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PayPalAfter spending a good few hours enjoying the Battle Royale game Darwin Project [Steam] on Linux thanks to Steam Play, it has come to an abrupt end.
I wrote about it working only recently in December. Much to my surprise, it only really needed a quick manual adjustment to pick the region you wish to matchmake in. Then it worked pretty much like any other game, exactly what Steam Play is supposed to do and I was happy.
Sadly, the game has recently updated and the game is now unplayable due to Easy Anti-Cheat. It will allow you into a game and then very quickly kick you back to the main menu with this message:
While Steam Play is an interesting attempt to help with the circular issues surrounding Linux gaming, with not enough games being here for more people to seriously consider it and not enough users for a lot of game developers to also seriously consider it, multiplayer games like this will continue to be a sore spot.
I'm not about to say anything like "native Linux games or bust" here, that's not the point. Quite a few Linux games have multiplayer that's locked down to Linux only or Linux and Mac only too. Sure they work but that's still not great either. However, this should serve as a little reminder that at least with a game that's supported, you wouldn't expect to suddenly not be able to play as is the case here.
Perhaps, to help with things like this Valve could have a section on their store that tells people what anti-cheat solutions are used? It’s not a huge ask, they already do something very similar for DRM measures like this shot for RESIDENT EVIL 7 biohazard:
At least if they did this for systems like Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye, it might help Linux gamers using Steam Play make some more informed decisions on their purchases. It would help cut down frustration for both players and developers.
I still personally remain rather bullish about the future of Steam Play, warts and all. Multiplayer titles are going to remain the big barrier, which I am hoping a solution will one day be found for those developers that will not do a supported Linux version. EAC and BattlEye both support Linux and there's Linux games using them, so perhaps they can eventually do something about it directly in collaboration with Valve somehow. For single-player titles, I imagine most of the issues can be worked around easily enough given enough time.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Micromegas Jan 14, 2019
Proton is dead for me for multiplayer Windows only games if there isn't an official commitment by the game developer (!) to support their game on Proton.
Even if Valve might be able to fix games that once worked via Proton but stopped working because of updates to the game (new game features, a new game GUI, added multiplayer or just patched bugs etc.) Proton is not a substitute for native Linux games. This incident is a clear example of this sad truth.
Quoting: orochi_kyoThere are more than 3k games with gold status on Protondb, 3000 games you cannot play before without tweaking Wine, others were always unplayable, and you all are whining because a sh!tty Battle Royale game doesnt work, anymore? LOL, cant care less if KIDS are wasting their time playing this cancer called Fortnite, Single player games still have a niche and as I can play those games story or single player modes Im ok with it.I'm agree and understand your frustration, but I'm not big fan on your choice of words.
Single players games are strong yet, because since everyone else in playing Fortnite/PUBG some devs doesnt even try to make multiplayer games anymore, they go single player.
Too much whining, that is why some devs prefer to make WIndows games only, yeah Windows gamers are a bunch of whiners too but at least they are a much bigger market than us.
At the end of day, money speaks. Currently, multiplayer games actually more profitable than single player. With lootboxes, microtransactions, you data to sell ads, "accidently" banning user account after spend some amount of cash so that stupid user making a new account, and many shitass things I don't want to say it here about online games.
Single player? If the game terrible, you're game end up to be pirated as example.
So, which way developer would choose today?
I'm not a big fan of suddenly those games I owned can't be played anymore. But, that's how the gaming world rolling today. Multiplayer games is cash cow.
BTW, my view on Windows 10 been locking up changed now... Win 10 being locked up is good for Linux in long run. So, all the greedy developers' client and multiplayer anti-cheat cannot work anymore without MS blessing.
p/s: Please Microsoft, BUILD THAT DAMN " WALL" AROUND WIN 10 GARDEN!!.
Quoting: Code ArtisanI really don't think license matters here. Anybody can write kernel space code for windows. The fact that with Linux you can modify the kernel itself does very little for you when you're already in ring 0.Quoting: ScooptaQuoting: Code Artisani am surprised that easyanticheat does support Linux since it needs to operate at the kernel level.Just because the windows version runs in kernel space means nothing for the Linux version.
By enforcing open-source through GPLv2, Linux makes anti-cheats impossible to be effective. You will never see something like ESEA on linux.
Last edited by Scoopta on 15 January 2019 at 8:08 am UTC
gradyvuckovic Feb 11, 2019
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