Confused on Steam Play and Proton? Be sure to check out our guide.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Note: Multiple updates at the bottom.

Sad news, Facepunch are no longer selling the Linux version of their survival game Rust [Official Site] after removing mentions of Linux support yesterday from their Steam page.

Linux support has been available in Rust since 2013, along with continued support during Early Access and after the official release earlier this year. It was a bit of a surprise that we got an email from a reader, to mention that the Steam store page for Rust was no longer showing the SteamOS/Linux icon or listing it in the system requirements.

Thinking it was a mistake, since nothing was announced, I reached to Facepunch to which they replied with:

Hey dude - yeah we stopped selling Rust for Linux.

I did request more information as to why and will update this article if I receive any further information. To be fair, they haven't had a lot of time to respond again yet, but I feel it's important to get the word out.

It's possible it's due to issues with the Unity game engine, which has suffered some nuisance problems with their Linux support lately. We've gone through black screens, no input in fullscreen and the latest being double-input issues—all issues that have plagued a number of games that use Unity. All of which have been solved in updated versions of Unity though. Still, it has become more of a hassle for developers to support us due to issues like this repeatedly coming up.

To be clear on something though, it might only mean that they're not actively advertising it as a Linux supported game, while still allowing Linux users to buy it and play it—something a few other developers do as well. I highly doubt they would actually remove the Linux version, after it being around for so long.

Really sad about this, we have an active community-run server with plenty of people enjoying themselves on it. Sin has livestreamed plenty of it on our Twitch Channel, purchased skins and all. With all the additions to the game, it was really becoming quite interesting. Even I was also going to be jumping back in soon, so this has me a little down as I did quite enjoy the game as well.

As always, please remain respectful in the comments. Issues like this can become quite heated, but let's not go throwing any insults around. Now is a time to show your support, not have a war of words.

Updates

Garry responded on Twitter and said this:

We stopped selling Rust on Linux because we won't/don't give it the QA support it needs. There are situations where there's a Unity Linux bug that pops up, and we ship with it - because it's the right decision for 99.99% of our players.

And while 60% of Linux users are fine with this, they understand their position in this world, it's probably not the right thing to act like it's fine. So while we're still going to ship Linux updates and keep it up to date.. we're not going to sell it anymore.

Also Linux Community - being abusive, demanding, rude to the few developers actually shipping games to your favourite OS isn't the way to go. It makes me regret ever shipping Linux versions.

I've said it before and I will say it again: Developers are human, people do need to understand that and not resort to throwing insults around right away. Even so, if you sell a game on any platform you should be doing QA on it—there's no excuse for not doing it.

Update #2 - Here's what another developer said on Reddit:

Linux is and will still be supported but the decision to remove Linux from purchase was mainly based on multiple issues in the current Unity version (2018.1.4).

We're currently unable to downgrade to a Unity version which corrects these Linux issues and we're unable to upgrade Unity to 2018.2 due to a number of new issues.

Linux is in a state of limbo in which we're unable to resolve, instead of selling a broken platform we decided to remove it from purchase but still offer it to existing players.

Once Linux is in a working state we'll review the decision.

Hat tip to Basiani for letting us know.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
25 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
210 comments
Page: «3/21»
  Go to:

Egonaut Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: kfWell, He's a Brit.
So because someone is from Britain, he's allowed to insult others? Interesting..

Quoting: kfAnd a nazi, right?
Grow up.
namiko Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: Leopard...Turned out it was a Nvidia driver bug.
Wow. If he's got Nvidia's Linux drivers to blame for some of the lost game sales (their drivers have been pretty impossible for some laptops), that's pretty shitty of Nvidia.

Definitely upgrading to an AMD when I get the chance because Nvidia on Linux is going downhill.


Last edited by namiko on 27 July 2018 at 6:09 pm UTC
x_wing Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: namiko
Quoting: Leopard...Turned out it was a Nvidia driver bug.
Wow. If he's got Nvidia's Linux drivers to blame for lost game sales (their drivers have been pretty impossible for some laptops), that's pretty shitty of Nvidia.

Definitely upgrading to an AMD when I get the chance because Nvidia on Linux is going downhill.

It's not 100% Nvidia fault. The devs still should make QA of the system they support. They do it on Window and should do it too on the distro they support.
nox Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: Egonaut
Quoting: nox
Quoting: EgonautThat's why you don't support that toxic guy Garry and everyone who's working with him.
Meh, he is straight forward, blunt and sarcastic. Toxic isn't really the right word.
Calling Linux (and by that their users) a second class isn't toxic? Yeah sure, defend that guy further if you want, I don't.
Defending? I'm just telling you how it is. He is blunt and doesn't sugar coat at all, and he seems to enjoy sparking some controversy too :)

Would I call it professional, hell no. But toxic isn't the right word.


EDIT: Also, people in here really need to calm down until we have proper information.


Last edited by nox on 27 July 2018 at 6:10 pm UTC
Leopard Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: namiko
Quoting: Leopard...Turned out it was a Nvidia driver bug.
Wow. If he's got Nvidia's Linux drivers to blame for lost game sales (their drivers have been pretty impossible for some laptops), that's pretty shitty of Nvidia.

Definitely upgrading to an AMD when I get the chance because Nvidia on Linux is going downhill.

Nvidia driver bug had a workaround , we discovered it a bit late.

Other problems were ( 5 people including me refunded on Nvidia driver bug state , 1 person applied workaround and get past asset loading screen ) according to person who got it running were :

1-) Crazy memory leak
2-) Very slow load times

So he also refunded due to this.

Overall ; yes there was an Nvidia bug that affects drivers higher than 390 but that was not the only reason of our refunds.
Like he stated on these 3 year old tweets , probably he never tested Linux builds so it made them more error prone. When people started buying , refunding , error reporting ( recently saw a Rust related issue on Valve Steam Github ) it just triggered him.

Well , honestly i'm a bit sad but i rather prefer giving my money to devs who really tries to support Linux.

Good luck to him and his game , that's all i can say.
Dunc Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: EndeavourAccuracyMy experience with Rust on Linux was mid-June of this year.
First, it crashed, so I restarted.
Then I joined a queue to start a MP game.
After waiting for ~15 minutes to join the game, it crashed again.
Never played it again, 0.4 hrs on record.
Same here. I think I have an hour on record, because I've owned it for longer and tried a few times to run it. I've never actually been able to play the game. (It may well be that NVidia bug, but it doesn't look like one. It feels more like something in the network code.)
namiko Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: x_wingIt's not 100% Nvidia fault.
There, clarified my comment a bit. Didn't think it would only be that to blame for lost sales if there isn't good QA in general. Don't own Rust. ^_^;
nox Jul 27, 2018
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: namiko
Quoting: Leopard...Turned out it was a Nvidia driver bug.
Wow. If he's got Nvidia's Linux drivers to blame for lost game sales (their drivers have been pretty impossible for some laptops), that's pretty shitty of Nvidia.

Definitely upgrading to an AMD when I get the chance because Nvidia on Linux is going downhill.

It's not 100% Nvidia fault. The devs still should make QA of the system they support. They do it on Window and should do it too on the distro they support.

Here is the thing though, with the nvidia problem and unity issues on top of that the linux version didn't make facepunch look good. And there is very little they can do about those issues. Dropping official support seems logical enough considering...

If the 0.5% takes up a significant portion of troubleshooting and fixing, well, it's just not logical to keep doing it.
Perkeleen_Vittupää Jul 27, 2018
"Linux is a second class citizen, we don't run it internally because only 17 people use it"

https://mobile.twitter.com/garrynewman/status/615071229947564032?lang=en
MKN-dev-LINUX Jul 27, 2018
Hmmm, never purchased a single game from Garry and or his studio. I've found him very unprofessional in terms of his business actions/operations, so this whole thing doesn't really surprise me much.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.