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.

A few days ago I made a post here inquiring as to why startmail addresses couldn't be used on steam, and what people thought I should/could do.

In the end after some suggestions, I opened a support ticket with steam asking why startmail was not supported, and in the end managed to convince them to support it as a valid email address (unless it gets abused - more on that later). For the record, here is my entire back-and-forth with them:

Me on Feb 13 @ 10:35am

Dear Steam Support,

I recently changed my email provider to startmail.com, but when I try to update it in my steam account to this address I get an error that its not valid or unsupported.

Since startmail.com is a paid service based in Europe, I would like clarification on why it is not supported by steam, and hopefully have it added to the valid email providers for steam.

The fact that its a paid service means scammers/people trying to abuse it is unlikely (it costs around 60 euro a year), so I really think there should be no issue accepting it as an email address.

I would really appreciate having this issue resolved so that I can change my email address to my new one, and close my previous email account eventually.

Thank you in advance, [My name]

Steam on Feb 14 @ 6:27pm

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

The email address you're trying to use on your Steam account is not currently valid for use with Steam. Typically this is because the email service has been identified as offering disposable emails, but it may also be because the email address domain or domain suffix has been marked as prohibited for use with Steam for one of a number of reasons.

At this time Steam does not offer an option to bypass this restriction. Please select a different address on a different domain/service to use with your Steam account.

Steam Support [Steam Support Person A's Name]

Me on Feb 14 @ 6:44pm

You are correct that they offer disposable addresses, but they have the format @use.startmail.com

The main address looks like @startmail.com

Is there any possibility of having a team look into this, and blacklist the disposable format but allow the regular format (of which you can only have a single address, like your main email).

Besides, gmail (which is my current address) also allows for creating disposable addresses: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/techtips/how-to-create-a-disposable-email-address-with-gmail/

I think many people, myself included, would like to move away from big tech companies such as microsoft (hotmail) and google (gmail) and so would appreciate your consideration on the matter.

Many thanks, [My name]

Steam on Feb 16 @ 5:44am

Sorry about the previous message. We misunderstood your issue.

Anyway, we're unable to do your request, but we can help you update the email address on the account.

Please provide your new email address. Once we have your alternate address, we will update the account.

Steam Support [Steam Support Person B's Name]

Me on Feb 16 @ 7:56am

Hello, no worries.

I hope Im not misunderstanding your reply myself now, but as I understand it, you will manually change my account email to my new startmail address?

If that's the case, here it is:

my_email@startmail.com

Just in case I have not yet managed to convince you to whitelist the regular startmail addresses, here is an article discussing this from them: https://support.startmail.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007297457-Personal-Aliases

Note this paragraph: "Personal alias allows you to send and receive email at an email address different from your main StartMail account address. These email aliases end in @use.startmail.com instead of @startmail.com." (if address has use in it, is an alias, otherwise its the regular type)

Many thanks for your help. If I misunderstood what you need from me, I apologise, please clarify it for me.

Best regards, [My name]

Steam on Feb 17 @ 3:39am

Hello,

I'm sorry, it looks like our team provided some incorrect information that ended up being misleading.

Steam Support will occasionally manually allow single email addresses that use a personal domain, but large scale services like Startmail do not match what's intended for those cases. We're sorry the team provided false information above.

Your report will be passed on to Steam's developers, but please understand that Steam does not make decisions regarding email / domain viability lightly. When a domain is blocked, it's usually because that email service offers disposable or public email services which are by their very nature incompatible with Steam, or their requirements to sign up for a new email account are extremely permissive and thus allow wide scale misuse of emails on that service for hijacking, fraud, and even potentially illegal activity. Email services are only blocked from use with Steam after demonstrated, large scale misuse from users of that service.

Valve [Steam Support Person C's Name]

Me on Feb 17 @ 7:16am

Very well, however please pass on the following information to your team as well, which can be easily verified from startmail's own page and may be helpful in making a decision:

"their requirements to sign up for a new email account are extremely permissive and thus allow wide scale misuse of emails on that service for hijacking, fraud, and even potentially illegal activity."

As mentioned, startmail is a paid service. It costs about 60 euro a year to create an account. Thats not exactly permissive, certainly not more so than gmail for example.

"Email services are only blocked from use with Steam after demonstrated, large scale misuse from users of that service."

Again, as mentioned in my previous replies and the information available on their own page, they have 2 email formats - not unlike gmail with their '+ email addresses'. The @startmail.com is the main one, of which you can ONLY have one, and the aliases which are probably what your team determined might lead to abuse, have the format @use.startmail.com. It would be a terrific resolution if steam could start allowing the single main addresses (@startmail.com) and blocking only the alias addresses (@use.startmail.com).

https://www.startmail.com/pricing/ (Payment details required on account creation, and the not exactly inexpensive prices of the service)

Again, thank you for taking time to speak with me about this, and for forwarding to your developers for conaideration.

Steam on Feb 19 @ 1:47am

It looks like Steam's developers have decided to open access to startmail. This has been done despite their disposable email service which is not compatible with how Steam expects its users maintain their email account with Steam. The service will be monitored and blocked again if further misuse is detected.

Valve [Steam Support Person C's Name]

Me on Feb 19 @ 2:44am

Thats great to hear! I hate to repeat myself like a broken record, but in the interest of protecting every steam user, as well as the continued allowance of startmail, please only allow the @startmail.com addresses and BLOCK the @use.startmail.com addresses (alias format).

Once again, thank you for your patience, understanding, and consideration in this issue. I will now close my ticket if able to, otherwise please do feel free to close it for me.

[My name]

I haven't checked if they actually blocked the @use.startmail.com address format, but I successfully changed my steam email to my main @startmail.com address. Hopefully they go through with blocking the aliases, and keep the regular address format as valid.

Write up by @promitheas@programming.dev

We reported recently how the Steam Deck was completely out of stock in the USA, Canada and Asia and now Valve have put up a short statement on it.

It's all very much as we expected it would be. The AI boom is affecting everything, including delaying pricing and release date info for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame - and now it has clearly hit the Steam Deck too.

In addition to the existing note about the Steam Deck LCD no longer in production which we already knew, Valve added this note to the Steam Deck store pages:

Note: Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages. Steam Deck LCD 256GB is no longer in production, and once sold out will no longer be available.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3727420/Astro_Protocol/?curator_clanid=4218320

I sure do love 4x strategy games, but they really can take forever - which is where Astro Protocol is different with its tactical approach. A space strategy 4x that doesn't waste your time, with games designed to last around an hour or so.

Astro Protocol sees you explore the galaxy, discover anomalies, colonize and terraform planets, construct space stations, and research technologies across three randomized research branches. Combat takes place on a one-unit-per-tile tactical hex map, where mistakes are costly and every move counts. Victory is earned by completing objectives or outlasting rival factions.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3832490/Antivirus_Survivors_2003_Professional/?curator_clanid=4218320

Antivirus Survivors 2003 Professional takes the idea of Vampire Survivors and everything similar, and turns you into a mouse cursor inside an infected PC. With a retro Windows style, it's actually quite funny what the developer has done with it.

How it works: you're fighting through folders, each with corruption that can harm you if you move the cursor through it and various types of viruses and adware floating around trying to take you down. There's various difficulty levels, different cursors to unlock with their own bonuses and then you pick your starting weapon. Even your weapons are funny like a bouncing DVD logo, a firewall that creates rings of fire, a pinball, hard drives that drop onto enemies and more.

After arriving on GOG early in 2025, Dino Crisis 1 and 2 are now available directly on Steam but they have issues running on Linux / SteamOS. The Steam page also notes they both come with "The Enigma Protector" DRM.

They're pretty old, so it's not really surprising that they have issues, and neither of them will work at all out of the box.

Blizzard have released Diablo II: Resurrected – Infernal Edition on Steam, a newly upgraded version of the classic action RPG and it's Steam Deck Verified too.

Oh what joy, I had to grab this as soon as possible as I have such fond memories of playing through it when I was a lot younger. Diablo 2 really is an absolute classic, and holds up really well today. With a few enhancements to it in this new addition like the new Warlock class, an expanded end-game, new items, and various quality of life updates like a loot filter perhaps now it's better than ever?

A small but useful Steam Beta update has arrived and it's an especially good one for controller players that have rumble enabled.

Turns out somehow that rumbling of your controller was causing some added latency, which Valve have hopefully fixed up in the latest update. I use multiple different controllers quite a lot, so I'm happy to see issues like this be sorted. And for all the reports of Steam Achievement pictures vanishing, that should also be solved.

Answering calls from developers, Valve have tweaked Early Access game pages to allow developers to add a full release date. Just like Coming Soon pages can list an exact date, or a period where it may release, Early Access games can now do this too.

Should hopefully help prevent a little confusion for potential purchases, and just allow developers to be a bit more upfront about how long it might take. Or, if a game is releasing soon - just a simple way for you to see. Developers aren't forced into using this though, as plenty won't know when it will be finished.

Oh dear. People Playground from mestiez / Studio Minus recently had a major problem with malware pretending to be a mod in the Steam Workshop.

I would say this is a reminder to be careful on what you're downloading - but these types of things are quite difficult for normal users to spot until it's too late. For many it was too late, since this wiped away various things. On Windows at least, it's not clear if it affected Linux (with the game run via Proton).

Another day, another load of bug fixes coming from Valve for all Steam users and an especially nice one for Linux / SteamOS if you have a lot of games.

Something that does come up now and then is that the Steam client on Linux systems (like Steam Deck) can seemingly forget it's able to run Windows games via Proton. There's a few different ways it can happen, with previous bugs already solved by Valve and now they've found another related bug to squash.

Unsurprisingly, Epic Games CEO and frequent X poster Tim Sweeney has thoughts about the $900 million lawsuit against Valve in the UK, which recently got the go-ahead from a competition tribunal. Also unsurprisingly, given his competing store and past criticism of Steam, Sweeney approves of the action, and based on his related legal tussles with Apple and Google, thinks there's something to it.

The lawsuit, filed in 2024, very broadly alleges that Valve unfairly prevents game makers from offering their products at lower prices on other platforms and requires that all add-on content for games purchased on Steam also be purchased through Steam, and that Valve's "excessive commission" has resulted in inflated prices for UK consumers. Valve had argued that the suit should not be allowed to proceed as a collective action—functionally similar to a class action—but a Competition Appeal Tribunal disagreed, ruling earlier this week that the suit can proceed.

Valve have put out a fresh Proton Experimental upgrade for SteamOS / Linux systems, which thankfully includes a fix for the EA app breaking again. Only a few days ago Valve launched the new stable Proton 10.0-4, which Proton Experimental includes plus extra fixes not yet ready for everyone. See more on all the different Proton versions in the GamingOnLinux guide.

There were quite a lot of reports across social media, Reddit, and a few on Valve's official GitHub about various games published by EA (like Mass Effect) no longer launching due to issues with the EA app. This should now be solved with the latest update!

Valve, creator of Steam, now face legal action in the UK as a lawsuit has been given the go-ahead that could result in up to £656 million in damages.

This is not technically some new legal action, it's actually the same one that was started back in 2024 from Vicki Shotbolt, the founder and CEO of Parent Zone - they're noted in the legal documents as Vicki Shotbolt Class Representative Limited ("PCR"), backed by Milberg London LLP. Shotbolt actually set up a private limited company just for this with a steamyouoweus.co.uk website.

As of the latest details from documents submitted January 26th 2026 after a hearing on October 14th 2025, the legal action has now officially been given the go-ahead as a tribunal have now been satisfied that there's enough there to be pursued.

Valve released Proton 10.0-4 today as the latest stable update to the Proton 10 series of this open-source compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components for playing Windows games on Linux.

Proton 10.0-4 adds support for new games, including Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality, Changeling VR, Summoners War: RUSH, Quantum Threshold, REACH, Fellowship, Metal Slug: Awakening, The Obsessive Shadow, Drop Dead: The Cabin, Zero Caliber 2 Remastered, and Lost Memories 3 Side Stories.

Also supported by the new Proton release is Death by Scrolling, Stellar Reach, Girls’ Frontline, Modules, Distant Worlds 2, 懒人修仙传2, Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages, and Chronology. All these games are now playable on Linux, and they previously worked if you had Proton Experimental enabled

https://github.com/tommybee456/OpenSplitDeck