Xitter comments indicate that the PCs should be of sufficient spec to achieve a good sell value. So if it’s not Win 11 compatible then Sofmap can’t price it in hopes to resell them according to the social media responder.

This may or may not help. But I’ll give you the basic steps using wine only and no Proton magic to run a game from disk:

• Create an empty folder to be your wineprefix (emulated system folder) or use the default.
• run WINEPREFIX=[full path to new folder] winecfg command in terminal (just winecfg if you will use the default prefix).
• mount your CD so that you can see it in your file browser. (Might be simply clicking that device in the file browser when a CD is in the drive bay)
• In the winecfg set drive D: to point to the folder where you mounted the CD.
• run the CD installer with wine… e.g WINEPREFIX=/some/path wine /media/something/cdrom1/setup.exe, install the game to C:
• run the game with WINE on the same prefix and with the CD inserted and mounted (if there are resources on the CD or basic DRM) e.g. WINEPREFIX=/some/path wine '/some/path/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Cool Game/coolgame.exe
• if that works, you might be able to create an image of the disc and mount that instead of the physical CD, you’d then rerun winecfg and set D: to the correct folder where the disk image is mounted.

The OG Steam Deck 256GB launched at a price of US$529 so it was clearance pricing, more or less. (The 64GB launched at $399).

The meme of “Valve maintains dominance by doing nothing but waits for competition to trip over itself” is funny but they do put part of the billions they make towards beneficial products for their customers.

• Remote Play (stream your own game from another PC)
• Remote Play Together (can stream a game to friends without a copy of the game and play together)
• Linux, Proton
• Well designed hardware innovations

Not out of the goodness of their heart but to drive sales and foster a customer base willing to return.

GOG and itch do try in their own way so I have bought from them, IMO they are the only competitors making serious efforts to build a mutually benefical gaming ecosystem.

Epic, Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA and the rest are like a trapdoor with a wooden board over it. Tim Sweeney is standing there hoping you won’t think he’s trying to find the right time to swipe the board away and get you to fall in.

B…B…B…BLOODY SCREEN! SO REAL!

That’s IMO a big part of what’s different between the 7 transition and this one. Last time Microsoft was going around upgrading people’s computers for them, and even if people didn’t want to jump to 10 right away, they allowed Win 7, 8, and 8.1 keys to activate it pretty much whenever. Now with their hardware requirement, they’re official line is telling people without TPM that their hardware is junk when they stop supporting Win 10. That drove people to look for the better alternative Microsoft won’t tell you about.

It was 5-10 years ago, not too hard to find and a little before Google intentionally made things harder to find. I’ve used many public and private trackers, but it’s just that these days my interest in movies has disappeared almost completely, and I’m happy with most of the games I have.

I’ve had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.

You are correct, though it bears stating that they make millions from kids gambling and they make billions for their software distribution platform, as one indicator of Valve’s priorities as a for-profit company.

Call me a shill, but Valve’s actions indicate that they care about the money that comes from improving a product or service. That differentiates them from many publicly traded companies that care about money at the expense of the quality of their own products and services.

Waiting for the free to claim weekend. Or have Epic offer me a free Steam Machine one week as thanks for opening their still half-baked store.

Oh boy I also hope this comes with the login queue battle royale mechanic (video) as well. Couldn’t call it a modern AAAA experience without one.

1.5V Li-ion batteries in AA size that can be charged by USB-C are now available. For stuff like TV remotes, flashlights, little toys and gadgets anything more seems overpowered than needed.

He has no official ties with the European Citizen’s Initiative (besides “hype-man” as I recall he described it) but he is the founder of the Stop Killing Games movement, encompassing the original research effort in terms of what people could do to stop games being lost or intentionally destroyed.

In one sense yes they are a monopoly. But there are alternative game stores. However Valve has earned their cut of money by actually trying to make a platform that works for game developers, game players and themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, they have a high risk of turning bad and extorting the market they have captured. But the truth is that every equally or greater sized competitor (Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Epic) has already skipped to the extortion part of the cycle and Valve simply hasn’t, and hasn’t really expressed any intention to do that. Being a privately owned company, Valve is allowed to sit back, enjoy the money they do make and not have to constantly ask for more, and develop what the staff feel like making without strict deadlines.

The smaller competitors are still great even if not as feature filled (GOG, itch) and you should support them too. So while I reject that Valve is the big bad, I also reject that Valve could never enshittify. My position is that Valve has earned a trust no one else has (even itch had to cave to Credit Card companies), and that trust is Valve’s to break.

I think your average Linux user does want to give game creators their fair share. But they would like to withhold from those that take away from others.

I more or less stopped pirating games after moving my PC to Linux full time.

It has a Garfield Kart 1 feel to it.

Oooh! This sounds like fun!

In Asia, 8s and 88s are considered lucky.

Paradox’s modus operandi is to put everything in DLC after DLC package. It’s worked sometimes in the past (for the publisher, developers and end users) but when “base-game” releases have been so half-baked due to publisher time pressures in recent years, gamers have gotten tired of having to pay more to get the full game version of the game right around the release date.