this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Linux Gaming

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[–] stardust@lemmy.ca 78 points 11 months ago (14 children)

Them not bother with Linux says all there is to say about their anti trust cases. Only thing that bothers them about monopolies is that they arent one, and even when there is an opportunity to enter into a market where there is no competitors they don't want to bother investing in it. They don't care about open platforms or investing in it first.

It's why they were late to getting a hold of PC distribution. And in the unlikely event Linux OS takes off be complaining about Steam's presence there.

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[–] jherazob 53 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 9 points 11 months ago

You weren’t supposed to see this!

[–] ihopethisisnotawful@lemmy.ml 50 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Apparently they have enough developers to add in crappy emotes and crossovers but not enough to support one of the most popular operating systems.. makes sense

[–] Kiosade@lemmy.ca 16 points 11 months ago

Saying “one of the most popular operating systems” when there’s only 3-4 serious, mainstream contenders doesn’t mean much.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago

Those are artists not developers

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 44 points 11 months ago (6 children)

So he want the game to get to 10 millions player on steam deck only then support it, but without supporting it the game won't get to 10 millions player. It's not a linux problem Tim, it's you.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago (9 children)

No.

He wants the Steamdeck user base to be 10 million, so it’s large enough to support a player base that can generate revenue if targeted.

And frankly it’s not a him problem. Nearly every dev refuses to release on Linux (and Mac) because of its small user base.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 24 points 11 months ago

It's one thing to not release for Linux (thanks to wine and proton it's no Biggie) another thing is to actively sabotage it to run on Linux which some Developers who can't check a fricking Checkbox in EAC do.

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 20 points 11 months ago

Support for Steam Deck != support for Linux version. Steam Deck use Proton to run Windows game on linux seamlessly.

Their direct competitor, Apex Legend, is steam deck verified. Big games like Monster Hunter World/Rise, Cyberpunk, Baldurs Gate 3, Elden Ring, etc etc, all steam deck verified. Check out this page for more info

It's not a Linux problem, it's a Tim Sweeny problem.

[–] ShortN0te@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

10 million is just an arbitrary number he will not honor when it is reached.

Valve has sold 'multiple millions'(source) already. The 10 million will probably be reached soon. Not even to mention all the Linux users.

And frankly it’s not a him problem. Nearly every dev refuses to release on Linux (and Mac) because of its small user base.

Yes it is. He does not have to release for Linux. He just needs to allow the anti cheat to run on Proton. This is a simple config change not more. Fortnite will probably run fine on Proton.

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[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 35 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (9 children)

I think, people here look at it from the wrong side.

The code changes required for Linux support aren't the issue.

But if they support Linux, they have to support Linux. This is not some student's first indie game, but instead a massive game with up to 290 million monthly active users. That's 3.7% of the whole world's population! (And it's also more than the number of total Linux users.)

So supporting Linux means they need to test on at least all currently maintained versions of maybe the top 20 or so distros on all sorts of hardware configurations. That would increase their testing costs by around a factor of 20.

They also need to support customers if they have problems. Considering the variability of Linux configurations, chances are high that this comparatively small segment of players will consume an aproportional amount of difficult support requests.

And lastly, if the Linux version of the game has some serious bugs on some setup, it might likely be that all these Linux users think the game is shit and start talking badly about it.

So it's just a simple cost calculation: Does Linux support increase or decrease the total profit?

And if the variables change, the calculation changes with it. Exactly as Sweeny said in his post. People like Sweeny don't care about ideals or about which OS they prefer. They only care about money.

And the revelation that a CEO likes money and dislikes risk isn't exactly hard to figure out.

I'm not saying that it's good, but top capitalists tend to be capitalists.

And in the end, I'm pretty sure someone who has all the business figures and frequently has to defend those in front of the shareholders probably knows much better what makes business sense than any of us. Someone like him goes where the money flows.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 30 points 11 months ago

So supporting Linux means they need to test on at least all currently maintained versions of maybe the top 20 or so distros

It absolutely does not mean that.

Pick a steam deck, support a steam deck, 3 major releases. If the SD runs on enterprise Linux that's a 10 year support window.

That's a perfectly viable plan - much like "releasing on x box" - and with an understandable market clearly delineated. Everything else can be "hey try, but don't call us" and we'd all still try.

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The only thing stopping Fortnite from running on Linux is the anticheat. The anticheat it uses it made by Epic, and has a specific option for WINE compatibility.

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[–] wax@lemmy.wtf 9 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Dude, steam ships with a bunch of libraries enabling cross distro support. It ain't that complicated https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/blob/main/docs/container-runtime.md

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[–] Commiunism@lemmy.wtf 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I'm going to do a hard disagree here - they don't have to support Linux, just add compatibility in terms of anti-cheat for Linux. Proton is likely good enough to run the game itself but the anti-cheat sees Linux and just craps itself.

They don't even have to provide support - League of Legends runs on Linux if you install the game using community scripts and custom proton, and while the client runs poorly nobody spams the Riot Games support about how the "Linux version" client doesn't work the well because people understand that it's a community effort. Riot themselves have only made a statement saying how they'll try not to break the game for Linux users, and that's pretty much it.

League of Legends is a massively popular game as well, yet Riot barely has to do anything to maintain it on Linux, let community fix issues that come up, let community provide support as it's their tools.

And while I do understand that porting an anti-cheat to be more friendly to another operating system isn't an easy task (such as for Rust, where they tried to make the anti-cheat compatible with Linux but it introduced other issues so it got shelved), I think you're vastly overstating the amount of areas a company has to cover for a game to be playable on Linux.

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[–] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If it can be made to run via Steam, then they only need to support it as far as getting it installed in Steam. Either Proton or native, it can be made an invisible issue from the user perspective. They have made a choice not to do so.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 34 points 11 months ago (1 children)

what's fortnite's anticheat like? my understanding is that a lot of games that would normally have no problem running on some flavor of linux or another but their anticheat software requires some ridiculous level of privilege that linux won't (and shouldn't) give it

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 31 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Fortnite uses Easy Anti Cheat, which is made by Epic (that is, Fortnite's own developer). EAC works fine on Linux; it just needs the developer to enable it.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Note

Epic bought Easy and made the Linux version for it. It’s there because of them

The issues are likely development related not anti-cheat

[–] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 13 points 11 months ago

Excuse me? EAC is Exact Audio Copy. There can be no other.

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[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 33 points 11 months ago (3 children)

also why the fuck does Lego Fortnite require anticheat? it's a survival co-op, there's no competitive element, and yet from what I've read it still kicks you out when you're trying to play it on Linux.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 points 11 months ago

Does it have a Funbucks store?

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[–] taanegl 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What if, and hear me out on this one, Epic Games really just love closed platforms for the built-in DRM of "secret sauce" and binary blobs to protect their intellectual property, even if the Steam Deck now has a TPM 2.0 equivalent. In fact, they would rather deprive the user of as much agency as possible to retain most of the control.

That might be a tinfoil hat take, but I stand by it.

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[–] penquin@lemm.ee 25 points 11 months ago

I mean we all know that, he didn't need to say anything. They want to make billions and they think Linux doesn't have enough users to get those billions going. Not worth it to them. But hey, fuck him, fortnite is a shit game anyway.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 23 points 11 months ago (9 children)

it's just one checkbox in your fudging EAC. Why can so many windows only multiplayer games be played with EAC under Linux but not Fortnät?

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[–] pythonoob@programming.dev 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Am I the only one that doesn't actually give a fuck if fortnite is on steam deck or not.?

Hell I'm happier with it not.

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[–] JCreazy@midwest.social 20 points 11 months ago

I bet Tim doesn't even know how to use terminal

[–] Zellith@kbin.social 18 points 11 months ago

28 Sept 2023 — We are laying off around 830 employees, or 16% of jobs.

hmm...

[–] rotopenguin@infosec.pub 17 points 11 months ago

Because fuck you, that's why

[–] mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml 14 points 11 months ago
[–] littlecolt@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"The Linux Problem" = "Not enough people using it for us to care"

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 months ago

That's a public line. It's BS. Sweeny has been actively trying to torpedo gaming on Linux for YEARS. I don't know if it's just "Steam is good for Valve so it's bad for me", or if it goes deeper than that, but it's obvious in the last decade of behaviour.

[–] amzd@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)

The game launches and works but kicks you when you go online. I have to assume it’s something with anti cheat again

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[–] yesdogishere@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

tim sweeney is a fuckwit. all directors need to have their salaries reduced to ordinary worker level. if they do not want the job, then give the job to an ordinary worker.

[–] nublug@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 11 months ago

fyi you can play fortnite in a single gpu passthrough win10 vm on linux if you configure your vm to hide the hypervisor status.

[–] gnubyte@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Epic games has its own store: its competing. There is no way they want to support the steamdeck right now. Same goes for xbox/Activision in a lot of ways and anything they're doing for the time being is just a way to sedate the law makers that objected to M$ activision acquisition.

Going to add that Epic Games blaming engineering headcount is a BS measure to distract from it too. They just got done suing Google. They absolutely want every part of the bottom line they can grab. Many companies have cut/are cutting programming staff to hedge bets they will be fully replaced if not mostly replaced in 5-10 years.

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