While I don't normally make too big of an issue when games lack Linux support, Epic games seems openly hostile to the platform as seen by removing support where it already exists.
I have invested the time in setting up a Windows VM w/ PCI passthrough in order to play some games with friends. So I am not a hardline free software user or unwilling to use Windows for playing games.
But when a distributor and developer is openly hostile to the platform even as it's gaining traction among other developers (Valve, Google, etc), I am certainly willing to not buy their games anymore as a somewhat political stance. There are plenty of games that run on Linux for me to spend my time and money on.
Would you mind sharing your VM setup with PCI passthrough? I had looked into this previouly, but guides I saw seemed to only let you pass it through depending on settings at boot of the host OS. From what I understand, this means that if I wanted to pass the GPU through to the VM, I would lose it in the host OS until I reboot again. Does your setup let you hotswap it w/o a reboot?
Is this really hostility? Supporting an additional platform is expensive in terms of dev, qa complexity, and support. Maybe this is just a case of looking at the numbers, and the benefit not being worth the cost.
There will be a non-zero number of people who will have purchased those games precisely due to there being a linux client available for them.
Pulling support for a client of a competitive online game like Rocket League is fundamentally closing the game to those players - as they will be unable to compete online with other players (be it on PC or on the other platforms).
I really don't like Epic's change in behaviour here - It's quite disheartening since when they used to release first party Linux builds of their products ('Unreal Tournament 2004', and the recently cancelled upcoming 'Unreal Tournament' had Linux client releases), and they were one of the few big name game dev houses to actively support Linux clients.
It makes me feel old to remember buying physical media that will still work today, 30 years later. My fictive grand kids will be able to play those games long after the worms have gnawed my bones.
Whereas my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.
> My fictive grand kids will be able to play those games long after the worms have gnawed my bones.
I would love that you be right. And by far, I strongly prefer physical media.
However, physical media is no guarantee either.
- Sometimes, the pain is on purpose: some apps require an online activation, and the corresponding service, 30 years later, is not available anymore.
- Sometimes, it's a lack of foresight from the developers (i.e overzealous Windows version checks, refusing newer versions).
- Sometimes, it's plain dumb stupidity (the installer is a 16-bit windows executable).
If you're not convinced, I suggest you try installing, say, Wipeout XL (for Windows 95) on a recent laptop (spoiler: at this point it's easier to play the PSX version on an emulator).
> It makes me feel old to remember buying physical media that will still work today, 30 years later.
If it uses GPU rendering, possessing physical media doesn't mean much. GPU vendors aren't that diligent about making sure old games run properly on their current hardware offerings.
Even for physical media for console games, patches DLC are delivered through the console's online service. Once that ends, as it has for the PSP and original Xbox, you're left with the game as it was originally released with whatever bugs it contains.
> my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.
That’s why I prefer gog over steam, downloading complete offline installers, and keeping them backed up. This way is even more reliable than buying games on physical media. Due to anti-piracy measures, often you can’t easily back up CDs or DVDs.
Sad to hear this. I have fond memories of running Unreal Tournament 2004 on Linux back in the day. I was still in high school and had just the one PC, which I used both for gaming and the “fooling around with Linux” that led me to a career in tech. It was a small joy to use a single OS for both activities, especially with my PC’s smallish hard disk. I didn’t have to dual-boot or choose between gaming and learning.
What keeps people from class actioning the shit out of Epic for rendering software that they paid for unplayable?
Usually, clauses in EULA's regarding forced arbitration protect companies from being sued for such nonsense, but seeing as how no such agreement has been made by these users between them and Epic, I don't see how it can be avoided legally. Those agreements were made with Valve.
If I suddenly find that I can no longer play Rocket League on Linux as a result of this, I'll be first in line.
> To clarify, Easy Anti-Cheat still provides native Linux support and will continue to do so. Earlier comments by a partner reflect ordinary day-to-day prioritization decisions on anti-cheat issues across all platforms and not any change in long-term priority for Linux.
This feels like a strange thing since the Epic engine is available on Linux (I used it for dev just a couple of months ago).
I am not disputing the statement, the op makes a good case for atleast Tim being quite anti-Linux. I just feels really weird that the game store wouldn't ever get to a platform the engine is already on. It feels short sighted by Epic. Or I guess it just isn't worth the investment...
Nontechnical speculation: Just a power struggle with Valve.
Mostly technical speculation: The horrible binary compatibility story of Linux userland.
Socio-technical speculation because everything is now multiplayer: Less effective DRM on Linux means more cheaters ruining the game for others, in the worst case losing more players than Linux adds.
>Mostly technical speculation: The horrible binary compatibility story of Linux userland.
This has been effectively solved by three different tools. Take your pick from:
* Appimages
* Snaps
* Flatpaks
Naturally they all have their own upsides and downsides, but if the only thing holding you back from shipping to linux is concerns about fiddling with shared libraries, just pick one at random and move on. I suggest appimages as feeling closest to a fat binary without triggering various licence clauses, deliver it like it's an exe.
At some point they are going to learn the only lesson in sales that truly matters to long term success: “make the customer like you.” And then we’re all going to laugh at them. Unless Tencents coffers are truly bottomless.
Epic really doesn't want my money at all I guess. Between the constant ads I receive for their launcher and fortnite. At least one of which isn't actually available for my operating system(not sure about fortnite), their lack of support for the operating system I use and their aggressive anti-competitive behaviour, I find them to be a distasteful company and don't feel like supporting them in any way.
SteamOS helped encourage Linux ecosystem and graphics improvements. Proton (Valve's wine solution) has made almost all windows games playable on Steam (some run better than the Linux native versions). Of course DRM issues exist that screw with it though.
I think that Epic Killing Linux native is a shame but I also think that Valve has a long plan to make it a viable platform, and it's only begun, where many assumed they hit and missed.
The fact their VR headset will run on Linux too...
It looks like this won't matter too much to future of Linux gaming is all I'm saying.
If money and users are there, it's a different ballgame.
I'm not sure its entirely fair to say that's their plan has only begun, as SteamOS first released over 5 years ago in 2013. As best I can tell, it was originally a strategic hedge against Microsoft locking down Windows in some way that prioritized the Windows Store for game distribution. That never really took off for Microsoft, and Valve didn't do a ton of work try to try to market SteamOS.
Though certainly they've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes with Proton now. I'm not sure where Proton leads quite yet other than making their existing Linux user base very happy. It's certainly increased the stickiness for me.
I seem to recall Sony being sued in a class action for yanking linux support from the PS3 after it was released, and losing. I hope the same happens here.
I bought an HP x360z Envy recently and added PlayOnLinux which seems to be similar to going through the whole WINE setup of installer -- easy to do. The Android MOBAs I play with desktop client support work without issue. Getting Radeon driver support for VEGA 8 is an entirely different matter though. I'm running Fedora 30 and before that 29, before it's release, the Cheese camera app would flip through and flicker with the IR camera with no easy way to resolve it and thus, making it unusable. It sucks, because the only thing tying me to my Razer Stealth is gaming and that in turn, to Windows. I can't say Razer is hardware I could recommend though, think of it as the Apple of gaming hardware. Steep price with bloatware and in my case, the ocassional repair that leaves you without a laptop for days (my laptop case warped due to heat generated). Rather than replacing it because of fault, they just swapped the case and sent it back. I can expect this issue to happen in a few months again. Razer support is OK -- I've gone through a few cases where I had to talk to a x-tier technician who resolved a problem with the Razer Core e-GPU. Will gaming on Linux ever work? who knows. I'm excited for Google Stadia and hope it doesn't go the way of OnLive.
[+] [-] KingMachiavelli|6 years ago|reply
I have invested the time in setting up a Windows VM w/ PCI passthrough in order to play some games with friends. So I am not a hardline free software user or unwilling to use Windows for playing games.
But when a distributor and developer is openly hostile to the platform even as it's gaining traction among other developers (Valve, Google, etc), I am certainly willing to not buy their games anymore as a somewhat political stance. There are plenty of games that run on Linux for me to spend my time and money on.
[+] [-] sslayer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scjosh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeternus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsiklon|6 years ago|reply
Pulling support for a client of a competitive online game like Rocket League is fundamentally closing the game to those players - as they will be unable to compete online with other players (be it on PC or on the other platforms).
I really don't like Epic's change in behaviour here - It's quite disheartening since when they used to release first party Linux builds of their products ('Unreal Tournament 2004', and the recently cancelled upcoming 'Unreal Tournament' had Linux client releases), and they were one of the few big name game dev houses to actively support Linux clients.
[+] [-] Mirioron|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qmarchi|6 years ago|reply
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/you-can-now-claim-you...
[+] [-] int_19h|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FullyFunctional|6 years ago|reply
Whereas my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.
[+] [-] Ace17|6 years ago|reply
I would love that you be right. And by far, I strongly prefer physical media.
However, physical media is no guarantee either.
- Sometimes, the pain is on purpose: some apps require an online activation, and the corresponding service, 30 years later, is not available anymore.
- Sometimes, it's a lack of foresight from the developers (i.e overzealous Windows version checks, refusing newer versions).
- Sometimes, it's plain dumb stupidity (the installer is a 16-bit windows executable).
If you're not convinced, I suggest you try installing, say, Wipeout XL (for Windows 95) on a recent laptop (spoiler: at this point it's easier to play the PSX version on an emulator).
[+] [-] FullyFunctional|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThrowawayR2|6 years ago|reply
If it uses GPU rendering, possessing physical media doesn't mean much. GPU vendors aren't that diligent about making sure old games run properly on their current hardware offerings.
Even for physical media for console games, patches DLC are delivered through the console's online service. Once that ends, as it has for the PSP and original Xbox, you're left with the game as it was originally released with whatever bugs it contains.
[+] [-] Const-me|6 years ago|reply
That’s why I prefer gog over steam, downloading complete offline installers, and keeping them backed up. This way is even more reliable than buying games on physical media. Due to anti-piracy measures, often you can’t easily back up CDs or DVDs.
[+] [-] greenhatman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _iyig|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rooster61|6 years ago|reply
Usually, clauses in EULA's regarding forced arbitration protect companies from being sued for such nonsense, but seeing as how no such agreement has been made by these users between them and Epic, I don't see how it can be avoided legally. Those agreements were made with Valve.
If I suddenly find that I can no longer play Rocket League on Linux as a result of this, I'll be first in line.
[+] [-] bovermyer|6 years ago|reply
> To clarify, Easy Anti-Cheat still provides native Linux support and will continue to do so. Earlier comments by a partner reflect ordinary day-to-day prioritization decisions on anti-cheat issues across all platforms and not any change in long-term priority for Linux.
[+] [-] MikusR|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olodus|6 years ago|reply
This feels like a strange thing since the Epic engine is available on Linux (I used it for dev just a couple of months ago).
I am not disputing the statement, the op makes a good case for atleast Tim being quite anti-Linux. I just feels really weird that the game store wouldn't ever get to a platform the engine is already on. It feels short sighted by Epic. Or I guess it just isn't worth the investment...
[+] [-] LeoNatan25|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nudq|6 years ago|reply
Mostly technical speculation: The horrible binary compatibility story of Linux userland.
Socio-technical speculation because everything is now multiplayer: Less effective DRM on Linux means more cheaters ruining the game for others, in the worst case losing more players than Linux adds.
[+] [-] ergo14|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sir_Substance|6 years ago|reply
This has been effectively solved by three different tools. Take your pick from:
* Appimages
* Snaps
* Flatpaks
Naturally they all have their own upsides and downsides, but if the only thing holding you back from shipping to linux is concerns about fiddling with shared libraries, just pick one at random and move on. I suggest appimages as feeling closest to a fat binary without triggering various licence clauses, deliver it like it's an exe.
[+] [-] rStar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tetrisgm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grawprog|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sammorrowdrums|6 years ago|reply
I think that Epic Killing Linux native is a shame but I also think that Valve has a long plan to make it a viable platform, and it's only begun, where many assumed they hit and missed.
The fact their VR headset will run on Linux too...
It looks like this won't matter too much to future of Linux gaming is all I'm saying.
If money and users are there, it's a different ballgame.
[+] [-] emmp|6 years ago|reply
Though certainly they've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes with Proton now. I'm not sure where Proton leads quite yet other than making their existing Linux user base very happy. It's certainly increased the stickiness for me.
[+] [-] Afforess|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] favorited|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeoNatan25|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taciturasa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quantumfoam|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charliebrownau|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] charliebrownau|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gyoza|6 years ago|reply