Not-so Epic anymore, eh? - Epic won’t update Fortnite to run on the Steam Deck (well, Linux in general too)

[Lightwreather]

Summary

Epic Games doesn’t plan to update Fortnite so that it runs on SteamOS, according to CEO Tim Sweeney, meaning owners of the upcoming Valve Steam Deck will likely have to install Windows to play the popular battle-royale game.

 

Quotes

Quote

In a series of tweets, Sweeney said that the company doesn’t feel confident about its ability to combat cheating in Fortnite when running on custom kernel configurations. Fortnite isn’t on the Steam store in any case, but Sweeney’s comments rule out a Linux version that could run on the Steam Deck.

The Steam Deck uses Valve’s SteamOS, which is based on Linux, and makes use of a compatibility layer called Proton so that Steam games compiled for Windows can run on it. Epic has made its anti-cheat software, Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), compatible with Linux and Proton, so developers that use it should be able to make their games work on the Steam Deck without issue. For now, though, Epic itself isn’t going to be one of them, at least not with Fortnite.

When contacted for comment by The Verge, Sweeney described Linux as “a terrifically hard audience to serve given the variety of incompatible configurations.” Asked whether it would be possible to enable compatibility just for SteamOS, he said “Linux is a small market already and if you subdivide it by blessed kernel versions then it’s even smaller.” It may not be worth Epic’s while to put in the work on security for what will be a comparatively tiny audience, at least at first.

 

My thoughts

Disclaimer: I like linux and I do use it on and off.

So, the CEO of Epic, who let me remind you has praised the steamdeck and has allowed their own Anti-cheat (EAC) to runon Linux with a single button (sort of), has just issued a vote of no confidence on SteamOS and Linux in general. I have one reaction to this: wow. His reasoning: Tiny market. Not worth the effort, which I'll be honest I could get behind, if not for the fact that the steamdeck is (at least atm) a really hyped up device that stands a chance at chaning marketshare for Linux in general.  But well, I can understand, the Steamdeck is still not fully out yet and you might not want to support something that is sort of a beta test. But still, this is still just.... I can't even find the right word for it (fill in the blank if you want). But I am annoyed. Well, howeer this turns and whether Tim Epic (Yes, that's what I will call him, I mean, we have a Tim Apple, and his twitter is TimSweenyEpic, So why the heck not) is justified or not, only time will tell.

 

Sources

TheVerge (Jeez, I'm using them a lot more then I would've thunk)

Twitter - Tim Epic

[Sauron]

I don't know why people expected that Valve releasing yet another SteamOS system would magically convince developers to port games to Linux en masse. What changed since the last time they tried this?

40 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

if not for the fact that the steamdeck is (at least atm) a really hyped up device that stands a chance at chaning marketshare for Linux in general.

ye olde "steam machines" were also hyped in media and then completely flopped. It's one thing to generate clicks in a tech interested crowd that is at least curious to see where this goes (plus Valve still seems to have a well fed army of fanboys), it's another to actually sell devices. We'll have to wait and see but personally I don't see what separates this from the dozens of existing Windows based handhelds, other than the fact that it can't run as many games.

[jaslion]

10 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I don't know why people expected that Valve releasing yet another SteamOS system would magically convince developers to port games to Linux en masse. What changed since the last time they tried this?

ye olde "steam machines" were also hyped in media and then completely flopped. It's one thing to generate clicks in a tech interested crowd that is at least curious to see where this goes (plus Valve still seems to have a well fed army of fanboys), it's another to actually sell devices. We'll have to wait and see but personally I don't see what separates this from the dozens of existing Windows based handhelds, other than the fact that it can't run as many games.

The only difference this time really is that instead of off the shelf mediocre laptop hardware crammed in a tiny box it's now an actual capable device in a market where there is little good value options.

 

I am curious where it goes as well there has been one serious attempt before to bring AAA big screen games to mobile and that was the vita (I'm not counting the switch as that device has it's very own game library) which was doing alright till sony pulled the plug soon after. Even before that it was just doing alright because well those usual tv or monitor gaming experiences were just better experienced there instead of on the go on a vita. It's why after sony pulled the plug the vita became a rpg system not a action shooter racing thingy sony was trying to push. It also ended up becoming a very popular emulation box.

 

Worst case the steamdeck 64gb model becomes a goto emulation box as that niche market has kept on thriving in a decent sense for years and people are shelling out 200$+ for a good gba,nes,snes,... emulation device. Which this one has all the features to be. Plus as a big bonus it's on the go and dockable

 

That last part is probably where it will shine the most as well having a device that can be enjoyed in multiple entirely different settings is a rather huge selling point.

[GorujoCY]

tbh that's to be expected, as Linus addressed in his Linux Daily Driver, developers would rather spend 0 time making their games on something that has a much smaller market (2% for linux) and that would make them like maybe a hundreds or just a few thousand (for bigger game devs)

 

I get the idea of the steam deck making a light of Linux gaming when it gets shipped to millions of customers and im hopeful for it but yeah.

 

Let's not mention epic wants to avoid publishing their games to a strict platform, and that's the reason for the apple lawsuit, they don't want their games to be published somewhere that takes any cut of sales or disallowing their payment method (yet their store take 15% to beat the industry standard but still)

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, jaslion said:

(I'm not counting the switch as that device has it's very own game library)

The switch does have a decent selection of "AAA" multiplatform games, including stuff like DOOM 2016 and Eternal, so I'd say it counts. It also has killer first party exclusive titles though which is probably what made it stand out.

[Avocado Diaboli]

31 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I don't know why people expected that Valve releasing yet another SteamOS system would magically convince developers to port games to Linux en masse.

Yeah, Epic will change their mind if the Steam Deck really takes off, because then it'll actually make sense to dump development costs into making games run on that thing. But until that happens, I'm not willing to call Epic short-sighted or anything else over this.

 

1 hour ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

But I am annoyed.

 

Honestly, you can be annoyed that you don't get to play a game you wanted on a device that could easily run it from a performance perspective, sure. But by that metric you also should be annoyed that you can't play Nintendo games (legally) on it. If it's not in Epic's corporate strategy to target a currently small market then that's perfectly fine. If you want to play Fortnite, you'll have to do it on something that supports it. And if you really want to do it on the Steam Deck, you can install Windows on it. 

[Arika]

5 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Yeah, Epic will change their mind if the Steam Deck really takes off, because then it'll actually make sense to dump development costs into making games run on that thing. But until that happens, I'm not willing to call Epic short-sighted or anything else over this.

People were saying the same thing about VR when Valvue released the index...that didn't take off at ALL

[Mark Kaine]

Isnt this the same guy who wants to "break down digital walls"?

 

Oh, yes, he is…

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-11-26/epic-s-tim-sweeney-advocates-for-a-single-app-store-for-video-games

 

 

[porina]

If I'm not misunderstanding something, I get the feeling that it being on Steam is the bigger problem than it being Linux. I did not go for the device, but if I were, I'd want more choice in software than what is on Steam.

 

edit: poking around that twitter thread - suffice to say "it's complicated".

 

[jaslion]

12 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The switch does have a decent selection of "AAA" multiplatform games, including stuff like DOOM 2016 and Eternal, so I'd say it counts. It also has killer first party exclusive titles though which is probably what made it stand out.

Yeah the AAA thing on the switch kinda did what happened on the wii u. Some ports but then a fizzle out and now it's back to a bunch of neat other things. It basically is due to the hardware being a lot weaker than current consoles but so be it. I enjoy the games on it.

[leadeater]

Way I read this I see it as being more opposed to SteamOS itself, even with the comment about Linux being small and difficult to serve. Feels more targeted specifically at SteamOS to me. In a way makes sense from their perspective, would you so eagerly assist your largest competitor with a product that could be a massive success that is largely tied to or at least attributed to your competing service (Steam Store).

 

Seems to be more about the Steam Store to me anyway.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

 

 

My thoughts

Disclaimer: I like linux and I do use it on and off.

So, the CEO of Epic, who let me remind you has praised the steamdeck and has allowed their own Anti-cheat (Battleye) to runon Linux with a single button (sort of), has just issued a vote of no confidence on SteamOS and Linux in general.

Because Linux is how you bypass anti-cheat the easy way. If you can get something running an anti-cheat to run on Linux, you can get away with cheating because the anti-cheat can't see into the Linux OS. 

 

Beside the fact that most anti-cheat programs are a waste of performance on the host pc. If a game has a problem with cheaters, perhaps the problem is how you're actually checking data.

 

Let's see, most games that have problems with bots, the problem is that the game client accepts arbitrary input from things that are not the keyboard and mouse, does no checks for hooks or trampolines, does no sanity checks from sent or received packets, and doesn't checksum the memory looking for bytes that are refusing to be changed.

 

Games that have "bullet" type targeting, eg arrows and other ammo that you shouldn't be able to dodge easily, have an additional problem of aim-proxies, (a man-in-the-middle attack on the network data) which doesn't run on the same computer. Which is why the network data needs to be slightly more than trivially encrypted. Most games do not do any kind of complex encryption on their network data, because it comes at a performance penalty. What you want is the penalty to decrypting an re-encrypting the packet to be expensive enough that the game server detects the packets as arriving too late and rejects them.

 

But ultimately blaming Linux is not the problem. The problem is that the game developers don't want to support a product that nobody has, and those that do, are the most likely to cheat with it, even if it ran windows.

 

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Let's see, most games that have problems with bots, the problem is that the game client accepts arbitrary input from things that are not the keyboard and mouse, does no checks for hooks or trampolines, does no sanity checks from sent or received packets, and doesn't checksum the memory looking for bytes that are refusing to be changed.

Pretty much all anti-cheat software and tools does do these to a degree, this issue is performance impact. To increase the reliability and accuracy means a vast increase to resource demands if using the current methods. The only way that won't completely thank performance is to utilize encrypted and shielded memory regions which Windows and Linux can actually do, I suspect this is an area where TPM may actually be of some service to protect the keys from the host OS and ostensibly us the gamer aka the cheater.

[Mark Kaine]

"Supporting Steam Deck hardware is a separate issue, but the market for non-Steam-hosted games on limited availability Steam Deck hardware is how big exactly?"

 

Why do I always have the feeling Sweeney doesnt know what he's talking about, no matter what he says? : D 

 

 

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Honestly, you can be annoyed that you don't get to play a game you wanted on a device that could easily run it from a performance perspective, sure. But by that metric you also should be annoyed that you can't play Nintendo games (legally) on it. If it's not in Epic's corporate strategy to target a currently small market then that's perfectly fine. If you want to play Fortnite, you'll have to do it on something that supports it. And if you really want to do it on the Steam Deck, you can install Windows on it. 

 

3 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

But well, I can understand, the Steamdeck is still not fully out yet and you might not want to support something that is sort of a beta test.

 

I did reply to this. But the thing is knowing why something is the way it is, while it does bring an understanding, it still doesn't fully negate said feelings. To be clear, I do agree with what you said but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Ydfhlx]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

I don't see what separates this from the dozens of existing Windows based handhelds, other than the fact that it can't run as many games.

It is faster than others (thanks to RDNA2 graphics) while costing half as much.

[Quackers101]

4 hours ago, porina said:

If I'm not misunderstanding something, I get the feeling that it being on Steam is the bigger problem than it being Linux. I did not go for the device, but if I were, I'd want more choice in software than what is on Steam.

steam can be a bigger issue, like all the API's that a game has to support that can be an issue. While some are good and fun, like workshop, servers, remote play, remote play together, steam's relay servers and other services tied to steam. hardware should be a non-issue? software and steam? but hope easy anti cheat from epic games (a bit different than the default easy anit cheat) will get proton support.

[porina]

Again, I didn't buy into the hype when it was announced so I'm not necessarily up to speed. The default use case will be SteamOS gaming right? But you can install Windows??? I assume it wont be easy to use Windows without external keyboard/mouse. Anyone know if it will dual boot or would you have to pick one and stick with it? Considering its limited storage you probably wont want two OSes.

 

So given my level of understanding above, it's essentially a SteamOS console, more so than a Windows gaming PC. I tried to look at SteamOS in the past, suffice to say I haven't looked at it again.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

9 hours ago, Sauron said:

don't know why people expected that Valve releasing yet another SteamOS system would magically convince developers to port games to Linux en masse. What changed since the last time they tried this?

Because they don’t need to port it

thwy just need to flip a toggle in the eac web portal to allow the anti cheat to run in proton or steam play or whatever

no recompilation or update, just a single toggle

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, porina said:

 

Again, I didn't buy into the hype when it was announced so I'm not necessarily up to speed. The default use case will be SteamOS gaming right? But you can install Windows??? I assume it wont be easy to use Windows without external keyboard/mouse. Anyone know if it will dual boot or would you have to pick one and stick with it? Considering its limited storage you probably wont want two OSes.

 

Yes

yep

no, on screen keyboard, plus touch inputs, plus toutchpads on the sides as mouse will be fine.

if it can install either it can dual boot, just need to install grub

not really, it can get up to 512gb, plus microsd, plus upgradable to like 2tb storage

 

[gamagama69]

8 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Yeah, Epic will change their mind if the Steam Deck really takes off, because then it'll actually make sense to dump development costs into making games run on that thing. But until that happens, I'm not willing to call Epic short-sighted or anything else over this.

 

 

Honestly, you can be annoyed that you don't get to play a game you wanted on a device that could easily run it from a performance perspective, sure. But by that metric you also should be annoyed that you can't play Nintendo games (legally) on it. If it's not in Epic's corporate strategy to target a currently small market then that's perfectly fine. If you want to play Fortnite, you'll have to do it on something that supports it. And if you really want to do it on the Steam Deck, you can install Windows on it. 

You can legally play nintedo games on it. Dump roms files, emulate games.

[gamagama69]

3 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Yes

yep

no, on screen keyboard, plus touch inputs, plus toutchpads on the sides as mouse will be fine.

if it can install either it can dual boot, just need to install grub

not really, it can get up to 512gb, plus microsd, plus upgradable to like 2tb storage

 

There are 1tb drives in this form factor btw

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, gamagama69 said:

There are 1tb drives in this form factor btw

There’s also 2tb drives irrc, which is why I said upgradable to 2tb

[gamagama69]

1 minute ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

There’s also 2tb drives irrc, which is why I said upgradable to 2tb

My bad

[porina]

13 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

not really, it can get up to 512gb, plus microsd, plus upgradable to like 2tb storage

Ok, not as tight as it first looked. The max 512GB standard offering doesn't go very far with games, unless all you play are indies. Then again, with the screen resolution you're not likely downloading HD texture packs either.

 

I've always liked the idea of a handheld PC (as opposed to non-PC devices) so I'll keep an eye on future iterations.