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.
Quoting: Perkeleen_Vittupää"Linux is a second class citizen, we don't run it internally because only 17 people use it"As I said before, he's blunt and sarcastic (and no that's not toxic), repeatedly digging up such a thing from years ago to get people all riled up isn't helpful.
https://mobile.twitter.com/garrynewman/status/615071229947564032?lang=en
Also, there's no need to instantly jump to grab your pitchforks guys. Like I said, we don't really know their reasoning, the issues with Unity and GPU drivers are quite literally out of their hands and it wouldn't surprise me if those are the causes of them doing this.
I don't think it's good that we found out like this, I do think they should have announced something when it happened or just after and not leave it up to us to let people know.
Maybe it's similar to the PS3 Linux case, where Sony had to give cash back to all PS3 owners that had Linux support (pre-Slim).
Quoting: nox...People in here really need to calm down until we have proper information.I second this; vent your spleen a bit if you must, but you might be wasting your time on trying to get everyone else to agree that somebody else is bad/good. People don't often change their mind (especially online) and trying to convince everybody to agree will probably not work.
I think this guy is questionable at best, but I don't know what his Linux "game plan" is any more than anybody else does. So I'll wait and see what he's got to say for himself, too.
Quoting: DuncQuoting: EndeavourAccuracyMy experience with Rust on Linux was mid-June of this year.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.)
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.
Nvidia bug was game crashing during loading assets. Near 1800th asset it was crashing to desktop.
Rust will be MS exclusive (XB+W10 store only)......
/s
BTW, no pre-order and no early access. Always buy when it's available. That's what I learned after gaming on Linux.
Here's a couple threads where an Nvidia dev posted...
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1032120/linux/rust-video-game-crashes-with-396-18-drivers
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing/issues/592
As mentioned in the linked threads, an Nvidia dev found a workaround, but I'm not sure if that knowledge has reached Facepunch yet. What I'm really afraid of is that the reason for them to stop selling it, is them getting bombarded with toxic messages from Linux users angry about the crashing (and who don't know about the workaround); it's possible that with such toxicity, FP decided that going out of their way to support such a small marketshare who treat the devs like that wasn't worth it. :(
Btw, notice he just said selling; didn't say supporting. Maybe we should (politely) give FP a heads up once Nvidia finally releases the fix?
Last edited by silentprocyon on 27 July 2018 at 7:11 pm UTC
Quoting: tonRBTW, no pre-order and no early access. Always buy when it's available. That's what I learned after gaming on Linux.
Rust left early access at the start of this year and has had linux support for way longer, so whatever you are trying to say here doesn't apply.
Did they stop to support linux version for existing customers
In witch of previous cases I can ask for refund ?
Quoting: kalinDid that mean that i loose the ability to play that game(I already bought it)
Did they stop to support linux version for existing customers
In witch of previous cases I can ask for refund ?
We don't know yet. The only thing we know is that they removed their steamos icon, but the linux version is still there and playable.
The likely result is that they'll provide a linux client, but they will not offer support. Again, we don't know yet though and we'll have to wait for further clarification.
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