Tower Unite [Steam], a 'community-based virtual world party game' had a Linux version that was left in Beta since 2016 and eventually it broke. They've now removed it in favour of people using Valve's Steam Play.
Back in September, a user asked the developer PixelTail Games to actually remove the Linux version. They didn't do it then, mentioning the fact that they would have to delete the Linux content since you can't pick between Steam Play and a Linux version but things have changed.
In a post on their official forum, they stated that a few months ago they made some changes to their engine, which broke the Linux beta. For them Linux "wasn’t the highest of priority" and so it sat there doing nothing.
In a follow up post, they directly blamed Epic Games stating that "Unfortunately Epic doesn’t really support Linux all that well, as it was their change to the engine that broke it in the first place."—ouch.
I find it interesting, as Steam Play obviously makes it a lot easier for developers to drop support entirely for our small platform. However, in this case they were very clear even from the start of the Linux beta back in 2016, that Linux simply wasn't a priority and it seems it never became one.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
orochi_kyo Jan 9, 2019
Another reason to stop begging them on Twitter "please bring Epic games Store to Linux". How many stuff like this should happen before we realize they dont care.
Ubi and E.A. at least is straight about this "We dont CARE about Linux" but Epic is pretty hypocrite with their "maybe, in the future, we are working on that" and telling devs that their engine support Linux.
Stick to Valve, yeah some people around here hates Gabe but no one else is caring about our platform.
I insist on this, Valve should release Source 2 now, free and fully compatible with Linux, Mac and Windows. I heard Artifact mobile will use source 2 on smartphones. And also the editor should be fully Linux compatible.
That would be huge if done correctly.
Ubi and E.A. at least is straight about this "We dont CARE about Linux" but Epic is pretty hypocrite with their "maybe, in the future, we are working on that" and telling devs that their engine support Linux.
Stick to Valve, yeah some people around here hates Gabe but no one else is caring about our platform.
I insist on this, Valve should release Source 2 now, free and fully compatible with Linux, Mac and Windows. I heard Artifact mobile will use source 2 on smartphones. And also the editor should be fully Linux compatible.
That would be huge if done correctly.
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Quoting: GustyGhostecho "PixelTail" >> ~/List_of_cancer_developers.txtSo in your opinion publishers/developers that are lying are cool?!
By lying publishers/developers I mean games that are advertised as Linux supported but in reality Linux port is not working or working worse because it was abandoned (like for example Ticket to Ride).
If Tower Unite via Proton is working much better than "Linux native" - remove Linux native is good decision and developer is honest.
Also many AAA ports (like Civilization VI, Mad Max) are using professional, dedicated abstraction layers - so something like Steam Proton, but much better customized for particular title. If Linux port is abandoned anyway (sadly it is the case with many, many "Linux native" games) - in my opinion it is much better if developer will be honest and remove it and focus on "not broke" Proton with updates.
PS. Your list is not complete. Arma 3 also was never advertised as Linux supported and also recently Linux port has been abandoned. So according to your criteria - Bohemia Interactive also should be on this list.
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Native always beats wine/eon/etc... because it means that the devs actually care about using standard tools instead of platform-locked technology.
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Quoting: dvdNative always beats wine/eon/etc... because it means that the devs actually care about using standard tools instead of platform-locked technology.Hmmm... So according to your definition Mad Max also is worse. This game is using very sophisticated, but still, abstraction layers. "Real" native ports of AAA games are probably very rare. Linux indie games are native ports, because has been exported from Unity/Unreal editor as "Linux" - and probably it is the reason why they are so bad (in "Istanbul: Digital Edition" even keyboard is not working properly!)...
For me - as a gamer - I do not care how game internals has been prepared. The most important thing is "game works as it should be". As a gamer I'm very upset that Linux port is obsolete and without all features of Windows edition (like for example "Ticket to Ride").
We will see in the future what will be with Linux games support. In my personal opinion it could be easier to start "vintage" Steam Proton 3.7 (and all Windows games that is working on it - for example GTA5) than today native ports that will be abandoned in next 10 years.
Example: Doom 3 native Linux port in the past was working OK, but now it is not something that could be advertised for "average user".
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/playing-doom-3-on-linux-in-2017.10561
Quote"Getting the game to run properly on my modern Arch Linux setup involved removing the bundled libgcc_s.so.1 and libstdc++.so.6 libraries from the install directory. Doing this allowed the game to launch without issues, but still I did not have working sound. This was resolved by modifying the DoomConfig.cfg file located in the hidden ~/.doom3/base directory to change the “seta s_alsa_pcm” value from “default” to “hw:0,0” instead."
Linux port of Doom 3 was abandoned years ago, but Windows Doom 3 is working quite well via Steam Proton - at least you do not need to remove/change game files to start it with sound.
https://www.protondb.com/app/208200
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Well, pretty much every game is abandoned after 10 years ;)
Except maybe some of the biggest online ones, and games like Skyrim that get "remastered" every two years once the publisher/developer finds a way to pack microtransactions in.
Mentioning Arch makes your point moot as arch is unsupported by commercial games, only Ubuntu/Steam (and rarely maybe debian) is supported, so issues can be expected. DOOM3 was never bundled for linux. Sure it had executables, but they were never part of the "release" so to say, you had to download them separately from id's ftp server.
By running networked stuff in wine you also run some risk of windows viruses infecting some of your files.
Mad Max is not worse, last i checked, it's an elf executable, that is not worse.
Eon is slightly worse than that, but it's still miles ahead of wine/proton, since it is at least standalone. As the Proton database grows, the costs of proper support will grow - as each wine version can break previously working games. It is why tools like Playonlinux existed for far longer than proton.
Don't get me wrong, it's good that Valve takes the effort to do the tweaking required for windows only titles, however, if a dev promised linux version, proton just isn't that.
Except maybe some of the biggest online ones, and games like Skyrim that get "remastered" every two years once the publisher/developer finds a way to pack microtransactions in.
Mentioning Arch makes your point moot as arch is unsupported by commercial games, only Ubuntu/Steam (and rarely maybe debian) is supported, so issues can be expected. DOOM3 was never bundled for linux. Sure it had executables, but they were never part of the "release" so to say, you had to download them separately from id's ftp server.
By running networked stuff in wine you also run some risk of windows viruses infecting some of your files.
Mad Max is not worse, last i checked, it's an elf executable, that is not worse.
Eon is slightly worse than that, but it's still miles ahead of wine/proton, since it is at least standalone. As the Proton database grows, the costs of proper support will grow - as each wine version can break previously working games. It is why tools like Playonlinux existed for far longer than proton.
Don't get me wrong, it's good that Valve takes the effort to do the tweaking required for windows only titles, however, if a dev promised linux version, proton just isn't that.
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Quoting: dvdEon is slightly worse than that, but it's still miles ahead of wine/proton, since it is at least standalone. As the Proton database grows, the costs of proper support will grow - as each wine version can break previously working games. It is why tools like Playonlinux existed for far longer than proton.
Steam Play has the ability to run multiple Proton version side-by-side. The option "Use this tool instead of game specific selections from Steam" in the Steam Play options hints that certain games will be bound to a certain Proton version. This could reduce the chance of breakage with newer Wine/Proton version.
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Comandante Ñoñardo Jan 9, 2019
Quoting: jensThe option "Use this tool instead of game specific selections from Steam" in the Steam Play options hints that certain games will be bound to a certain Proton version. This could reduce the chance of breakage with newer Wine/Proton version.
Yes. Each Whitelisted game is tied to an specific Proton version.
See the "Tool" column.
https://steamdb.info/app/891390/info/
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