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Bungie say a big fat no to Proton and Steam Deck for Destiny 2

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Were you hoping to play Destiny 2 on Steam Deck or a Linux desktop using Proton? Well, you're currently out of luck. Their updated Steam Guide has a newer section just for Steam Deck and it's not good news.

Like a lot of bigger games, they don't support Linux either natively or at all and right now it appears they don't have any plans to either. It reads:

Destiny 2 is not supported for play on the Steam Deck or on any system utilizing Steam Play's Proton unless Windows is installed and running.  Players who attempt to launch Destiny 2 on the Steam Deck through SteamOS or Proton will be unable to enter the game and will be returned to their game library after a short time.

Players who attempt to bypass Destiny 2 incompatibility will be met with a game ban.

I've already seen a few places jump on that last line but it's pretty normal. Anyone who works around anti-cheat in online games, would face a ban. I mean, that's obvious really isn't it?

Note: Destiny 2 already has a full Linux port, since it runs on Stadia and it was properly ported for it.

For Destiny 2 to work with Proton if they decided not to bring over their Stadia Linux port to Steam, one thing Bungie would need to do is speak to BattlEye which it now uses, although that's only supposed to be a little email away to get hooked up.

Meanwhile, I don't want to hype it up too much just yet but Apex Legends now works on Linux with Proton and the Steam Deck. I even captured a little rough video for you. No confirmation yet to be clear so it's not official as far as I am concerned, so I'm hoping it's not another case of a game that will stop working in a day or two like has happened previously with multiple games. Given the Steam Deck is here though, and Apex had a dedicated Steam Deck branch we saw on SteamDB — I remain hopeful on that.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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areamanplaysgame Mar 10, 2022
Quoting: AussieEevee
Quoting: areamanplaysgame
Quoting: omer666For a company that started as a mac-exclusive, it is pretty goofy to be so hostile.

It's not especially hostile. The point is in order to make it work right now, you would have to defeat anti-cheat. Obviously they can't say that's OK.

While I am disappointed that they are not putting in the very little effort it would take to make the game playable on Linux, it's just business.
Destiny 2 uses BattlEye as its anti-cheat system. BattlEye has supported Linux, by their own words, for a long time and will continue to support Linux for the foreseeable future.

This is disingenuous. BattlEye doesn't "just work" on Linux. It requires an explicit opt-in by the devs, which implies that there is a reason devs might not want to opt in. It very likely comes with the same disclaimers as EAC, namely, that to be *really* effective, it needs to have kernel access, which is something you simply can't do on Linux because there isn't just one Linux kernel, and there are potentially an infinite number of custom kernels. Like it or not, this is a decision for the devs to make, and it carries a risk of making the game worse for existing players by introducing a new pool of players who, while not any more likely to cheat, probably can do so more easily.
Super-G Mar 27, 2022
I don't get why Valve is accepting this. The games are key to the success of Proton and the Steam Deck. It should be a requirement for anyone distributing on Steam that they not hamper technologies developed and promoted for the platform. Threatening players with a ban for using that technology is unacceptable. If I had a say in it, it would be: "You distribute on Steam, you support the features that we introduce to Steam, or you can go jump."
areamanplaysgame Mar 30, 2022
Quoting: Super-GI don't get why Valve is accepting this.

What are they supposed to do about it, exactly?

Quoting: Super-GThe games are key to the success of Proton and the Steam Deck. It should be a requirement for anyone distributing on Steam that they not hamper technologies developed and promoted for the platform.

This is probably not a hill they want to die on just yet. Linux users still account for barely over 1% of Steam sales, I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Hopefully the Steam Deck will help move the needle, but until that proves true, we don't have a lot of bargaining power and Valve still owes a good experience to the overwhelming majority of their users who are still on Windows.
slaapliedje Mar 30, 2022
Quoting: areamanplaysgame
Quoting: Super-GI don't get why Valve is accepting this.

What are they supposed to do about it, exactly?

Quoting: Super-GThe games are key to the success of Proton and the Steam Deck. It should be a requirement for anyone distributing on Steam that they not hamper technologies developed and promoted for the platform.

This is probably not a hill they want to die on just yet. Linux users still account for barely over 1% of Steam sales, I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Hopefully the Steam Deck will help move the needle, but until that proves true, we don't have a lot of bargaining power and Valve still owes a good experience to the overwhelming majority of their users who are still on Windows.
Didn't we hit just over 2%? It's funny that people keep saying 'OMG, only like 2%!' but when you factor in the total amount of video game players on the planet... that 2% becomes A LOT! And (yeah I know this is said every time) with how trash Windows 11 is... hopefully we grow to 3-5% with the Deck and get more users overall.
areamanplaysgame Apr 7, 2022
Quoting: slaapliedjeIt's funny that people keep saying 'OMG, only like 2%!' but when you factor in the total amount of video game players on the planet... that 2% becomes A LOT!

It's not 2% of the total amount of video game players on the planet. It's 2% of PC game players buying games through Steam. That's a much smaller pool. And even so, it means approximately 98% of Steam customers are not in that category. So it doesn't make much sense to say, "We're not going to let 98% of our customers play [huge game many people want] unless the other 2% can also play it."
slaapliedje Apr 7, 2022
Quoting: areamanplaysgame
Quoting: slaapliedjeIt's funny that people keep saying 'OMG, only like 2%!' but when you factor in the total amount of video game players on the planet... that 2% becomes A LOT!

It's not 2% of the total amount of video game players on the planet. It's 2% of PC game players buying games through Steam. That's a much smaller pool. And even so, it means approximately 98% of Steam customers are not in that category. So it doesn't make much sense to say, "We're not going to let 98% of our customers play [huge game many people want] unless the other 2% can also play it."


Steam has 120 million monthly active users.
62.6 million people use Steam on a daily basis.
The Steam catalog in the US includes 50,361 games.
Steam users logged 31.3 billion hours of playtime in 2020.
PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS holds the record for the most concurrent Steam players, peaking at 3.26M.

Still a decent chunk. The thing that always makes me laugh is that these tiny indie studios that are literally occasionally one dude making a game in their spare time... yet can supply a native Linux build. But the larger studios whine that it's too hard/expensive. When most of them generally just snag either the Unreal or Unity engine...
Super-G May 18, 2022
Quoting: areamanplaysgameWhat are they supposed to do about it, exactly?
Make it rule and threaten everyone who does not comply with being banned from using their platform. It would be the obvious if Valve really wanted Steam Deck and Linux Gaming to be a success. I wouldn't go as far as to require everyone to support it, but at least noone should be allowed to work actively against it by implementing countermeasures.

And on the subject of "anyone who works around anti-cheat in online games, would face a ban" being "pretty normal": Anti-cheat is being worked around the moment someone cheats. Demanding from people to give up the control over their machines is a dangerous idea, which includes requiring them to use only "blessed kernels", secure boot and other atrocities. As long as I don't cheat, I'm not doing anything wrong. If an anti-cheat-system keeps people from using their machines the way they want, it is a flawed system.
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