Valve is now explicitly disclosing that you don’t own the games you buy from its Steam online store. The company has added a note on the payment checkout screen stating that “a purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam,” as reported earlier by Engadget. We confirmed the message appears in the Steam desktop app, but we haven’t seen it in the mobile app yet. Some Steam users noticed the disclosure go live earlier this week and posted their findings on Reddit. Why? Probably, a new law. California has a law going into effect next year that’ll require digital storefronts like Valve’s...

The late, great Akira Toriyama's final Dragon Ball project proves he still had tricks, humor, and unique eye for continuity up his sleeve.

Save 27% off on the Nintendo Switch-compatible Samsung EVO Select microSD memory card even though Prime Day has already come and gone.

Save almost $100 on a compact wireless subwoofer from Sonos in this extended Prime Day deal.

Microsoft is planning to support the streaming of Xbox game libraries next month. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is getting ready to test the ability to stream games that you own that aren’t part of the existing Xbox Game Pass library. As part of a long-running project known as Project Lapland inside of Microsoft, the software giant has been readying its Xbox Cloud Gaming servers to be able to support streaming thousands of games. I’m told Microsoft will first test its new Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming capabilities with Xbox Insiders in November, before expanding them to more Xbox users and more games. The Xbox Cloud Gaming expansion comes in the same month Microsoft plans to enable game purchases in its Xbox mobile app for Android in the US. Microsoft is able to do this thanks to a court ruling earlier this week that forces Google to stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps in the Play Store on November 1st. Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed yesterday that “starting in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android.” Once Microsoft’s work to enable a full game library on Xbox Cloud Gaming is complete, you’ll be able to purchase an Xbox game on Android and immediately stream it to your device. Project xCloud was supposed to launch with game library streaming in 2020. Microsoft then announced it would support your game library on Xbox Cloud Gaming in 2022, but it never launched that year. I understand the work has been complicated by having to prepare key infrastructure for thousands of games, instead of the hundreds that currently exist on Xbox Game Pass. While thousands of games will soon be available through Xbox Cloud Gaming, I’m told some publishers will hold certain games back due to licensing requirements or deals. Microsoft is also working on a browser-based Xbox mobile store that it was originally planning to launch in July. The store will initially include deals and in-game items but will grow to cover first-party games eventually. Microsoft said in August that testing had begun on the web-based mobile store and that “work is progressing well and we will have more to share in the future.” Update, October 11th: Article updated to mention original Project xCloud plans. Sign up for Notepad by Tom Warren, a weekly newsletter uncovering the secrets and strategy behind Microsoft’s era-defining bets on AI, gaming, and computing. Subscribe to get the latest straight to your inbox. $7/month Get every issue of Notepad straight to your inbox. The first month is free. $70/year Get a year of Notepad at a discounted rate. The first month is free. $100/person/year Get one year of both Notepad and Command Line. The first month is free. We accept credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

An American tech fair in Moscow during the Cold War featured a robot vacuum secretly operated by remote control.

The Warner Bros. streamer has beefed up its horror selection in the name of spooky season.

I know there’s a lot to do on the internet, but you really should stop what you’re doing and watch this 19-minute talk about a bespoke mural that once lived inside a McDonald’s. The talk, given by Cabel Sasser of Panic at XOXO Fest 2024, was filled with silliness and deep dives down unexpected rabbit holes. (I’d expect nothing less from the founder of Panic, the company behind whimsical things like the Playdate handheld and Untitled Goose Game.) Much of the presentation is about the little-known artist behind the mural, the late Wes Cook, who also made some incredible designs that exist in real theme parks. It’s fascinating to learn so much about Cook, and the ending of Sasser’s speech is just fantastic. Every minute of the speech is...

There comes a point in most experienced Steam shoppers' lives where they wonder what would happen if their account was canceled or stolen, or perhaps they just stopped breathing. It's scary to think about how many games in your backlog will never get played; scarier, still, to think about how you don't, in most real senses of the word, own any of them. Now Valve, seemingly working to comply with a new California law targeting "false advertising" of "digital goods," has added language to its checkout page to confirm that thinking. "A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam," the Steam cart now tells its customers, with a link to the Steam Subscriber Agreement further below. California's AB2426 law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 26, excludes subscription-only services, free games, and digital goods that offer "permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet." Otherwise, sellers of digital goods cannot use the terms "buy, purchase," or related terms that would "confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good." And they must explain, conspicuously, in plain language, that "the digital good is a license" and link to terms and conditions. Read full article

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