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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.
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I was interested in Rust years ago. But I read about toxic players ruining the fun in game repeatedly, so I never bothered to actually buy the game or join any giveaways. Those toxic players cannot be concentrated on Linux only, there are a lot of idiots on other platforms as well. And as far as I understand Rust used cross platform play, so judging by the percentage of Linux gamers there have to be lots of bad apples in the Windows users group.
And I don't believe Linux users are more vocal than users of other platforms in general. But I do believe that lack of QA leads to more pain for those users which fuels the flames. If your product has different quality on different platforms, those users will sound off accordingly. Ask developers with great Linux support if they think of us as toxic and they will tell you otherwise.
Eat your own dog food.
And I don't believe Linux users are more vocal than users of other platforms in general. But I do believe that lack of QA leads to more pain for those users which fuels the flames. If your product has different quality on different platforms, those users will sound off accordingly. Ask developers with great Linux support if they think of us as toxic and they will tell you otherwise.
Eat your own dog food.
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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)Added to the article.[/quote]
....
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.
This is really good news, I'm one of those that bought the game and was never able to play it but also never refunded hopping that one day will be fixed, just hope they will use beta option on steam.
But I never seen so much hate in GOL as in this thread, relax, life is short, enjoy it
Liam as a journalist you already new that this post would be a wildfire, just suggesting that sometimes you should block comments in some articles :), freedom of speech sometimes can be really annoying.
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This is again a typical Garry. Sorry liam i totally disagree with you letting him go on with that.
a.) His tweet implies that he only gets treated "abusive, demanding, rude" by the linux community. I am sure he gets , he would get the same kind of mails if he would provide the same kind of quality for windows from the windows crowd (most likely even worse). Would he than write the same as a tweet towards his 99% player base?
b.) I am ok with their decision determined by their QA during game development. If you can't (? aren't willing to ?) test basic functionality (we are talking currently about loading a level) on a free os, than it is most likely better to not make your customer have a bad experience on the platform.
Btw thank you for providing the statement of the other dev. He seems to know how to communicate such decision properly. If you ever want liam you really should make an article about , why some dev's are loved by the linux community and praised -> flibit / ryan and many more and supported like hell and other dev's aren't. I am sure you will find out that all those dev's made mistakes already but there is a huge difference between how they handle linux and their mistakes in public.
So while asking the linux community to handle the dev's which support them the right way i would find it only fair to ask the dev's who want to provide linux ports the same and a expressed -> "i don't like this community , i can't handle them , i don't want to handle them , i don't want to be bothered with this os cause i don't earn enough money on it" isn't the best base to communicate with people from this community.
Last edited by Glog78 on 28 July 2018 at 10:17 am UTC
a.) His tweet implies that he only gets treated "abusive, demanding, rude" by the linux community. I am sure he gets , he would get the same kind of mails if he would provide the same kind of quality for windows from the windows crowd (most likely even worse). Would he than write the same as a tweet towards his 99% player base?
b.) I am ok with their decision determined by their QA during game development. If you can't (? aren't willing to ?) test basic functionality (we are talking currently about loading a level) on a free os, than it is most likely better to not make your customer have a bad experience on the platform.
Btw thank you for providing the statement of the other dev. He seems to know how to communicate such decision properly. If you ever want liam you really should make an article about , why some dev's are loved by the linux community and praised -> flibit / ryan and many more and supported like hell and other dev's aren't. I am sure you will find out that all those dev's made mistakes already but there is a huge difference between how they handle linux and their mistakes in public.
So while asking the linux community to handle the dev's which support them the right way i would find it only fair to ask the dev's who want to provide linux ports the same and a expressed -> "i don't like this community , i can't handle them , i don't want to handle them , i don't want to be bothered with this os cause i don't earn enough money on it" isn't the best base to communicate with people from this community.
Last edited by Glog78 on 28 July 2018 at 10:17 am UTC
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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.
Personally, I've never being insulting or bad to devs and I'm not the only one Linux user who is correct. Beside, Windows community isn't really better when read some Steam forums and recently about DRM Denuvo games, however, no devs told they're abusive or insulting community :O I'm sorry to take that kind of example but that's like saying that each single German was a Nazis during the second worldwide war, while they weren't all Nazis.
I think that devs should stop this excuse... there are bad people in every groups, please devs you shouldn't say that Linux community is insulting and abusive, that's childish answer... This is really a poor and easy excuse, plus it makes good Linux users feeling bad about those words since we aren't all disrespectful. :(
Last edited by Shinikio on 28 July 2018 at 10:29 am UTC
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Wow. These comments derailed quickly. Come on people. :(
If developers think this side of the Linux gaming community is the norm, I wonder why they would even consider a Linux release at all.
Don't bother replying, I'm not subscribing to this comment thread and I hope Liam locks this down asap...
If developers think this side of the Linux gaming community is the norm, I wonder why they would even consider a Linux release at all.
Don't bother replying, I'm not subscribing to this comment thread and I hope Liam locks this down asap...
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I don't know anything about this Garry guy, I don't have anything against him, and I don't mind his comments about Linux. I'm willing to accept the idea that he's blunt, outspoken, sarcastic, enjoys stirring up controversy and whatnot (which, OK, if he was operating in my social milieu would probably be taken as "he's a jerk", but I can deal with the concept that social environments differ). All fine.
What strikes me as weird is him then saying stuff likeAlso 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.
Hang on, mate, isn't that just the Linux community being blunt, outspoken and sarcastic, maybe a little controversial? Suddenly if it's someone else being a bit forthright, that's not OK and he gets to be what he would no doubt call a snowflake? If you're going to be insisting others have a thick skin, you should maybe cultivate one of your own. Contrariwise, if someone's going to insist that everyone be sweet and nice and polite to them, then perhaps they should put a rein on their blunt outspoken sarcasm. One set of rules, friend. To put it the old fashioned way, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
You make a really good point. One is tempted to use the word "hypocritical" about his statement.
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I'm slightly confused by this, how can you pull one version from sale if it's still available to install after buying? It seems like, really, the only difference here is that the SteamOS icon is no longer there. The game is still there for linux, but hidden because of lack of QA. Kind of like Arma 3, like someone mentioned, only with even less 'official' support, but it seems like that was always pretty poor anyway.
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Is it confirmed that new purchasers actually get the Linux files?
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Honestly the game never appealed no i am not just saying that its not a game or genre of game that appeals to me. However removing it from sale seems an odd move leaving it up. Adding a note explaning that its running an older unity build due to currently unpatchable problems that way they could make money towards paying for the skills they need to patch it. As for the throw away community line we have this every so often it goes back to once again the linux die hards that think they throw f bombs and act like Stallman or Linus.
It comes as shock to them no doubt when it doesnt actually work its the reason nvidia wont embrace open source for linux is his constant rants and actively literally telling the linux team to "fuck off" in person. I ll break it down you cant do stuff like that not if you actually want people to develop games for your platform,swearing death threats etc for not bringing a game to linux.
It's also a shitty thing to do just behave like a fucking person(not a fanboy) and if you write on twitter be respectful you may find it leads to being more open to linux ports or at least explaining why they are not supporting linux if they say they something like they would consider it if there was demand, post it on sites like this get people letting them know they would love it to come to linux etc.
It comes as shock to them no doubt when it doesnt actually work its the reason nvidia wont embrace open source for linux is his constant rants and actively literally telling the linux team to "fuck off" in person. I ll break it down you cant do stuff like that not if you actually want people to develop games for your platform,swearing death threats etc for not bringing a game to linux.
It's also a shitty thing to do just behave like a fucking person(not a fanboy) and if you write on twitter be respectful you may find it leads to being more open to linux ports or at least explaining why they are not supporting linux if they say they something like they would consider it if there was demand, post it on sites like this get people letting them know they would love it to come to linux etc.
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Whitewolfe80, is it okay for Garry to act basically like he is accusing the Linux community of doing?
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Is it confirmed that new purchasers actually get the Linux files?
Linux content is still linked to the Rust store package so yes.
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Is it confirmed that new purchasers actually get the Linux files?
Linux content is still linked to the Rust store package so yes.
So like Arma 3 and some other games?
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Liam as a journalist you already new that this post would be a wildfire, just suggesting that sometimes you should block comments in some articles :), freedom of speech sometimes can be really annoying.
That would be stupid. Some of you guys sounds like you're frightened that some of our comments gets to others devs and they will stop supporting due to what we say, but most of our nagging here are quite moderate and quite respecful.
Sorry, but if some of them gets offended of what we have been saying so far I just can quote to one of our gods: "...I think people who get offended should be offended."
Last edited by x_wing on 28 July 2018 at 2:24 pm UTC
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I was thinking about honesty and bluntness. You are honest about something, right? You can be honest about your good feelings towards Linux and the Linux community and you can be honest about your bad feelings about Linux and the Linux community. Both are honest.
So I guess Garry Newman being blunt and honest and him hating Linux are not mutually exclusive.
So I guess Garry Newman being blunt and honest and him hating Linux are not mutually exclusive.
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Whitewolfe80, is it okay for Garry to act basically like he is accusing the Linux community of doing?
He not accusing he is outright saying it and is he wrong as there is plenty of shade being thrown his way on twitter
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Whitewolfe80, is it okay for Garry to act basically like he is accusing the Linux community of doing?
He not accusing he is outright saying it and is he wrong as there is plenty of shade being thrown his way on twitter
I will grant that for the sake of argument. But is it okay for him but not everyone else? If so, why?
Edit:
It just seems to me that Garry Newman is expecting much more of everyone else than of himself.
Last edited by Kristian on 28 July 2018 at 3:12 pm UTC
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Not arguing, just sharing my own current Point Of View:
I've played 250+ hours of Rust on Linux, and I've found it very enjoyable. I have just played another 2 hours of it. Although performance might not be great for some people, I do find it acceptable for me, and I'm playing it at 4K resolution, ultra. Also noting that the game is cross-platform, so I've been playing it on the same servers as Windows gamers and I appreciate this too.
A number of months back, I did have problems with Rust related to the Anti Cheat service (It would not run for me on my system.) Also, months ago the performance was worse than it is now. Noting that back then it was still Early Access, and now it is a full release. (Minimal problems for me, following full release.)
Based on the latest news, twitter feeds, and so on - It would appear to me that the Rust game is losing official Linux support, and the SteamOS icon has disappeared from the Steam purchase page. However, the game is still available to play under Linux, but it is a little unclear how that status will be in the future. My impression is that Rust developers will try to make sure it continues working on Linux and they might even return things back if they solve the development issues.
The communication of the dropping of Linux support was not well handled. This has upset some Linux gamers. Pulling support on a product that was released for Linux is also upsetting to Linux gamers who paid money for the game with support. Some Linux gamers are upset about the public-facing comments from Facepunch company representatives.
I feel I've had great value for money, playing Rust. I'm mildly confident that the game will continue to work fine on Linux, into the future, and it will have Linux updates and fixes. (There might be a period of Linux game breakage though.)
I feel that being nice and respectful to developers is more likely to keep them working on Linux games. Developers are humans with feelings. If they receive insults, death threats or criticisms from Linux gamers then that can tarnish the Linux platform from their viewpoint. It doesn't really matter how valid the criticism is, it is going to aggravate the developer reading it and turn them away from our platform.
I've played 250+ hours of Rust on Linux, and I've found it very enjoyable. I have just played another 2 hours of it. Although performance might not be great for some people, I do find it acceptable for me, and I'm playing it at 4K resolution, ultra. Also noting that the game is cross-platform, so I've been playing it on the same servers as Windows gamers and I appreciate this too.
A number of months back, I did have problems with Rust related to the Anti Cheat service (It would not run for me on my system.) Also, months ago the performance was worse than it is now. Noting that back then it was still Early Access, and now it is a full release. (Minimal problems for me, following full release.)
Based on the latest news, twitter feeds, and so on - It would appear to me that the Rust game is losing official Linux support, and the SteamOS icon has disappeared from the Steam purchase page. However, the game is still available to play under Linux, but it is a little unclear how that status will be in the future. My impression is that Rust developers will try to make sure it continues working on Linux and they might even return things back if they solve the development issues.
The communication of the dropping of Linux support was not well handled. This has upset some Linux gamers. Pulling support on a product that was released for Linux is also upsetting to Linux gamers who paid money for the game with support. Some Linux gamers are upset about the public-facing comments from Facepunch company representatives.
I feel I've had great value for money, playing Rust. I'm mildly confident that the game will continue to work fine on Linux, into the future, and it will have Linux updates and fixes. (There might be a period of Linux game breakage though.)
I feel that being nice and respectful to developers is more likely to keep them working on Linux games. Developers are humans with feelings. If they receive insults, death threats or criticisms from Linux gamers then that can tarnish the Linux platform from their viewpoint. It doesn't really matter how valid the criticism is, it is going to aggravate the developer reading it and turn them away from our platform.
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As for the throw away community line we have this every so often it goes back to once again the linux die hards that think they throw f bombs and act like Stallman or Linus.
It comes as shock to them no doubt when it doesnt actually work its the reason nvidia wont embrace open source for linux is his constant rants and actively literally telling the linux team to "fuck off" in person. I ll break it down you cant do stuff like that not if you actually want people to develop games for your platform,swearing death threats etc for not bringing a game to linux.
I think you mix a lot of stuff here. First off, Torvalds rant's has a reason and he explain them quite often: he wants to be completelly sure that you understand that he doesn't like what you're doing. He can't be polite when you're doing something wrong and that's why he said "Nvidia, fuck you" years ago. Funny things is that time proven he was right, as you can see how AMD open source Linux driver end up being as good as Nvidia (if not far better). So, Nvidia doesn't embrace foss driver not because of the community, but because they want to do everything as they want, even if they do it the wrong way.
And dammit, you have no idea how much we rant to AMD with their catalyst drivers. We really fucking hated them and we really make them notice how shitty they were. But now that they are doing things as should be done, try to find anyone ranting against them. Try to find someone that doesn't recommend buying a AMD gpu to others Linux users (yes, even being slightly expensive than Nvidia counterpart).
The community has always had two coin face, and definitely nobody rants to the devs that does things right.
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Well, if they don't do QA on their linux port, it's right to remove it. If it suffers bugs even more so.
I do understand the developer, but in my opinion they shouldn't have sold it in the first place if they don't have intentions to support the platform from a QA standpoint.
That said, I'm sad it didn't work out, but we know the stability of Unity releases on Linux, quite some games have suffered this.
Maybe they review the decision in the future, even though, I do not expect it. We'll see.
I do understand the developer, but in my opinion they shouldn't have sold it in the first place if they don't have intentions to support the platform from a QA standpoint.
That said, I'm sad it didn't work out, but we know the stability of Unity releases on Linux, quite some games have suffered this.
Maybe they review the decision in the future, even though, I do not expect it. We'll see.
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But I never seen so much hate in GOL as in this thread, relax, life is short, enjoy itHate? Really?! What bemuses me about this discussion actually is that the reaction is more extreme than the dislike of the actual developer. I don't really have a dog in this fight--I don't know this Garry guy, I don't care about Rust to be honest, I'm not finding myself outraged by the fellow's comments given what people have said about context but I'm not thinking they necessarily represent stuff said by a wonderful guy either.
But what I've noticed is that his detractors have said basically
a) that he's kind of a jerk, and
b) that he is anti-Linux (which isn't even technically an insult from perspectives other than ours)
That's about it. Now again, I don't know if either of these points is true or not. But it's hardly "hate"--sheesh, have some of you people ever looked at a Youtube comment?
Whereas contrariwise, some of the people arguing that Garry is not a jerk, just outspoken et cetera, and that he's not anti-Linux but simply has a habit of saying negative things about everything, and that isolated tweets are being blown out of proportion--perfectly decent arguments--have often been reacting with anger and outrage to the people who don't like Garry, much more anger than Garry's detractors themselves have expressed towards Garry. One person even called one of the Garry-complainers a fascist. So like, maybe the people who are so solicitous of developer feelings could, if they are so big on not having toxic discussions, not be more toxic than the people complaining about the developers. Developers deserve consideration, but I think people in the GoL community do too.
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