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.
Mblackwell Jul 30, 2018
Linux users are often able to identify a particular problem including how to reproduce it, and give lots of information (including debug output). It's hard for a developer to ignore, and often due to time constraints there are bugs that get brushed aside (even just temporarily) or overlooked... and when a subset of your users are throwing everything you need to potentially solve a bug in your direction it can make the developer appear badly when they do said brushing off (and generally because of the work put in, other people are able to verify and it becomes a very loud voice).
There are just as many QA requests from Windows users, more in terms of volume, but a lot of the users can't actually identify anything that's going on. They often either can't tell you or don't tell you very much about their system (even if they built it themselves), don't have solid reproduction steps, can't find the log files even if you point them in the right direction (and won't respond to simple developer requests for pieces of information), and the bug report itself is often really vague. If the problem is intermittent (EG: restarting each time fixes it) then users will give up and be satisfied.
It's really easy for a developer to ignore this as a bunch of background noise, unlike with Linux QA requests.
Not to say every Linux user is perfect and can do all of that, but that seems to generally be the case (and even when they can't it's often just a few simple commands in the console to get the information).
Also if you only ever develop on one platform it can be hard for you yourself to even know what users are saying to you. Windows and Linux aren't exactly similar. The issues may completely be the same on both platforms, but when seeing output and information from a Linux user the developer may have zero idea what to do with it/what it means.
Above said, having an audacity to say we should know our place and most of us "understand their position in this world", that he felt abused by Linux users demanding equal treatment - this is what's wrong with the world nowadays. Nobody should demand equal treatment. Nobody's a 2nd class citizen. Treating somebody as one is the definition of abuse. He chose to release his games for Linux, got extra attention from Valve, from Steam users, from media, only to finally admit it's not something he knows how to support. It's admirable to admit own mistakes. Being salty because people defend themselves when your mistakes harm them is not.
TheLinuxPleb Jul 31, 2018
Quoting: F.UltraThere is nothing toxic with that, second class citizen in computer speak only means that it's a lower priority, it's not a derogatory term.
Lower priority is a derogatory term.
Quoting: liamdaweQuoteI am personally disappointed in Liam Dawe for his statements against those that have been victimized by Garry over a number of years.No one has been "victimized", do you even understand the meaning of that word? No one has been singled out and Facepunch aren't being cruel.
Really? The whole platform has been singled out and has been mistreated for years. Three years of no QA?
Quoting: dictionary.comcruel /krʊəl/ adjective
1. wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.
Last edited by cprn on 31 July 2018 at 9:32 am UTC
Quoting: liamdawe@mention
OOT: Can you add a new action on GoL user profiles to follow them? Some readers have interesting points of view. I'd like to be notified when they post new comments.
Quoting: cprnWill look into it.Quoting: liamdawe@mention
OOT: Can you add a new action on GoL user profiles to follow them? Some readers have interesting points of view. I'd like to be notified when they post new comments.
Quoting: cprnPain and suffering? Because a video game isn't getting proper support? Really?Quoting: F.UltraThere is nothing toxic with that, second class citizen in computer speak only means that it's a lower priority, it's not a derogatory term.
Lower priority is a derogatory term.
Quoting: liamdaweQuoteI am personally disappointed in Liam Dawe for his statements against those that have been victimized by Garry over a number of years.No one has been "victimized", do you even understand the meaning of that word? No one has been singled out and Facepunch aren't being cruel.
Really? The whole platform has been singled out and has been mistreated for years. Three years of no QA?
Quoting: dictionary.comcruel /krʊəl/ adjective
1. wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.
Quoting: SalvatosPain and suffering? Because a video game isn't getting proper support? Really?
Well, I did suffer a bug and went through a pain of downgrading my Nvidia driver because of their lack of concern for testing. ;) Who said it has to be physical?
All I did in that post is shown definitions relay on the point of view and the literal treatment of words so there's no point picking holes in what somebody said when the general understanding is enough. Besides, I made part about concern bold for a reason. Don't focus on the small print.
Quoting: cprnExcuse me for being anal-retentive about definitions, but it's part of my job. If you only care about the bold part, the word you're looking for may be indifferent or uncaring. You can't just take out the part about causing pain and suffering and say it still applies. And while I'm not arguing that suffering must be physical, I certainly reckon that the situation at hand has little chance of causing any level of distress to anyone.Quoting: SalvatosPain and suffering? Because a video game isn't getting proper support? Really?
Well, I did suffer a bug and went through a pain of downgrading my Nvidia driver because of their lack of concern for testing. ;) Who said it has to be physical?
All I did in that post is shown definitions relay on the point of view and the literal treatment of words so there's no point picking holes in what somebody said when the general understanding is enough. Besides, I made part about concern bold for a reason. Don't focus on the small print.
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