Were you hoping to easily play Fortnite on the upcoming Steam Deck? Well, Tim Sweeney the Epic Games CEO has made it clear that it's not going to happen officially. The thing to remember right now is that both Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye do support Linux. Both for native Linux builds and for Windows games run through Steam Play Proton. However, it's all user-space with no Kernel modules.
On Twitter, user Stormy178 asked if there were plans to make Fortnite compatible with Steam Play Proton to which Sweeney replied:
Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
The questioning continued and when asked why, Sweeney followed up with:
We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.
Another user mentioned it seemed that Epic's CEO didn't trust their own product, Sweeney obviously couldn't let that remain unanswered with:
With regard to anti-cheat on the Linux platform supporting custom kernels and the threat model to a game of Fortnite's size, YES THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT!
In a number of ways, he's actually right. Windows is closed source, so is the NT Kernel and usually 99% of drivers for it are too. Client-side anti-cheat obviously relies a lot on security by obscurity, so people can't see everything it's doing. This is part of the problem on Linux, where the Kernel and practically all development on it is done right out in the open and it changes rapidly. Developing anti-cheat against such an open Kernel probably isn't going to be even remotely easy. There will be ways though, especially if something like the Steam Deck had a fully signed Kernel and some sort of guarantee it's being used - probably numerous ways smarter people know of.
Really though, overall it doesn't give a lot of confidence for developers who might be looking to hook up their anti-cheat ready for their games to work on the Steam Deck.
The big difference it seems, is the size of the playerbase and how much of a target each game is. Sweeney is not saying it's not suitable as a whole, just that Fortnite is a massive target for cheaters:
The threat model for anti-cheat varies per game based on the number of active players and ability to gain profit by selling cheats or gain prominence by cheating. Hence anti-cheat which suffices for one game may not for another game with 10, 100, or 1000 times more players.
One user followed up by suggesting it was just a case of Sweeney not wanting Fortnite on a "rival's platform", to which Sweeney gave this answer:
Epic would be happy to put Fortnite on Steam. We wouldn't be happy to give Steam 20-30% of its revenue for the privilege. Supporting Steam Deck hardware is a separate issue, but the market for non-Steam-hosted games on limited availability Steam Deck hardware is how big exactly?
With that in mind, you're going to need Windows or to stream it via GeForce NOW on the Steam Deck. At least for games without such anti-cheat, you should be able to use the Heroic Games Launcher on the Steam Deck.
It does mean there's space open for another game to take its place on the Steam Deck officially.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: GuestI wonder if the Steam Deck is going to be a great success if Mr. Sweeny would change his mind. Just give it some time Linux is the future of gaming, we are seeing the change, keep in mind android (while heavy modified) is still Linux.In all honesty... it seems to me that there is a potential of MS getting a sniff of some companies considering releasing ports to Linux (and even macs) and decide to pay to make them Windows Exclusive. It literally happens everywhere for consoles and has since their inception. Why not in the PC realm?
Just question yourself this:
Why can't tripple A studio's make things work on Linux with a 100+ employers studio's, while an single indie developer can make there game enjoyable and perfectly work with either Proton or even Native.
Example: Splitgate the "equ8" AC isn't build for linux but they managed to get it working for Linux without issues. And there are more examples, instead of investing is "Epic Exclusives" they should put there money in evolution.
Microsoft has been buying big studios, so they do already control big chunk of the market. Wikipedia has some kind of list of acquired studios, though list is missing Activision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Studios#Subsidiaries_and_divisions
Few of the listed ones have done Linux ports in the past. They totally can shut down Linux porting efforts if they want to.
Luckily they don't own the whole market. They would have to spend lot more and there are other big groups making big purchases.
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Quoting: F.UltraSo did a quick google (since Fortnite is not a game that I have ever played, and since I don't use cheats) and the first response was to (link removed just in case) which have a long list of cheats for Fortnite, that works on Windows 10 and Windows 11.
The cheats are sold for money so there are monetary incentives to break EAC which points back to my earlier post that Windows is open source if you are a hacker. Not only does the closed source of Windows help it in any way possible, we can also see that Epic is lying out their teeth, there is no need for cheaters to force Fortnite to work on the Steam Deck in order to cheat, they can cheat right now using Windows (and they also carry cheats for consoles).
EAC only keeps out the amateurs, and the amateurs wouldn't know where to begin to create Linux kernel drivers in the first place either so this is all moot.
With bit of money it's possible to build that close to impossible to detect. Basically if you can feed the screen output to another computer where the hacks run, that another computer can send input back to computer where game runs via USB.
I would assume hardest part is to train the visual recognition model. I don't know where you can get that stuff if you don't want to build it from scratch. But apparently that stuff is out there.
PS: you should remove the direct link just in case and let the interested people just Google for it, direct link is bit too close to promoting hacks
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Quoting: F.UltraSo did a quick google (since Fortnite is not a game that I have ever played, and since I don't use cheats) and the first response was to https://www.iwantcheats.net/fortnite-hacks-cheats-glitches-aimbot/ which have a long list of cheats for Fortnite, that works on Windows 10 and Windows 11.About what I figured.
The cheats are sold for money so there are monetary incentives to break EAC which points back to my earlier post that Windows is open source if you are a hacker. Not only does the closed source of Windows help it in any way possible, we can also see that Epic is lying out their teeth, there is no need for cheaters to force Fortnite to work on the Steam Deck in order to cheat, they can cheat right now using Windows (and they also carry cheats for consoles).
EAC only keeps out the amateurs, and the amateurs wouldn't know where to begin to create Linux kernel drivers in the first place either so this is all moot.
And OK, Sweeney can't really admit that EAC basically just doesn't work on Fortnite against anyone capable of googling and willing to pay for some cheat software. So he kind of had to tell some kind of lie.
But if he was going to lie about it, he could just as easily have lyingly claimed that it works great on Windows and would work great on Proton as well and enabled it for Fortnite. Or he could have told technically the truth, and claimed it would work "just as well" on Proton (which is to say, mostly not at all) and enabled it. But instead he chose to tell a different lie, that it works very well on Windows but would not on Proton, so he could justify not enabling it.
Enabling EAC on Proton for Fortnite would surely have resulted in some non-zero number of sales. And, showing lack of confidence in his EAC product may not have a huge impact, but it's certainly not going to help sales. So this lie is not one told for the simple immediate benefit of making a few dollars; it actually loses a little. The only plausible motivation, then, is he's trying to nobble the Steam Deck to hurt Valve, but trying to do it in such a way that he isn't just coming out and saying "We're going to block the Steam Deck from using our products because we hate Valve". I find it interesting that even some people here are falling for it.
I might be more shy of calling him a liar if it weren't for the "20-30%" comment made at the same time, which is a simple, black-and-white, direct, amazingly easily provable lie. If someone's willing to say something like that, I find it hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 8 February 2022 at 10:29 pm UTC
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Quoting: F.UltraNot only does the closed source of Windows help it in any way possible, we can also see that Epic is lying out their teeth, there is no need for cheaters to force Fortnite to work on the Steam Deck in order to cheat, they can cheat right now using WindowsAmusingly, since these are Windows programs, and since the Wine people probably have never really spent any time making sure they work on Wine (I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, just an assumption), there is a good chance these cheat programs won't work well, or perhaps at all, over Proton. Which would mean that cheating would, for the present at least, actually be harder on the Steam Deck, whether EAC worked worth a damn on it or not.
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pleasereadthemanual Feb 8, 2022
To make your competitive game available for Linux distributions, you need to suffer more cheaters. Who is going to take a proposition like that?
Well, it was fun while it lasted. There's no crossing this roadblock unless developers/publishers intentionally handicap themselves for potential profit while the rest of the playerbase complains because of the significant increase in cheaters.
Tim Sweeney's argument about the profile of the game doesn't make sense in the context of EAC. Cheaters will be attempting to bypass EAC, not the game itself, so their strategy will work for all EAC games that work on Linux.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. There's no crossing this roadblock unless developers/publishers intentionally handicap themselves for potential profit while the rest of the playerbase complains because of the significant increase in cheaters.
Tim Sweeney's argument about the profile of the game doesn't make sense in the context of EAC. Cheaters will be attempting to bypass EAC, not the game itself, so their strategy will work for all EAC games that work on Linux.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyYou know, as someone whose only interest in Fortnite is strategic (lots of people would want it who would be buying a Steam Deck, so it would be good if the Steam Deck allowed it to be played, if I want the Steam Deck to be a success) it hadn't even occurred to me that actual existing Linux users might want to, like, play the game, and so there would be a downside if a solution didn't allow that.
my only interest is strategic too.
steam deck is the "killer app" for linux, so it has to run fortinite, but it would be nice if some people liked steamOS enough on their deck to try linux on other devices like their desktop.
speaking of it, there is nothing stoping nintendo, sony or even sega from making consoles using linux, in fact, they already did with nes mini, snes mini, playstation classic and sega game gear micro (relased in 2020)!
what if switch 2 runs linux, or maybe sony's ps6?, it may be tempting for then to relase an device that already have an big library of game, and while they can do that puting emulators for their own system, the pc library is much bigger and things like proton make ports uncessary, nintendo has strugled to get support from triple A thirdy parties even on switch that is very popular...
hell, we do have atari VCS too! and Intellivision amico!
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Quoting: pbQuoting: Purple Library GuyI have a question slightly to the side of the discussion so far:
OK, so Fortnite is a ridiculously popular game. But is it the kind of game people would be likely to play on a thing like a Steam Deck?
One of my kids plays it on a gaming pc (through GFN), while the other plays it on switch. Both are enjoying the game. So I'd say yes.
to be fair, i see a lot of people commenting that most fortinite players are kids (considering the ridiculous ammount of players, its impossible that all of then are kids, but most of then may be)
and guess what...
have we checked the size and weight of that thing? if linus from linus tech tips complained that his hand were too small to press some buttons with confort, imagine that thing in the hands of a kid!
i think this device might not be apropriate for kids, it may not be targeted at it either, so its not only not gonna direct compete with an switch, but will be too much affected by the lack of fortinite.
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Disclaimer: sorry didn't have the courage to read the 8 pages ^^'
So.... I don't see the link between the kernels and the anti-cheat?! I don't know much about the ins and outs of Anti-Cheat software, so I'm doing some reading right now. Of course, I am no expert because I've read a few pages about it. But I am still an experienced developer, and have a pretty good knowledge of security overall.
I am intrigued to understand why the kernel variations are an issue for an anti-cheat software. I mean... Is EAC storing all the hashes of all the Windows DLLs, their variants, and the graphics drivers, for each releases, including the DLLs/drivers that are currently in development so that developers can test them? Seems like a daunting task.
From what I've read, the solution is more to have a unique signature send frequently to the server, proving that you are not running a different code and thus not cheating. A kernel (whichever variation you have) is basically a set of functions to talk to your hardware. I would understand that an AC software would need a very specific set of features and so the solution would be to support kernels starting from a very specific version. I'm trying to understand how modifying the kernel source code becomes an issue.
Also, security by obscurity has never been a solution. Take a look at HTTPS, it allows to have a secured connection even though everything is out in the open. There are mathematicians and researchers working on these problems (and finding solutions) since the beginning of the computer science.
So I'm confused mainly, and the answers Tim Sweeney is giving us doesn't convince me (I'm not sure Twitter is the appropriate medium for this kind of explanation, but it is what it is...)
Last edited by Creak on 9 February 2022 at 1:07 pm UTC
So.... I don't see the link between the kernels and the anti-cheat?! I don't know much about the ins and outs of Anti-Cheat software, so I'm doing some reading right now. Of course, I am no expert because I've read a few pages about it. But I am still an experienced developer, and have a pretty good knowledge of security overall.
I am intrigued to understand why the kernel variations are an issue for an anti-cheat software. I mean... Is EAC storing all the hashes of all the Windows DLLs, their variants, and the graphics drivers, for each releases, including the DLLs/drivers that are currently in development so that developers can test them? Seems like a daunting task.
From what I've read, the solution is more to have a unique signature send frequently to the server, proving that you are not running a different code and thus not cheating. A kernel (whichever variation you have) is basically a set of functions to talk to your hardware. I would understand that an AC software would need a very specific set of features and so the solution would be to support kernels starting from a very specific version. I'm trying to understand how modifying the kernel source code becomes an issue.
Also, security by obscurity has never been a solution. Take a look at HTTPS, it allows to have a secured connection even though everything is out in the open. There are mathematicians and researchers working on these problems (and finding solutions) since the beginning of the computer science.
So I'm confused mainly, and the answers Tim Sweeney is giving us doesn't convince me (I'm not sure Twitter is the appropriate medium for this kind of explanation, but it is what it is...)
Last edited by Creak on 9 February 2022 at 1:07 pm UTC
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SirBubbles Feb 9, 2022
Quoting: elmapulQuoting: damarrinHe doesn’t have to support all the various kernel configs, just the official SD one. Isn’t that what the chain of trust is for? Detect signed software and work, don’t and don’t.
in that case, fortinite would be an steamdeck exclusive in the context of linux...
Not at all. It would only be verified as supporting the SD kernel. That kernel would also be available for other users on other distros, so it would hardly lock FortNite (shudder) to the SD distro alone.
Any kernel, however, is going to have its source code made open to anyone who wants to see it. The best way would be to have FortNite keyed to recognise the SD specific kernel to verify that it's "clean", although Epic would have to bother doing that for every kernel update on the SD, and...I find it hard to believe that they'd be bothered, especially under this guy Sweeney's leadership.
Big sigh, but I don't like FortNite and battle royale games anyway. When FortNite comes crashing down (as it must at some point) Epic will likely go with it, as that is what mostly funds Epic as a whole.
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SirBubbles Feb 9, 2022
Quoting: CorbenQuoting: Ehvis...True.
My concern is now, that no developer or publisher will even bother to use the Linux/Wine/Proton enabled AC because of Tim's statement. Why taking the risk at all, if not even the company that creates it has enough convidence to use it in their own products and is vocal about it?
He kills two birds with one stone this way. He gets to not have to bother doing anything to make his big money-spinner work on the SD, and gets to undermine confidence in his competition. All with a single damn tweet.
Damn social media.
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