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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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No.
He wants the Steamdeck user base to be 10 million, so it’s large enough to support a player base that can generate revenue if targeted.
And frankly it’s not a him problem. Nearly every dev refuses to release on Linux (and Mac) because of its small user base.
They don't have to release on Linux at all!!
All they have to do is click a checkbox in the EAC SDK & contact Battleye to support Valve's Proton & that's it!!
It is a Tim Sweeney problem.
To be fair, you don't look at the whole picture.
Yes, generating a Linux build wouldn't require a lot of changes to the code.
But if they support Linux, they have to support Linux. This is not some student's first indie game, but instead a massive game with up to 290 million monthly active users. That's 3.7% of the whole world's population! (And it's also more than the number of total Linux users.)
So supporting Linux means they need to test on at least all currently maintained versions of maybe the top 20 or so distros on all sorts of hardware configurations. That would increase their testing costs by around a factor of 20.
They also need to support customers if they have problems. Considering the variability of Linux configurations, chances are high that this comparatively small segment of players will consume an aproportional amount of difficult support requests.
And lastly, if the Linux version of the game has some serious bugs on some setup, it might likely be that all these Linux users think the game is shit and start talking badly about it.
So it's just a simple cost calculation: Does Linux support increase or decrease the total profit?
And if the variables change, the calculation changes with it. Exactly as Sweeny said in his post. People like Sweeny don't care about ideals or about which OS they prefer. They only care about money.
And the revelation that a CEO likes money and dislikes risk isn't exactly hard to figure out.
They don’t even have to support Linux. They just have to stop actively preventing the game from launching on Linux platforms.
Then they get bad press for cheaters using Linux or whatever due to some bug they easily could've caught during the QA they didn't do. So they either need to scramble to fix it, or pull Linux support and block those older versions from connecting.
All of that is worse than never supporting Linux in the first place. So if they're going to support it, they're going to need to do proper QA and get their support staff trained to deal with Linux issues.
A smaller studio or something with SP only mode can get away with it, but it's a lot more tricky for big MP games.
If Apex can do it, then so can Epic Games.
Can and should are very different things. Here are some big differences to understand why it doesn't make sense for Fortnite, but it might make sense for Apex:
I wish they'd support Linux, but I don't think comparing to Apex makes a lot of sense here.
https://lemmy.world/comment/6016698
Fortnite doesn't have to be on steam to work. The only thing they'd likely have to change is removing the steam runtime, assuming Epic were to make a Linux store front, which is completely unnecessary because we already have our own solutions : Legendary/Heroic & Lutris.
https://lemmy.world/comment/6020626
Just like how Valve worked with Epic to get EAC working, they also worked with Battleye to get Battleye working, just have to contact Battleye to enable it.
It's literally just another runtime.
There's cheaters on every single platform, I can deadass cheat in fortnite from my android phone, PS4, Windows PC, and everything in between. What's 2 more cheater's per thousands more users.
Fuck, I can use an external raspberry pi and bypass their kernel lvl tamper protection in a snap.
And again, if Apex can detect people cheating on Linux from server side like EAC and Battleye is supposed to in the first place, then so can Epic Games.
Please stop defending this bullshit, Epic Games has everything in their power to support Linux and their excuses are merely just that, excuses.
I'm sick and tired of people shilling for this POS mega corp with the same bs arguments.
I'm not saying it needs be on Steam to work, I'm saying it needs to be on Steam to be popular on the Steam Deck since the install process is otherwise quite involved. So if they just enable Proton in EAC, they'll only get a handful of enthusiasts (who are probably playing on another platform anyway) and open themselves up to Linux-specific cheats.
I'm not saying they can't, I'm saying it's probably not profitable for them to do so. They're not going to get many new users if they support Linux, so the net impact is that they'll have another platform for support requests and potential cheats.
Apex is on Steam, so the barrier to play their game on Linux/Steam Deck is really low (just enable and potential users are now ~2% higher). So for them, turning on Linux support is probably profitable since they'll convert a lot more people on that platform.
What am I defending? I'm explaining why it likely doesn't make business sense for Epic to support Linux. My point here isn't to claim that Epic is doing something good here, but to show it's probably not some weird hatred of Linux, but a business choice. Some of it is also probably a rivalry with Valve, but I don't think Sweeney would let that get in the way of profits if push came to shove. Sweeney's main goal AFAICT is to make money, not to stick it to some competitor.
Yes, Epic could support Linux pretty quickly if they chose to. They're choosing not to, most likely because it won't make them as much money as other efforts would. It's really not complicated.
You can install other store fronts on Steam Deck with ease. It's called flatpak : lutris, heroic.
The install process is not that involved, we can literally install fortnite right now on steam deck.
Hell, it even briefly ran on Steam Deck in 2022 when they fucked up and the Anti-cheat was half broken.
Yeah, Epic totally killed the pre-existing, and flawlessly working Linux version of Rocket League when they acquired the studio and then refused to refund because "meh profits, leh business choice" (ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■
They couldn't possibly have a hard on for fucking over Linux users.
The fact they even still allow it to run under proton is a fuckin miracle, or rather they know that'd they get bad PR as it's already proven to be viable.
Also, don't you find it fucking hilarious how they fired a fuck load of developers and then Tim goes "if only we had more developers" 💀
Yes, I have those installed as well, and it's not hard. But it's a barrier for mass adoption. I'm interested to know how many people who own a Steam Deck actually have Lutris or Heroic installed, and how many of those actually use it. I have both, but I've only used them a handful of times. My guess is less than half have either installed, and less than half of those use them.
So we're looking at a fraction of an already small group of users, and the vast majority who would use it to play Fortnite already play on another supported platform. So why should Epic go out of their way to support it? The playerbase isn't there, so there's really not much economic incentive to do so.
That's a separate issue IMO. They wanted it exclusive on EGS (mostly for sweet sweet MTX profit), and EGS didn't (and still doesn't) support Linux. So their choice is one of the following:
They knew they'd lose some users in the EGS switch, but the point with Rocket League wasn't to maximize players of RL, but to maximize users of EGS, which they hope would result in higher total sales on the platform. If you're already on EGS for RL, maybe you'll try Fortnite and get hooked. It's a harder sell if you can still use your platform of choice.
Epic wants to sell EGS exclusives and make that MTX recurring revenue. That's why they bought RL, why they made it free, and why is exclusive to EGS. That's already why they buy these exclusivity agreements, and supporting Linux doesn't fit in that strategy.
It kinda sucks, but at the end of the day, I have plenty of other options on Steam that I'm not going to bother much (I actually still play SP RL sometimes on Steam when I get a hankering, but I'm boycotting MP). I have never purchased anything from Epic, nor have I played any of their games outside of a quick test to mess with my Steam Deck. It's an unattractive platform because they don't support my platform. If they decided to support Linux, maybe I'd give them another shot.
I don't hate Epic because of it, I totally understand why they're making the choices they are. I'm not going to go through hoops to play their games until they go through hoops to earn me as a customer. They don't seem to want that, so whatever. The same is true for Origin (or EA Play out whatever it's called now), Microsoft Gamepass, UPlay, etc no, and other game platforms, so I just don't buy from them. Every year Valve earns my business by making more and more games available (I've been Linux only since before Steam on Linux was a thing), so they get my money.