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.
slaapliedje Feb 8, 2022
Quoting: crt0megaAs much as I'd love to say fsck Tim and Epic, I can't blame him on this one.I still say fuck that dude. Somehow Epic went from one of the few companies supporting native Linux gaming to absolutely hating on them. While Unreal Engine is ported and works great on Linux, there still are far too few Unreal Engine games ported to it natively.
Thing about Anti-Cheat and kernels... well why does it even need kernel hooks? That seems kind of scary to me, if the anti-cheat crashes, it's more likely to take the kernel with it. Even if they insisted on that, couldn't they use a dkms style kernel module that does it? Granted it isn't like most users would know how to install such things... and I think that's what it comes down to, is they want root access to your system to install a game, and he knows damn well most Linux users are going to basically say what I just said, 'Fuck off, Tim.'
slaapliedje Feb 8, 2022
Quoting: Doc AngeloQuoting: Alm888User's access to kernel is a 0-level vulnerability in the "trust-chain". That is why WINE/Linux is not, and shall never be treated as "secure" platform. All hopes that a "client-side" anti-cheat will be a thing on WINE are just pipe dreams.
Is there anything that can be considered a secure platform, where nothing can be loaded before the anti-cheat is loaded?
I still remember the day when we thought all copy protection / DRM checks wouldn't work through wine. You had to download a NoCD crack from some shady ass website to get Wine to work with a lot of games...
Guess what? Most just work now, you can legitimately take a CD based game like Pool of Radiance; Ruins of Myth Drannor, put the CD in, install it via Wine, start the game up, and it'll ask for the second disc, and pop that in and mount it and the game will launch and run just fine!
So never say never... for the Anti-Cheat stuff, something like Flatpak, where it sandboxes the entire app away would be a method to use on such things.
Quoting: TermyOn the one hand, Fortnite isn't big loss. On the other hand - spreading such fear is just bullshit. The same bullshit as the claim they would have to give valve 20-30% - it's not apple, if you have your own payment option ingame, 0% of that goes to valve (if i'm not completely mistaken).Oh, right, I hadn't even spotted that. Fortnite is free to play, so Sweeney is saying he'd be happy to have Fortnite on Steam if he didn't have to pay 20% of zero! What a lying sack of . . .
It's always the same with Tim's tweets: best to ignore them as 99% is either useless bullshit or fearmongering bullshit...
Quoting: NociferQuoting: Doc AngeloQuoting: NociferThat's not correct. Some holes can indeed lead to privilege escalation and thus provide full access to the whole machine, while other holes are more or less limited in what they can do. It's not a given that a bug/exploit will lead to total foobar. It's as you say at the end: it really depends.
Exactly. I said it depends. You're essentially agreeing with what I said, yet you're stating that what I said is incorrect.
No, I'm disagreeing with you because you contradicted yourself. "It really depends" agrees with "the malware capabilities will be limited by the size of the hole", a statement with which you disagreed in the rest of your comment. If it does depend on the "size of the hole", then it also does make sense in the digital world to talk about holes and sizes.
Maybe the confusion here is coming from the fact that with vulnerabilities, size is not used as a term. What is probably actually meant is severity. Severity is roughly based on risk. Remotely exploited vulnerability that gives full access to the system is high on the vulnerability scale.
Security hole is used as a term, but speaking about sizes can be bit awkward. Logically bigger exploit would need bigger hole in order to fit in...
What we were actually talking about? Oh! Anti-Cheat. From security perspective they're awful. I'm not sure I need to elaborate. Gamers might not have lot of options here though.
Quoting: rustybroomhandleTechnically, I think you can. Consider:QuoteWith 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!
Quotebut the market for non-Steam-hosted games on limited availability Steam Deck hardware is how big exactly?
Oh dear, that paradox again. He's worried about a big influx of cheaters from a negligibly small market?
Lots of cheating or tiny market. You can't use both excuses at the same time.
He said that on very big games, it's not just that there are more cheaters because the same proportion of cheaters means a larger absolute number. What he said was, that there is more motivation to cheat--the stakes and payoffs are higher. What he seemed to be claiming is, on very large games, the existence of a semiprofessional category of cheaters.
Thus, if cheating were easier on the Steam Deck, in theory such semiprofessional cheaters might buy Steam Decks just to use them to cheat. Or just put a Linux partition on their hard drive and use it mainly for cheating on Fortnite.
So it's not actually a logical inconsistency. I still don't think it's true, though. In real life, I'm pretty sure such semiprofessional cheaters have no real problem cheating anyway, so they wouldn't need to buy a Steam Deck to do it. But, um, maybe hemi-semi-demi-professional cheaters would exist, just not quite good enough to cheat without a Steam Deck, but good enough to do it with? I don't find that amazingly plausible. And I'd be willing to bet most of these semiprofessional cheaters don't do it with their own skill, they do it with software that they get on whatever the modern equivalent of warez sites are. And that software is all written on and for Windows, partly because it's the main platform, and partly because if Linux people want to get fame for writing software, they contribute to an open source project. There have never really been a lot of Warez D00dz on Linux for just that reason--there's better/cooler stuff to do.
And from some of the comments here from people who know far more about such things than I am ever likely to, it kinda sounds like the whole "anti-cheat without kernel access will work bad" isn't really particularly true in the first place. Although, you know, maybe he believes it, or maybe it's true if your programmers are mediocre, and maybe that's the kind of programmers who write things like Easy Anti-Cheat.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 8 February 2022 at 5:37 pm UTC
Quoting: elmapulVery true. You 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.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: 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.
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.
I think this was discussed under some other article already. I guess short answer is: bureaucracy, custom engines and libraries. Which in turn means that if Linux doesn't make enough money, it won't happen unless somebody high up wants to have a Linux port. When experienced developers are allowed to spend time doing things like porting engine to have Vulkan renderer, things will happen. For example that's what happened when Google was distributing some Stadia money. Stadia just happens to be closed system, so there's no need to worry about multiple Linux distributions and support costs. Which in turn means that native Linux port might never leave Stadia. Even there doing some cost saving by just doing the bare necessity means that profits are higher.
Smaller studios have more to gain. Article on GamingOnLinux (and maybe on few other Linux sites) can generate enough sales that Linux numbers are inflated. Extra publicity could totally be worth it. Indie studios are also more idealistic, so they might do Linux port just because they can.
Last edited by Anza on 11 February 2022 at 4:35 pm UTC
Quoting: elmapulQuoting: EikeThere probably are more Linux users than Windows users (phones, routers, ... toasters?)...
... but that doesn't help Fortnite on Linux.
i dotn think you read the context
(writing a second time because my login context was lost *sigh*)
Well, not all nine pages of it. I went back two or three pages and got the impression that you and Doc Angelo were talking at cross-purposes. Estimating some numbers is fine, but it seemed to me that you're not counting the same thing, and I wanted to point out this, and that some things don't matter (like the estimation of desktop users for either system).
You asked "so why do you think linux has more users than fortinite has players?"
If you're talking about users that do not even know they're using Linux, clear win for Linux.
If you're talking about Linux desktop users - what is this comparison good for?
If you're talking about Linux users likely to try Fortnite, there's a clear win for Fortnite users.
We lose in the end as still no incentive for the bigger fish to support Linux/Deck !
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?
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