This has nothing to do with the kernel. The binary Nvidia drivers got updated today and has caused this issue. For some reason Steam doesn’t like the Nvidia 331.89 64 bit drivers.
Update: I just looked at the lib32-nvidia-utils package and that file has been removed, I’m not sure why as it was in the previous version and in the upcoming 340.17 version as well.
thanks AJSlye, as usual, you are a legend and also my sincerest thanks to Rob - worked like a charm. Also, I have to add that with the 3.15 kernel and the 339 nvidia driver, everything is smoother and faster