A year ago the Steam Survey showed a 2.29% marketshare for Linux. Last May it reached 2.69%, its highest level since 2018. November saw another all-time high of 3.2%.

But December brought a surprise, reports Phoronix: Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised... [and] put the Linux marketshare at 3.58%, a 0.38% increase over November. Valve didn't publish any explanation for the revision but occasionally they do put out monthly revised data. This is easily an all-time high... both in percentage terms and surely in absolute terms too.

Web-based video games are experiencing an unexpected revival as the broader $189 billion industry stagnates. Sales for browser-based titles like GeoGuessr and chess were expected to triple from 2021 to 2028, reaching $3.09 billion, according to Google and Kantar. Playgama hosted more than 15,000 new web games in the first half of 2025, exceeding the combined total from 2021 through 2023.

Websites provide fast and easy access without console boot-ups or app downloads. Game creators sidestep the 30% revenue cuts imposed by Steam and Apple. Poki has doubled its employee count to 70 since 2020 and now serves 100 million monthly active users. A top-ten developer on the platform earns about $1 million in yearly revenue, up from $50,000 in 2020. Consoles cost more than $450, and smartphone gamers are downloading fewer apps. Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins predicted web games will be "one of the next waves."

"It finally happened," writes the GamingOnLinux site: Linux gamers on Steam as of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for October 2025 have crossed over the elusive 3% mark. The trend has been clear for sometime, and with Windows 10 ending support, it was quite likely this was going to be the time for it to happen as more people try out Linux...

Overall, 3% might not seem like much to some, but again — that trend is very clear and equates to millions of people. The last time Valve officially gave a proper monthly active user count was in 2022, and we know Steam has grown a lot since then, but even going by that original number would put monthly active Linux users at well over 4 million.
Additional details from Phoronix: The only time Steam on Linux use was close to the 3% mark was when Steam on Linux initially debuted a decade ago and at that time the overall Steam user-base was much smaller than it is today. Long story short, thanks to the ongoing success of Valve's Steam Deck and other handhelds plus Steam Play (Proton) working out so well, these October numbers are the best yet... a hearty 0.41% increase to Linux... landing its overall marketshare at 3.05%. Windows meanwhile was at 94.84% (falling below 95% for the first time in a while) and macOS at 2.11%. For comparison, in October 2024 Steam on Linux was at 2.00%.

The Linux-specific data shows SteamOS commanding around 27% of all the Linux installs at large. SteamOS most notably being on the Steam Deck hardware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: It's time for Xbox to eat some humble pie and perform some real soul-searching. Microsoft released its latest quarterly earnings report and proved the worst of our fears about its gaming brand. Not only are Xbox hardware sales down significantly, but the brand itself is barely treading water. Gamers are voicing their displeasure with their wallets, but Microsoft's top brass is still only thinking about the margins. Microsoft was more keen to promote the scale of its cloud and AI services revenue -- which was up 28% year over year -- than talk about its beleaguered gaming brand. The company's overall gaming revenue fell by 2% compared to the same time last year. This was precipitated by a "decline in Xbox hardware," which was down by 22% following a steady decline quarter after quarter. Its first-party games and its Game Pass subscription were doing better, though the overall growth was only up by 1%, and even that was driven by the "better-than-expected performance" of third-party games. You can give credit to titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for why Xbox isn't in an even deeper hole than it is now.

The tech giant has no expectation that its Xbox brand will start making more money anytime soon. In its earnings call with investors, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said the company expects Xbox will continue to decline "in the low to mid-single digits" for the following quarter. That's mostly due to the lack of landmark first-party titles. Just this month, Xbox released Ninja Gaiden 4, The Outer Worlds 2, and Double Fine's The Keeper. Xbox also made a huge marketing push for its first handheld, made in partnership with Asus, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X. In any other year, this would be a big month for any gaming company. The dour outlook comes after months of bad news. After two subsequent price hikes, Xbox Series S and Series X consoles now cost between $100 to $150 more than they did at launch five years ago. Microsoft also pushed prices of its Game Pass Ultimate subscription tier from $20 to $30 per month. A full-year's subscription would now demand $360. In a separate article, Gizmodo reviews Microsoft's new ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, which "offers a better experience overall" than the "other small-scale Windows PC gaming devices released this year." However, "it's still nowhere close to what you truly want from a console."

Microsoft said in a statement Monday it remains committed to developing first-party Xbox consoles. The reassurance came after rumors circulated suggesting the gaming division might abandon hardware manufacturing. The speculation gained traction following a 50% price increase for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and retailers including Costco removing Xbox products from their shelves.

Microsoft said it is "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox." The company's multi-year partnership with AMD for next-generation hardware also continues. Devices in development include the Xbox Ally range under codenames Omni and Horseman, according to Windows Central. Xbox Series X and Series S production has also not stopped, the report added.

Microsoft has announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will cost $29.99 per month, up from $19.99. The company restructured its subscription service into three tiers ahead of the October 16 launch of two Xbox ROG Ally handheld consoles. The new Essential tier offers 50-plus games for $9.99 monthly. Premium includes 200-plus games for $14.99. Ultimate subscribers gain access to more than 400 games, day-one releases, improved cloud streaming quality, and services including EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and Fortnite Crew.

Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue with 34 million subscribers in 2024. Console hardware prices are also increasing, with the Xbox Series X rising $50 to $649.99 starting October 3.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) is acquiring Niantic's gaming division for $3.5 billion through its subsidiary Savvy Games Group. Niantic's titles include the hit mobile game Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom. "Despite launching almost a decade ago, Pokemon Go is still amongst the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, with 30 million monthly players," notes the BBC. From the report: Scopely is one of the biggest names in mobile gaming, with its most successful title, Monopoly Go, being downloaded more than 50 million times and generating more than $3 billion in revenue. Pokemon itself is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures, which licensed the brand to Niantic so it could develop the game.

Ed Wu, who leads the Pokemon Go team at Niantic, said in a blog post he believed the move was "a positive step" for the game's future. "Pokemon Go is more than just a game to me, it's my life's work," he said. "I won't say that Pokemon Go will remain the same, because it has always been a work in progress. But how we create and evolve it will remain unchanged, and I hope that we can make the experience even better."

What's Linux's marketshare on Steam? The Steam Survey numbers tell this story:

11/24: 2.03%
12/24: 2.29%
01/25: 2.06%
02:25: 1.45%

"The February numbers show a staggering 0.61% drop to Linux use..." reports Phoronix. But they attribute this to an sampling error: According to the survey, it shows 50% of Steam users using the Simplified Chinese language pack [a 20% increase from the month before]. In prior months where there has been drops to Linux use, it's been correlated to wild swings in the Chinese use on Steam. This looks to be another such month.

Of the Linux specific data, SteamOS continues to prove most popular for that Valve distribution powering the Steam Deck [at 34.67%, with Arch Linux coming in second at 9.7%].

AMD CPUs power around 70% of the Linux gaming systems thanks to the Steam Deck APU and AMD Ryzen being quite popular with Linux enthusiasts.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Blizzard Entertainment first released World of Warcraft in November 2004, so The New York Times celebrated the anniversary by outlining the many ways we can still see the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game's influence's 20 years later.

For one thing, while multiplayer games and early social networks such as MySpace already existed, WoW provided a real preview of a future where everyone would connect to friends and strangers online. For another, the game made billions of dollars with a business model combining monthly subscriptions with in-game purchases (including for pets and animals that players could ride), becoming a massive cash cow for Blizzard and pointing the way to future internet business models.

Microsoft is seeking to boost its video games business with the release of the latest instalment of the Call of Duty franchise on Friday, pushing to increase subscription revenues through the new game to offset falling Xbox console sales. Financial Times: Black Ops 6 is the first of the best-selling series to be launched on the tech giant's Game Pass subscription service. It represents the biggest test of the company's gaming strategy [non-paywalled link] since its $75bn deal to acquire Activision Blizzard -- makers of Call of Duty -- received sign-off from regulators last year. Microsoft hopes that the release will help achieve its target of reaching 110mn Game Pass subscribers by 2030, a substantial rise from 34mn in February this year.

The company has shifted its focus towards its subscription games service as hardware sales have slowed in recent years. Xbox hardware revenue fell 13 per cent year-on-year in Microsoft's fiscal 2024, which ended in June. For the first time this year, subscribers to Game Pass, who can already access a growing library of Xbox titles for as long as they keep paying a monthly fee, will be able to access the latest Call of Duty without having to pay a traditional price of $70 or more for the packaged game. Microsoft is still making the game available to buy on PlayStation, after concerns from regulators during the Activision merger probe that it might make the title exclusive to its own platform.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For years now, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass has set itself apart by offering subscribers launch-day access to new first-party titles in addition to a large legacy library of older games. That important "day one" perk is now set to go away for all but the highest tier of Game Pass' console subscribers, even as Microsoft asks for more money for Game Pass across the board. Let's start with the price increases for existing Game Pass tiers, which are relatively straightforward:

"Game Pass Ultimate" is going from $16.99 to $19.99 per month.
"Game Pass for PC" is going from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.
"Game Pass Core" (previously known as Xbox Live Gold) is going from $59.99 to $74.99 for annual subscriptions (and remains at $9.99 for monthly subscriptions).
Things get a bit more complicated for the $10.99/month "Xbox Game Pass for Console" tier.

Microsoft announced that it will no longer accept new subscriptions for that tier after today, though current subscribers will be able to keep it (for now) if they auto-renew their subscriptions.

GameMaker announced that it will be free to use for noncommercial, non-console projects, breaking away from Unity and its massive pricing controversy that saw game developers boycotting the engine. The company is also "eliminating its indie / creator tier monthly subscription fee in favor of a one-time paid licensing fee of $99," reports The Verge. "Additionally, if you're currently enrolled at the indie / creator tier and wish to pay the licensing fee, the subscription fees you've paid will be discounted from the price." The Verge: Russell Kay, head of GameMaker, said that the changes were a way for the company to express its thanks to users, explaining that, since 2021, GameMaker has seen its user base triple in size. Kay also had some subtle but effective shade for GameMaker's competitors. "We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms, so we thought, what if we did the opposite, something that could actually be good for developers?" Kay wrote in the announcement.

Though customers currently enrolled in an enterprise-level subscription will see no changes to their plans, it seems like GameMaker is counting on the pricing update to draw more people to the software. "Our success is measured by the number of people making games!" Kay wrote.

In an online Q&A Friday, Unity president Marc Whitten said they're pursuing a "sustainable" long-term future for Unity by creating a "shared success" business model that still allows for "massively, deeply investing in the engine". But Whitten began with acknowledging they had work to do to earn trust. "I just want to say that I'm sorry. I know it's been a very tough week to hear a bunch of the very well-deserved feedback on the changes we made. It's very clear we did not take enough feedback, listen to enough feedback before we rolled out the program."

Ars Technica writes> : If there's one thing Unity Create President and General Manager Marc Whitten wants to make clear, it's that he appreciates your feedback. "It's been a very feedback-giving week for Unity," Whitten told Ars, possibly the biggest understatement he made during an interview accompanying the new, scaled-back fee structure plans... "There was a lot more [feedback than we expected] for sure... I think that feedback has made us better, even though it has sometimes been difficult."

But Whitten was also quick to find the bright side of the tsunami of backlash that came Unity's way in the week since the company announced its (now outdated) plans for per-install fees of up to $0.20 on all Unity games starting in 2024. That's because that anger reflected "the extraordinary passion that our community has for their craft, their livelihoods, and their tools, including Unity," Whitten said. "When Unity disappoints them, in a way where they're overly surprised or whatever, they give very, very critical feedback. I don't love hearing every single one of those pieces of feedback — sometimes they can be pretty pointed — but I love that that passion exists."

"They let us know when we disappoint them," he added. "That's not always easy to hear, but it's really, really great feedback, and it makes us better...."

Whitten said he hopes the new fee structure — which removes ongoing fees for free Unity Personal tier subscribers [and Unity Plus subscribers] — makes it clear that this move was never meant to extract excessive value from the company's smallest development partners. "It was not our intent to nickel-and-dime it, but it came across that way," he said.
Other changes announced by Unity:

• No games created with any currently supported Unity versions will be impacted. Only those created with or upgraded to the Long Term Support version releasing in 2024 (or later), currently referred to as the 2023 LTS will be impacted.
• For those games, the fee is only applicable after a game has crossed two thresholds: $1,000,000 (USD) in gross revenue (trailing 12 months) AND 1,000,000 initial engagements. After crossing these two thresholds, you can choose to pay the Runtime Fee, either based on monthly initial engagements or 2.5% of your game's monthly gross revenue. Ultimately, you will be charged the lesser of the two.

A couple months after Microsoft revealed plans to increase Game Pass subscription prices, Sony is getting in on the act. From a report: The company is bumping up the annual prices of all three PlayStation Plus plans on September 6th. An annual Essential subscription will soon cost $80 per year, up from $60. The Extra plan is going up by $35 to $135 per year, while an annual Premium plan will soon cost $40 more at $160. The price changes won't take effect for current PS Plus users on an annual plan until their next renewal date that's on or after November 6th. If you make any changes to your plan between September 6th and then (such as changing tiers), the new pricing will apply. Sony has not announced changes to the monthly ($10 for Essential, $15 for Extra and $18 for Premium) or quarterly ($25 for Essential, $40 for Extra and $50 for Premium) for the time being. It notes that the annual plan is still less expensive than a monthly or quarterly subscription in the long run.

Microsoft is increasing its Xbox Series X prices in most countries in August apart from the US, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Colombia. From a report: The Xbox maker is also increasing the monthly prices of its Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions for the first time next month, which will see the base Game Pass subscription for console move up to $10.99 a month from $9.99. "We've held on our prices for consoles for many years and have adjusted the prices to reflect the competitive conditions in each market," says Kari Perez, head of communications for Xbox, in a statement to The Verge. Xbox Series X console pricing will largely match the price hike Sony announced for the PS5 last year, with the Xbox Series X moving to $612 in the UK, $604 across most European markets, CAD $649.99 in Canada, and AUD $799.99 in Australia starting August 1st. The Xbox Series S pricing will not be adjusted in any markets, remaining at $299.99.

Sony says it sold a total of 38.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles, according to the company's latest earnings release. In the first three months of the year, it shipped 6.3 million units -- "more than triple what the company shipped in the same quarter the previous year (2 million)," reports The Verge. From the report: On the software side things were more mixed, Bloomberg notes. Revenue from game software was up overall, but units shipped fell from 70.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 68 million in the same quarter of 2022. PlayStation Network monthly active users were up slightly from 106 million to 108 million, but the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers were flat at 47.4 million.

This disparity partly reflects the lack of major first-party games releases in the quarter. But there are also concerns that the PS5's earlier hardware supply issues are having a knock on effect on software sales and subscriptions, which are important if the company wants to build a "virtuous cycle" of mutually reinforcing console and game sales. CNBC notes that the company reported an operating profit of a record 1.21 trillion yen (around $8.9 billion) for the year, with revenue in the quarter rising 35 percent to 3.06 trillion yen (around $22.5 billion).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Last year, a U.S. federal court handed a 40-month prison sentence to Gary Bowser. The Canadian pleaded guilty to being part of the Nintendo hacking group "Team Xecuter" and has now served his time. In part due to his good behavior, Bowser got an early release from federal prison. [...] In a recent video interview with Nick Moses, Bowser explains that he was released from federal prison on March 28th. He is currently in processing at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, to prepare for his return to Canada.

What his life will look like in Canada remains uncertain. However, in federal prison, Bowser has shown that he doesn't shy away from putting in work and helping other people in need. Aside from his prison job, he spent several nightly hours on suicide watch. The prison job brought in some meager income, a large part of which went to pay for the outstanding restitution he has to pay, which is $14.5 million in total. Thus far, less than $200 has been paid off. "I've been making payments of $25 per month, which they've been taking from my income because I had a job in federal prison. So far I paid $175," Bowser tells Nick Moses.

If Bowser manages to find a stable source of income in Canada, Nintendo will get a chunk of that as well. As part of a consent judgment, he agreed to pay $10 million to Nintendo, which is the main restitution priority. "The agreement with them is that the maximum they can take is 25 to 30 percent of your gross monthly income. And I have up to six months before I have to start making payments," Bowser notes. At that rate, it is unlikely that Nintendo will ever see the full amount. Or put differently, Bowser will carry the financial consequences of his Team-Xecuter involvement for the rest of his life.

Last week the Los Angeles Times published a sympathetic portrait of Robbi Jade Lew, the woman facing unproven allegations of cheating in a high-stakes poker match.

This week the newspaper profiled the man making those accusations — Garrett Adelstein, known "as an affable guy who is known for taking even big losses in stride." "Garrett would have reacted normally if his opponent made a good, even heroic, call that cost him $100,000," said Jennifer Shahade, a pro poker player and chess champion. "I think the initial hand, the call and the situation would be suspicious under any circumstances, any gender."
In the profile we learn that Adelstein has 14 years of experience as a professional poker, and is "one of the game's best and most profitable high-stakes cash players, known to viewers of popular casino broadcasts for his loose-aggressive style of no-limit hold 'em and his willingness to buy in for enormous sums of money, bringing as much as $1 million to the table....

"On Sept. 29, Adelstein made the biggest bet of his life: risking his well-respected reputation, and possibly his poker career, when he accused rookie player Robbi Jade Lew of cheating in a $269,000 hand against him on Hustler Casino Live..." Adelstein, 36, hasn't played poker since. Whereas he once spent much of his time studying optimal strategy, reviewing past hands and appearing on streams from Hustler Casino in Gardena and Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, he is now hyper-focused on conducting his own investigation to prove his case. In a more than four-hour interview from his Manhattan Beach home on Tuesday, Adelstein said he was "extremely confident" that he was the target of a cheating ring involving not just Lew but other players and at least one member of the show's production crew. Lew, 37, denied the allegation, which she called "defamatory."

The drama has left Adelstein uncertain when he'll return to the poker table.... Adelstein says he has been cheated before. When he was 26, he was invited to a home game where he bought in for $100,000.... Adelstein said, he laid out his suspicions about the intricacies of the operation to the host and a business partner, and said he would go public with what happened. "They offered me a deal where they would refund me my money in exchange for my silence," he said. "And then they paid me in six installments, once a month, for a six-month period."

The incident, which he relayed on a poker podcast last year, showed Adelstein the darker side of poker and left him cautious.

He never played in a high-stakes home game with strangers again, choosing to exclusively play in casinos, where he reasoned cheating would be less likely. Still, "I'm always looking out for it," he said. "I'm not the world's most trusting guy when it comes to poker."
The article notes how major poker sites were busted 15 years ago for "superuser" accounts with cheating privileges — and a 2019 lawsuit in which dozens of pros sued a player and gambling hall accused of leaking info from the RFID-tagged cards uesd in their livestreams. "When it comes to stream security and these types of games, as professionals we're obviously always on the lookout so it doesn't happen again," poker player Matt Berkey said of the aftermath. "Garrett's one of the biggest players who plays on stream, so he himself is more of a potential target."

"Hustler Casino Live," the streaming show that hosted the now-infamous Sept. 29 game, also uses RFID playing cards. Since its first show aired in August 2021, it has become the world's most-watched poker stream, combining the drama of the game with huge amounts of cash, poker's top players, celebrities and other colorful personalities. "Hustler Casino Live" now has more than 1 million monthly unique viewers and 185,000 subscribers.

The show's games are streamed five days a week on a delay of one to four hours to prevent information from being passed to players live. But now its stream security has been called into question, with players saying tighter protocols need to be implemented. They've raised concerns over the number of employees who had access to the control room where hole cards were being monitored, and a few have said the stream should temporarily shut down while the investigation is ongoing....

"I thought that streamed poker was, at least by comparison to the other options, one of the last safe havens," Adelstein said. "And at this point, I have so little faith in that...."

"Live at the Bike," on which Adelstein has played several times, has been hitting him up since Sept. 29 in the hopes that he will join its stream. But he says he's not in the right headspace for it.

"There's I guess a world in the next several weeks or months where maybe I'm able to process this and want to play a poker game. But at the moment, that's not how I feel," he said.

"I'm not playing poker on a stream again unless I see tangible, noticeable, measurable differences in livestream security," he continued. "That's for my own benefit and it's for the benefit of the poker community at large."

Starting September 16, Portal 2 will be the last Xbox 360 game made available for free to Xbox Live subscribers via the Games for Gold program. Ars Technica reports: Microsoft told subscribers in July that its monthly Games with Gold offerings "will no longer include Xbox 360 titles" starting on October 1 because "we have reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalogue." The Games with Gold program will continue to offer free monthly Xbox One games, though, as it has since 2015. [...]

Interestingly, September's Games with Gold offerings also include Thrillville, an original Xbox title that was made compatible with more modern Xbox hardware in November 2021. This is just the 19th original Xbox game offered via the Games with Gold program, and it's the first since Conker: Live and Reloaded was added in July 2021.

Microsoft is planning to remove Xbox 360 games from its monthly Games with Gold offer in October. The Verge reports: The software maker has started emailing Xbox Live Gold subscribers to warn them of the change, noting that the company has "reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalogue." Games with Gold is a monthly benefit for subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Microsoft hand picks free games each month, and all Xbox 360 titles are playable on the latest Xbox Series X / S consoles and Xbox One.

Microsoft's Xbox backward compatibility program briefly returned with 76 new games last year, but the company made it clear it had "reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints." That would explain why it has now reached the limit on new Xbox 360 titles for Games with Gold. If you've already downloaded or redeemed Xbox 360 games through Games with Gold, this change won't impact those titles. This just means starting October 1st, Microsoft won't be adding any additional Xbox 360 titles to the Games with Gold offering.