Today, Easy Anti-Cheat from Epic Games / Epic Online Services has officially announced a full expansion for Linux including native builds and Wine + Proton. This is big for Linux Gaming and the Steam Deck.
This is certainly good news. But I’m wondering, would a company allow EAC for Proton, but doesn’t maintain/support the game for Linux be a win? Is having buggy a game better than having no game at all?
I see it as a win, since at least the game is playable and available, and since it’s running with Proton, tweakers usually find a way around the bugs and post on ProtonDB the solutions they found, and last case scenario people can try and contact the devs in forums or on Twitter.
Which is better in my books as not playable at all and no native version coming ever™
The pessimistic future that I currently foresee is that the Proton/Wine community will become accustomed to having the effort of Linux gameplay for non-Linux games pushed on them by the game companies, and will take it for granted. Hopefully they will remember that there is a huge gap between Linux-enabled games and Proton-enabled games.
I would like to point out that many, many linux versions of games have either major bugs or are almost unplayable while on proton they work fine: Borderlands 2, Ark, Aragami, and Planetary Annihilation are just a few off the top of my head. All but aragami are either barely playable or unplayable natively. Not to mention how rocket league updates were sometimes delayed for days for the linux version, which also isn’t ideal in a competitive game.
Just because a company makes a native port, doesn’t mean they will put even the minimal effort in to support it, which ends up causing more problems than playing through proton. Difficult situation.
I would like to point out that many, many linux versions of games have either major bugs or are almost unplayable
This is a mistake. I have played over 50 Linux games and many of them work fine. I find it unfortunate that Proton/Wine gamers tend to miss the opportunity to support the creators of games for Linux.
It is not a mistake. I said “many don’t work well”, you say “many work fine.” Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Many can work fine, many can work badly, and many can work fine with minor issues.
Valve games all work fine (besides modding, sometimes you can run into path issues or similar), but for the other games, I, personally, have had almost as many issues with “native” games as with proton games. With proton games, the fix is often tweaks, command line parameters, etc… that can be done with proper knowledge, debugging. On the other hand, native problems (as I have experienced them) aren’t a problem with translation as there is no translation, so they rely on often-apathetic developers to release a fix. For games like Borderlands 2, Planetary annihilation, Rocket league, Rust, etc… those fixes never came and in 2 of those cases, linux support was just removed instead.
I agree that we should support linux developers, but I think it is a difference in philosophy on whether people should exclusively support linux devs, especially when their support of linux may be fleeting.
It is not a mistake. I said “many don’t work well”, you say “many work fine.” Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Many can work fine, many can work badly, and many can work fine with minor issues.
I’m not a English native, does “many” as used in context like this not mean “most of the objects in the category mentioned in the sentence”, but only that there are many of them? If so, then your sentence “many linux versions of games have either major bugs or are almost unplayable” doesn’t seem to provide any meaning, does it?
Valve games all work fine (besides modding, sometimes you can run into path issues or similar)
Just a reminder: multiple problems in the Linux versions of some Valve games have not been fixed for several years, I have seen multiple problems with Left 4 Dead 2.
so they rely on often-apathetic developers to release a fix.
I agree that we should support linux developers, but I think it is a difference in philosophy on whether people should exclusively support linux devs
I think so too. I can’t convince myself to pay for a game from a developer who is apathetic about linux .
For games like Borderlands 2, Planetary annihilation, Rocket league, Rust, etc… those fixes never came and in 2 of those cases, linux support was just removed instead.
especially when their support of linux may be fleeting.
It’s really a terrible story. I was also annoyed by Borderlands 2. Fckn Linux support… Darkest Dungeon, Outlast, Dying Light… I try not to buy games that have had a third company produce a Linux port. Those games tend to leave bugs in the Linux version. It would be nice if information about Linux friendly/unfriendly game developers were shared with the Linux gamer community, but unfortunately, such stories are not in the mainstream of the Linux gaming community.
Ah, I think I misunderstood your intention. I took your other statement to mean: The 50 games I played were mostly fine, so here is a criticism of wine/proton gamers.
i guess we shouldn’t look down on WINE gamers because often even devs who “support linux” don’t really support linux, so it’s only as good as supporting a game that only works over proton.
This is certainly good news. But I’m wondering, would a company allow EAC for Proton, but doesn’t maintain/support the game for Linux be a win? Is having buggy a game better than having no game at all?
I see it as a win, since at least the game is playable and available, and since it’s running with Proton, tweakers usually find a way around the bugs and post on ProtonDB the solutions they found, and last case scenario people can try and contact the devs in forums or on Twitter.
Which is better in my books as not playable at all and no native version coming ever™
The pessimistic future that I currently foresee is that the Proton/Wine community will become accustomed to having the effort of Linux gameplay for non-Linux games pushed on them by the game companies, and will take it for granted. Hopefully they will remember that there is a huge gap between Linux-enabled games and Proton-enabled games.
I would like to point out that many, many linux versions of games have either major bugs or are almost unplayable while on proton they work fine: Borderlands 2, Ark, Aragami, and Planetary Annihilation are just a few off the top of my head. All but aragami are either barely playable or unplayable natively. Not to mention how rocket league updates were sometimes delayed for days for the linux version, which also isn’t ideal in a competitive game.
Just because a company makes a native port, doesn’t mean they will put even the minimal effort in to support it, which ends up causing more problems than playing through proton. Difficult situation.
This is a mistake. I have played over 50 Linux games and many of them work fine. I find it unfortunate that Proton/Wine gamers tend to miss the opportunity to support the creators of games for Linux.
It is not a mistake. I said “many don’t work well”, you say “many work fine.” Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Many can work fine, many can work badly, and many can work fine with minor issues.
Valve games all work fine (besides modding, sometimes you can run into path issues or similar), but for the other games, I, personally, have had almost as many issues with “native” games as with proton games. With proton games, the fix is often tweaks, command line parameters, etc… that can be done with proper knowledge, debugging. On the other hand, native problems (as I have experienced them) aren’t a problem with translation as there is no translation, so they rely on often-apathetic developers to release a fix. For games like Borderlands 2, Planetary annihilation, Rocket league, Rust, etc… those fixes never came and in 2 of those cases, linux support was just removed instead.
I agree that we should support linux developers, but I think it is a difference in philosophy on whether people should exclusively support linux devs, especially when their support of linux may be fleeting.
I’m not a English native, does “many” as used in context like this not mean “most of the objects in the category mentioned in the sentence”, but only that there are many of them? If so, then your sentence “many linux versions of games have either major bugs or are almost unplayable” doesn’t seem to provide any meaning, does it?
Just a reminder: multiple problems in the Linux versions of some Valve games have not been fixed for several years, I have seen multiple problems with Left 4 Dead 2.
I think so too. I can’t convince myself to pay for a game from a developer who is apathetic about linux .
It’s really a terrible story. I was also annoyed by Borderlands 2. Fckn Linux support… Darkest Dungeon, Outlast, Dying Light… I try not to buy games that have had a third company produce a Linux port. Those games tend to leave bugs in the Linux version. It would be nice if information about Linux friendly/unfriendly game developers were shared with the Linux gamer community, but unfortunately, such stories are not in the mainstream of the Linux gaming community.
Ah, I think I misunderstood your intention. I took your other statement to mean: The 50 games I played were mostly fine, so here is a criticism of wine/proton gamers.
i guess we shouldn’t look down on WINE gamers because often even devs who “support linux” don’t really support linux, so it’s only as good as supporting a game that only works over proton.