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.
the more users linux have, the more likely it is that many game developers will support it.
at the same time, the more players an specific game have, the less likely it is that it will support linux.
what about server side anti cheat? its possible to do the validation server only?
"With that in mind, you're going to need Windows or to stream it via GeForce NOW on the Steam Deck."
again, what about server side anti cheat?
anyway, people still can play fortinite on their phones, so its not a massive loss...
wait a minute, isnt android linux based?
in any case, fortinite has 250 millions of players, that alone might be enough to kill steamOS.
imagine if steamdeck sell as much of an switch, but most players install windows on it to play fortinite, sigh.
Quoting: elmapulwhat about server side anti cheat? its possible to do the validation server only?Ish. For some games server side anti-cheat is perfect, with no downsides. But if you can push more of the work to the client then the player gets better performance, better latency, and the user pays the electricity costs rather than you. So you can try to really nail down the absolute minimum information that you pass to the client, and check every interaction against a definitive server game state... or you just bung everything at the client and try to stop the client being tampered with.
Server-side anti-cheat can't stop someone from just pointing a camera at the screen, but client-side anti-cheat can't, either.
Doc Angelo Feb 8, 2022
Quoting: CatKillerthe absolute minimum information that you pass to the client
There are cheats in the game "Escape from Tarkov" that lets you see the content of the inventory of every player on the map. Those cheats are well known, not just hearsay. One has to ask why the frick a developer transmits the content of every inventory to every player on the map. This is either ridiculously stupid... or they are selling their own cheats. I really hope they just don't know what they're doing.
Quoting: ZlopezStrange how the insecure Windows, which is targeted by every malware out there is actually more secure for anti-cheat :-Dcompletely different thing.
one thing is to find an way to run insecure code in an kernel, exploiting its security holes, that is what windows malwares do, the malware capabilities will be limited by the size of the hole, for example, maybe they can control some components of the kernel but no others, and maybe they can do what they want to do without the need of touching the kernel.
on linux on the other hand, you have full access to customize your own kernel code.
you dont need an malware exploiting kernel features to dodge the anti cheat, you can rewrite the code of the kernel to exploit it!
Quoting: ZlopezIf they had the anti-cheat software open, it could benefit from free fixes done by the people in open source community.that is like having an open source password.
security by obscurity DO WORK for passwords.
Quoting: ZlopezIt's not a coincidence that the best security libraries are open source (and the linux is dominating the server world).its not a matter of security here, its a matter of freedom, open source softwares is great to allow the user to do whatever he want, and doing whatever he want in that context is CHEATING on an online game.
anti cheat software is akin to proprietary in the sense that it want to limit what the user can or cant do, its also akin to DRM.
Quoting: 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...
Quoting: rustybroomhandleI would love to know how much cheating from Linux users there are on something like Overwatch who have their own cheat prevention.
the issue is not that linux users use cheat, its that cheaters may start using linux just to cheat.
and that is not a big problem if you only find one cheatter in ever 1000 matches that you do, its anoying but rare enough that it dont make a difference.
its another thing if you find an cheater in lets say 1 in every 10 matchs.
Quoting: 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?
Quoting: Doc AngeloI'm not buying it. Sweeney says a lot of stupid stuff to win an argument. Especially around Linux.
"Sweeney is not saying it's not suitable as a whole, just that Fortnite is a massive target for cheaters"
I rest my case. This is so stupid, I'm out of words. Who believes crap like that?
(I want to add that I'm not saying that Sweeney is generally dumb or doesn't have knowledge about game development. I'm just saying that he has a very strong opinion, and starts to lie his way through an argument until he thinks he won it. There are people like that, and Sweeney is just one example. He's human after all.)
dude fortinite alone has 250 millions of players, and the cheating industry move more money than the entire linux gaming industry (if we assume its 100 smaller than the windows gaming industry)
so yes, he might be right.
i cant remember where i saw the cheating numbers, i think it was one of the valve conferences arround anti-cheating.
Doc Angelo Feb 8, 2022
Quoting: elmapulthe malware capabilities will be limited by the size of the hole
Are you sure you understand this topic well enough to explain it to others? If you ask me, this is a very misleading simplification of how bugs and exploits work. The size of holes is important in the physical world, but that doesn't really make sense in the digital world. Any bug can lead to full permissions. It really depends.
Quoting: elmapulthat is like having an open source password.
security by obscurity DO WORK for passwords.
That's a very unfitting comparison. Locks should be open source, but the keys of course not. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise.
Doc Angelo Feb 8, 2022
Quoting: elmapuldude fortinite alone has 250 millions of players, and the cheating industry move more money than the entire linux gaming industry (if we assume its 100 smaller than the windows gaming industry)
so yes, he might be right.
i cant remember where i saw the cheating numbers, i think it was one of the valve conferences arround anti-cheating.
What's your argument? He might be right because the player count is high?
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