does this mean those games will appear on gog?

I don't know they're old (or good) enough to make the jump, but it would be a victory for GOG and us if they managed to do it.

And it would be even more impressive if they did it and also let owners of those games on Steam or UPlay get it for free at GOG.

The reason the games won't be playable on Steam probably has something to do with keeping them playable requiring some work now that they're taking down the online services for those games. Releasing the games on GOG would be nice, but it would also probably be more work than keeping them playable on Steam. Also, Ubisoft seems to really like the idea of forcing people to use Ubisoft Connect to play their games, which is probably a major reason we haven't seen any major Ubisoft releases on GOG in years.

tl;dr: I wouldn't bet on the games coming on GOG.

dunno for example sim city 3000 isn't on ea desktop but it is on gog

I know a few websites where you can download games from that doesn't have DRM wink wink

Thinking a bit about it, the problem of keeping them playable can actually be something very simple and it's all Ubisoft's wrong doing: always online DRM. Ubi did, and still does, this BS in a lot of games, where you couldn't even play the single player part of it unless you had constant internet connection... and their servers worked, which didn't always happen. If they're now shutting down the servers, the games can't log into them and, therefore, can't be played.

This is a problem that Ubi should be able to fix in a rather easily way with an update that removes this required connection but, given that their first intention is to simply shot those games down, I doubt they have any intention to fix it (or they added this "feature" so deep in the code to avoid pirates or modders to remove it, that simply don't know how to remove it without breaking the game).

^Awesome pics! Thanks for sharing.

The Monday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10

GOG starts the week with 5 new sales:

• The first deal of the day is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, 74% off until Wednesday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/call_of_juarez_gunslinger
• The second deal of the day is the bundle with Hob + Torchlight I + Torchlight II, 75% off during 46 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/hob_torchlight_i_torchlight_ii
• And the third DotD is The Talos Principle: Gold Edition, 80% off until the 13th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_talos_principle_gold_edition
• The new Weekly Sale comes with up to 90% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220711_weekly_sale
• There's a Special Sale featuring Raw Fury with up to 90% discounts during the next 7 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/2022_raw_fury_week

Steam has two new deals:

• The first one is Rogue Spirit, still in Early Access, 40% off during 3 days: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1554970/Rogue_Spirit/
• The second deal is Fury Unleashed, 70% off until July 21: https://store.steampowered.com/app/465200/Fury_Unleashed/

There are two new sales at Humble:

• Humble Bundle has the new LEGO: At the movies bundle, with up to 9 games to get during the next 18 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/at-movies-with-lego
• The Humble Store has a Virtual Reality Sale, with up to 90% discounts during 4 days. There are keys for Steam and GOG (1): https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/vr-sale/

And Fanatical has a new Star Deal: Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is 47% off during 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/dlc/destiny-2-the-witch-queen.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Red Dead Redemption 2 gets a new HD Texture Pack that improves its vegetation
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/red-dead-redemption-2-gets-a-new-hd-texture-pack-that-improves-its-grass/
Modder ‘EnergiDaan’ has released a new HD Texture Pack for Red Dead Redemption 2 that improves its vegetation. This HD Texture Pack is 680MB in size, and increases the resolution of vegetation textures from 512×512 to 1024×1024.

VR Mod available for download for the first The Witcher game
https://www.dsogaming.com/mods/vr-mod-available-for-download-for-the-first-the-witcher-game/
Modder “Patryk Loan” has released a pretty cool early version of his VR Mod for the first The Witcher game. According to the modder, the game’s Prologue Mode is now fully playable in VR.
Going into more details, this is the second version of this VR Mod for The Witcher game. For this version, the modder has remade the gameplay core code from scratch. Moreover, Loan has added a VR Player System and a VR Interaction System. Naturally, the game also has a Battle System, Tutorials and Cutscenes. Additionally, VR players can expect to find Easter Eggs, new Shaders, new Color Correction effects, as well as a bunch of music and 200+ sounds from the original game.
>> There's a video in the article.

Battlefield 3: Reality Mod releases on July 17th, gets new trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/battlefield-3-reality-mod-releases-on-july-17th-gets-new-trailer/
The modding team behind the Reality Mod for Battlefield 3 has announced that it will release this highly anticipated project on July 17th. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team has also released a new gameplay trailer that you can find below.
BF3: Reality Mod is a Battlefield 3 modification that focuses on communication and teamwork. It draws inspiration from the successful BF2 “Project Reality” mod. The mod aims to offer a complete gameplay and UI overhaul that creates a more tactical and meaningful experience.

Finally, Skyrim has realistic rug physics—complete with tripping!
https://www.pcgamer.com/finally-skyrim-has-realistic-rug-physicscomplete-with-tripping/
Just this morning while stumbling out of bed to make coffee, I tripped on the bunched up corner of my bedroom's area rug. I thought to myself: "I sure wish I could do this in a videogame." Thanks to johnskyrim's JS Rumpled Rugs mod, spotted by our colleagues at GamesRadar, I can finally have the rug-tripping experience I crave in Bethesda's seminal 2011 RPG.
The mod replaces "nearly 300 rug references" in Skyrim with custom meshes. These new custom rugs have a chance of entering an "unkempt state" as ingame time passes by, and can be set to rights by interacting with them. Feel like leaving a rug in an unconscionably slovenly condition? Okay bucko, now you and all NPCs have a 3%-7% chance of slipping and falling on them depending on whether you're walking, running, or sprinting.
>> Some people have too much free time...

New multiplayer Skyrim mod has been downloaded over 50,000 times
https://www.pcgamer.com/new-multiplayer-skyrim-mod-has-been-downloaded-over-50000-times/
Skyrim Together Reborn is a mod designed for groups of two-to-eight players, though the creators have tested it with over 30, essentially making a mini-MMO. The aim is for friends to be able to play Skyrim co-operatively, complete with shared quest progress. Since its release on NexusMods yesterday, Skyrim Together Reborn has already been downloaded over 56,800 times. For comparison's sake, the second-most popular new mod added to Nexus is a sexy nun outfit from June, which has 30,000 downloads.

GAMING NEWS

NBA 2K23 PC will be once again based on the old-gen console version
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nba-2k23-pc-old-gen-console-version/
These past couple of years, 2K Games has been offering the old-gen version of its basketball series, NBA 2K, on PC. And, once again, PC gamers won’t be able to experience the current-gen version of this game. As 2K Games confirmed, the PC version of NBA 2K23 will be based on the old-gen console version.
>> Is it me or it Take Two trying hard to take the worst videogames company crown from EA and Ubisoft? Anyway, we're now trapped in a vicious circle: if PC gamers don't buy it, 2K will use it as a justification to not move with the current-gen version. But if "we" buy it, then they'll get the message that there's no need to do better.

Monday news, part two:

Team Fortress 2 fans push Valve into releasing another beefy update
https://www.pcgamer.com/team-fortress-2-fans-push-valve-into-releasing-another-beefy-update/
Team Fortress 2 got another substantial update on July 7, less than a month after Valve's most recent attempt to address the game's bot problem. The patch consists of bug fixes alongside some new server settings, listed in full at the bottom of this article.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is dropping 'traditional' seasons to focus on faster updates
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodhunt-is-dropping-traditional-seasons-to-focus-on-faster-updates/
The undead battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is "pretty darn fun to play," we said in our May assessment of the newcomer to the genre: "Guns are punchy and easy to aim, jumping, sliding, and wall-climbing are slick, and my class vampire powers feel immediately useful." But it's also struggled with a number of technical issues—in late May, for instance, developer Sharkmob hit pause on ranked mode because poor controller support meant PlayStation 5 owners were getting brutally wrecked—and the concurrent player count has tailed off considerably since its full release in April.
In an interview with VG247, producer David Sirland revealed some of the changes coming in the summer update that Sharkmob hopes will turn things around, including a move away from a conventional seasonal structure.

Agent 47 aims to keelhaul some pirates in Hitman 3's next free location
https://www.pcgamer.com/agent-47-aims-to-keelhaul-some-pirates-in-hitman-3s-next-free-location/
Hitman 3 is getting another new location later this month that will be free for all players. Called Ambrose Island, the new locale is a hidden cove in the Andaman Sea that serves as a hideout for a dangerous band of pirates.

Crisis Core: FF7 Reunion is targeting 120 fps on PC, but will it overcome Square Enix's recent performance woes?
https://www.pcgamer.com/crisis-core-ff7-reunion-is-targeting-120fps-on-pc-but-will-it-overcome-square-enixs-recent-performance-woes/
In a recent interview with IGN, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion producer Mariko Sato went in-depth on the remaster's conception and development. The developer also touched on an interesting tidbit for PC players: the remake will apparently be targeting 120 fps on PC.

Blizzard puts a final bullet in Heroes of the Storm development
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-puts-a-final-bullet-in-heroes-of-the-storm-development/
In 2018, Blizzard moved some of the development team away from Heroes of the Storm and discontinued its official competitive league, the Heroes Global Championship, which pro players weren't exactly thrilled about. Early in 2019, it got rid of paid loot boxes, leaving the option to buy them with in-game currency. Though Heroes of the Storm was widely seen as a "dead game", intermittent development continued at a slower cadence, with the addition of new heroes (like melee assassin Qhira and Mei from Overwatch), and events (like the time it went cyberpunk).
The latest update on the Heroes of the Storm blog has announced the seven-year-old MOBA will no longer be receiving new content, though free hero rotations and balance patches will continue. (...)

Fable reboot gets a new narrative lead
https://www.pcgamer.com/fable-reboot-gets-a-new-narrative-lead/
The Fable reboot being developed by Playground Games, which was first officially revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2020, has a new narrative lead. Anna Megill, who was formerly its lead writer, has been promoted into the role.

Dr. Disrespect's AAA studio is making an 'extraction shooter'
https://www.pcgamer.com/dr-disrespects-aaa-studio-is-making-an-extraction-shooter/
Last year, Guy Beahm, the former Sledgehammer Games level designer better known these days as streamer Dr. Disrespect, announced he was founding "a AAA game studio" with former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling and Halo 5 multiplayer designer Quinn Delhoyo. The studio, called Midnight Society, went on to sell beta access to its upcoming debut game in the form of a $50 Founders Pass, which came with a procedurally generated NFT that serves as your avatar in-game.
Not much was actually known about the game, except that it will be a free-to-play multiplayer FPS made in Unreal Engine 5. Now, a handful of details have been revealed in a blog post, which says, "Our first game, 'Project Moon' is a vertical extraction shooter". By extraction shooter it means a PvPvE raid game, like Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown, where players keep the loot from every match they survive, but lose everything they brought with them when they die. By vertical it means, "set in a high-rise".

Intel Core i9-13900K 5.5 GHz Raptor Lake CPU Benchmarked, Crushes The Ryzen 9 5950X & Core i9-12900K In Single & Multi-Threaded Tests

https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-13900k-5-5-ghz-raptor-lake-cpu-benchmarked-crushes-the-ryzen-9-5950x-core-i9-12900k-in-single-multi-threaded-tests/

As usual, take it with a grain of salt on the results

GPU price crash in China, GeForce and Radeon cards now sold for 20% under MSRP, flagship models at -38%

https://videocardz.com/newz/gpu-price-crash-in-china-geforce-and-radeon-cards-now-sold-for-20-under-msrp-flagship-models-at-38

The 3080 Ti for $900 USD is very good deal if you can get it new. I have seen it at retail once converted to CAD for around that price. But I think it will go lower.

Sony pushing towards PC gaming space, wants to become "Nike of gaming gear" starting with gaming monitors and headphones

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-exec-says-it-wants-to-be-the-nike-of-gaming-gear/

Seems that Sonys new found fetish for PC gaming is bigger than we initially thought. Of course, their current crop of products they announced are pretty shitty but hopefully, this means PSVR2 will be compatible on PC. I just hope they understand that they need to do what Samsung is doing with their displays and not just be another cash grab company.

Persona 3 FES HD & Persona 3 Portable TrueHD — Announce Trailer

HD mods for the emulated version. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a take down notice though.

Ryzen 5 3600 vs. Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 23 Game Benchmark @ 1080p & 1440p

Personally if you own a 3600, this should be on your radar for a future upgrade. Since CPU prices go down drastically when new ones come out, upgrading to the 5800X3D should give you massive gains without breaking the bank. And the best part about getting a 3600 instead of a 3700X is the CPU will depreciate a lot less.

Switch update 11.0 shares data with Google (how to turn it off)

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/switch-update-11-0-shares-data-with-google-how-to-turn-it-off.1638917/