and doesn't introduce the game properly
• ...
• ...

Best Steam Capsules (irrelevant of game qualities, you'll notice I'm a sucker for high contrast and great typography):

• 1848 Ex Voto
• Bylina
• Deified
• How Many Dudes?
• Shanty Town

Best Art Direction:

• Cicadamata People might fight me on this but I absolutely love the underlying themes and user interface look
• Esoteric Ebb Really excited about a Disco Elysium-like, sidenote, I'm not sure the DnD system is a good fit for this kind of game, still, the dev handles it creatively
• Boost Vector EX Beautiful and fluid UI that lifts the rather generic artstyle
• ...
• ...

This weekend I'm going to go through games that had little to no visibility to try and find the "underperforming" demos (that people should pay attention to)!

Write up by @inlandempire@jlai.lu

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4352280/Verminsteel/?curator_clanid=4218320

FINAL FANTASY VII - 2013 Edition owners can redeem the new version at no extra cost.

The world has fallen under the dominion of the Shinra Electric Power Company, a sinister corporation that has monopolized the planet's very life force as Mako energy. In the urban megalopolis of Midgar, an anti-Shinra rebel group calling themselves Avalanche have stepped up their campaign of resistance. Cloud Strife, a former member of Shinra's elite SOLDIER unit now turned mercenary, lends his aid to the rebels, unaware that he will be drawn into an epic battle for the fate of the planet, while having to come to terms with his own lost past. This new release is an upgraded version of FINAL FANTASY VII – 2013 Edition with additional features (there are no changes or additions to the story).

Here we go again, a mad dash to play as many demos as possible with the Steam Next Fest - February 2026 event now live.

I'm hoping that more developers will choose to keep their demos live, as a lot of them tend to vanish pretty quickly after the event closes. There's a certain level of FOMO to these events, but they're still a great way to potentially try out something that could end up being your next purchase. As usual there will also be a number of developer chats and livestreams throughout the week.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/technology/p/540647/hw-news-more-valve-ram-shortages-tariffs-ruling-ai-causes-ps6-delays-hard-drive-price-hike

• Invidious
• Youtube

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1902940/Snacktorio/?curator_clanid=4218320

Snacktorio is a factory-cooking automation game from the developer of APICO and Mudborne, and looks to be another great indie game to try out. A demo has gone live ahead of Steam Next Fest, with Native Linux support too just like their previous games.

Inspired by the likes of old Minecraft mods, as well as factory games like Satisfactory and Factorio — here instead of manufacturing random resources, you're turning recipes into full production lines to feed hungry monsters. Pushing around various ingredients through pipes and machines to serve up some tasty dishes.

The case of Valve versus Leigh Rothschild and all associated companies has come to an end, with Valve coming out the clear winner in this one.

For those unfamiliar, Rothschild has a lot of patents and has a habit of going after various companies to try and get money out of them. They even tried to sue GNOME, as just one appropriate example here.

It sure took a while for this situation to be solved, with a first case being originally filed in 2022 from Display Technologies LLC (a patent holding company from Rothschild). The patent in question, US8856221B2, covers a "System and method for storing broadcast content in a cloud-based computing environment". This caused Valve to file their own suit in 2023 which targeted Rothschild directly, various companies and even their lawyers.