[egeres]

Unfortunately, that last 10% of games are AAA competitive multiplayer that account for a massive user base who are still dependent on windows to play them (battlefield 6, fortnite, any of the call of duty games from the last 8 years, league of legends, GTA online, apex legends, rainbow six siege...)

[larrik]

Weird, I used to play LoL on linux all the time a few years back. I assume something changed

[zparky]

yeah they introduced vanguard anticheat on all riot games which isn't supported on linux.

[nonethewiser]

Woah so Riot broke League on Linux? I guess they probably did the math but that seems like a bold move.

[zparky]

yeah, and mac too, can't run league or valorant. vanguard is their kernel-level anticheat, and windows is like 95% of their market and the difficulty of implementing it on another kernel i guess isn't worth the <5%.

[johnthedebs]

League works on macOS just fine, I played yesterday. Vanguard is buggy (it occasionally quits the client after I finish a game), but the game generally works and has for at least several years.

[mrguyorama]

Why would it be a "bold move"? Linux gaming population is damn near zero, they do not provide a higher profit margin like mac gamers would, and the documented evidence is that supporting Linux users is obnoxious because they are rude and entitled but not actually that much better at providing feedback.

Epic Games bought out rocket league and turned off a native linux build and faced no repercussions. Instead they made plenty of money.

That's the bar.

[larrik]

Not sure that's fair, given most Linux gamers look like Windows gamers to the metrics.

That said, devices like the SteamDeck run games on Linux (and that's without considering that every Android game ever is technically running on Linux too).

Let's face it though, PC gaming is already small enough these vs the consoles, that further splitting the marked isn't going to make sense for a lot of companies.

[mrguyorama]

>Not sure that's fair, given most Linux gamers look like Windows gamers to the metrics.

No. All the articles and testimony of game devs abandoning native Linux versions is from well before Proton was a thing, including Epic Games buying Rocket League and preventing you from playing the Native Linux build they had.

It also was not related to anti-cheat or underlying engine limitations or anything. Developers were clear that the problem was the massive lack of uptake mixed with a weirdly entitled community.

[array_key_first]

It's bold because it's breaking stuff that already works and will continue to work even if you do nothing.

It's one thing to choose not to develop a new game for Linux. It's another to take a game that already runs on Linux and intentionally break it. You're guaranteed to alienate SOME people who are already fans of the game.

[Ray20]

And in the Linux community, "run" apparently has a slightly different meaning than what ordinary people are used to.

[LauraMedia]

I thought the same but let's not pretend Windows is a holy grail for compatibility anymore. Especially when it comes to older games, this facade / image breaks down fast.

I once tried to play Trackmania Nations (not Forever or United Forever, the ESWC one) because that was the first entry of this series I played. I still have all the files from back then so I thought it would be as simple as installing it and running it. Other games such as Trackmania Sunrise came with the nasty SecureROM DRM that will break your current installs, but ESWC was always free to play and without DRM.

Well, after install, I played a lot in my first sitting. A few days later, my Windows install was broken. I used a restore point before installing Trackmania, everything was back to stable. A few weeks later I tried again, same situation, a day or two after install, my Windows would break.

I thought it was a general system instability, maybe some weird configuration and the game only triggers that specific bug. So I did a full clean reinstall. And installed the game a few days later. Who would've thought, my Windows breaks yet again.

What I'm trying to say is: I've been running Fedora on my main PC for 2 years now and the game has been installed via Proton for 1 year. It never broke, it always just worked.

[krige]

That's cool but I spent the last week trying to get midi music in dosbox under Mint. It's still not working. Midi. And Wine works until it suddenly doesn't and searching for solution you get stonewalled with modern day equivalent of rtfms or plain old radio silence.

[Brett_Riverboat]

Thats always the worst part of linux for me. Everyone is always so hostile, I have to say though I have had a little success finding help on lemmy but not much.

[csdreamer7]

To add to this Nathan Briggs does reverse engineering to make old games work on modern Windows. Windows 11 has corrected faults in it's APIs that probably should have been fixed but somehow worked with older versions of Windows that gamedevs built around. He often posts the solution and sends it GOG. Often this involves updating a community maintained wrapper around the DirectX APIs that GOG uses.

I think you will really like this content.

https://www.youtube.com/@nathanbaggs

[pcdoodle]

I think he means he likes his .exe's, I too like a good exe or msi.

[AstroBen]

Steamdeck is doing very good things for linux gaming