Facepunch adjust their Linux plans for Rust, refunds being offered as it won't continue at all

I'm actually fine with poorly supported and buggy ports, but removing my ability to play with windows players would have made the game truly worthless to me. I'm disappointed to see the path they're taking, but pleased I'm at least going to get a refund.

I'd have much rather seen support for Proton become a priority, but if that's not what they want to do, that's up to them.

This using Unity3D? I thought that had in-built linux/ogl/vulkan support.

I really don't see this as positively as most people seem to. I don't think that refunding fixes the issues; I personally think the previous solution of partial support was more beneficial in the long run. This feels even more like a "we don't want anything to do with you no matter what". However, this is a very generous policy, and one of the safest ways to avoid negative feedback (more than the previous, honest "yes our support was bad and we can't even fix it completely"). So, well, not bad.

Quoting: subI'd like to see Valve giving devs a discount as an incentive, IF they (properly) support all 3 targets Windows, Mac, Linux.

There must be some quality threshold/check, ofc.
Otherwise we'll see many one-click Unity and UE Linux builds that are crap.

I am strongly against this. I think that as a store Steam shouldn't discriminate the games it sells, and that users and developers of any OS should be treated equally. I don't think that charging more from users of any system is fair, even when it benefits the one I use. It is probably also difficult to evaluate.

If they wanted to push Linux, they should pay for ports directly or indirectly invest in making it easier and better - libraries, tools, contributing to the OS itself, some marketing initiative. Or, you know, find a way that they can independently make all other games work on Linux...

The problem I see happening over and over again is that developers license quite OLD versions of these engines which only have directx support, and make so many changes that they can't update their games to newer engine builds, or it takes them forever.

Maybe the OLD version of the engines are cheaper to license then newer ones, even some newer/updated games will mysteriously not embrace new engine features such as Vulkan support. This absolute dependence on directx and its libraries has really hurt the industry IMO!
It results in games being LOCKED down into Windows and XBOX platforms only because developers don't know how-to do anything else.


Last edited by TheRiddick on 16 August 2019 at 7:30 am UTC

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: subI'd like to see Valve giving devs a discount as an incentive, IF they (properly) support all 3 targets Windows, Mac, Linux.

There must be some quality threshold/check, ofc.
Otherwise we'll see many one-click Unity and UE Linux builds that are crap.

I am strongly against this. I think that as a store Steam shouldn't discriminate the games it sells, and that users and developers of any OS should be treated equally. I don't think that charging more from users of any system is fair, even when it benefits the one I use. It is probably also difficult to evaluate.

Discriminate?
Where to start if the suggestion like the one above already belongs to the category of discrimination?

IMHO this is absolutely a fair deal.

Devs usually have to pay a 30 % cut to Valve AFAIK.
If you sell a lot the share reduces to 20 %.
(Btw, I'm sure that's also discrimination in your view but is reality already.)

Having many well-supported games on Steam must be a goal for Valve.
It increases the value of their service.
Plus, it is probably (still) part of their strategy to get less dependent on Windows.

So here is the fair deal to all devs:
If you help us getting towards more games being properly supported on all platforms,
we lower the cut for this game to let's say 25 %.

I agree, though, that evaluating that can be difficult.
But there are surely good approaches.

One could go for the market-drive option.
If all platforms are present you get a lower cut.
If a build was just done to get the lower share and is not supported or outright crappy,
then people will surely downvote the game.
Having "Mixed Reviews" or worse is not what you want.

That could be a good thing *additionally* to all the great things they already do.


Last edited by sub on 16 August 2019 at 8:43 am UTC

Be nice if Valve reduced the cut for Linux titles, like to %15 or something, give some incentive for the platform since they think its going to be the future, one day.

Quoting: sub

Quoting: eldaking

Quoting: subI'd like to see Valve giving devs a discount as an incentive, IF they (properly) support all 3 targets Windows, Mac, Linux.

There must be some quality threshold/check, ofc.
Otherwise we'll see many one-click Unity and UE Linux builds that are crap.

I am strongly against this. I think that as a store Steam shouldn't discriminate the games it sells, and that users and developers of any OS should be treated equally. I don't think that charging more from users of any system is fair, even when it benefits the one I use. It is probably also difficult to evaluate.

Discriminate?
Where to start if the suggestion like the one above already belongs to the category of discrimination?

IMHO this is absolutely a fair deal.

Devs usually have to pay a 30 % cut to Valve AFAIK.
If you sell a lot the share reduces to 20 %.
(Btw, I'm sure that's also discrimination in your view but is reality already.)

Having many well-supported games on Steam must be a goal for Valve.
It increases the value of their service.
Plus, it is probably (still) part of their strategy to get less dependent on Windows.

So here is the fair deal to all devs:
If you help us getting towards more games being properly supported on all platforms,
we lower the cut for this game to let's say 25 %.

I agree, though, that evaluating that can be difficult.
But there are surely good approaches.

One could go for the market-drive option.
If all platforms are present you get a lower cut.
If a build was just done to get the lower share and is not supported or outright crappy,
then people will surely downvote the game.
Having "Mixed Reviews" or worse is not what you want.

That could be a good thing *additionally* to all the great things they already do.

They are providing the same service, but charging more for some people. Because they think that some people are more valuable based on what OS they develop for.

And yes, the current "AAA games get a better deal" is one of the worst things Steam has done recently, it is downright hostile to indies, it benefits the people that need it the least, and I think it is horrible all around.

I don't want Steam to use its market size and pricing policies to blatantly push developers into adding/removing specific features. That is, by principle, a bad thing for stores to do.

I don't want Windows games to be more expensive than the alternatives (for developers, in this case). I don't want Linux to succeed because a huge company decided to charge extra if you don't use Linux. I don't want people to be bullied into using Linux, I want them to do it because Linux is awesome. And artificial price differences are not "awesome".

If they want to subsidize Linux development, don't do it through store policies. Don't do it by leveraging your dominance in the market. Do it by creating a porting studio, by giving grants, by giving away tools and stuff, by helping with long term support. The kind of thing that helps, instead of just rewarding those that already had the means.

Edit: another analogy. Paying developers to add Linux support is wrong by many of the same reasons that paying developers to make their games exclusive to one store is wrong, or paying to have your crapware pre-installed or bundled with a system.


Last edited by eldaking on 16 August 2019 at 3:47 pm UTC

You're conflating "incentives" with "paying". And while acknowledging that all incentives are inherently "discrimination" to a degree, we should be realistic: incentives are everywhere.

I quite like sub's idea that a developer who is committed to all three platforms earns a bigger cut from all three as a result. Positive reinforcement like this could be really beneficial, provided that devs aren't hurt by it. I wouldn't like to see a dev commit to Linux in order to score a 5% reduction across all three platforms, only to publicly deride "low Linux sales" in the face of increased "support costs", which we've already heard some patently false testimony on.

I doubt it'll happen though. Valve already feel pretty focused on Steam Play for this kind of engagement, which has its own set of positives and negatives.

This is sad news, but I'm ready to say farewell I guess. I'm in the category where I got my money's worth out of the game. Steam tells me 126 hours. The saddest part is I don't like 7 Days to Die, and there aren't really other comparable games that I know about. Too bad Reign of Kings doesn't work. That's what I played in Windows before I started running Linux exclusively.

Ever since RUST received the April 2019 update which broke the Linux client of the game (by enforcing Vulkan but not coding for it properly), I have been playing it regularly each month, anticipating that the game might no longer work on Linux. Even the broken game (wonky polygons) in April - I still played (and someone released a non-official patch which fixed the wonky polygon issue, and FP amended/fixed that Unity tag in the game during May.)

Playing today the issues for me with the Linux client are these:
- Having to lower graphics options so that the frame rate performance is better.
- Cannot visit the Launch Site because the Bradley tank causes the game to crash (not that big a deal for me).
- The flashing disco lights problem around some (mainly older) monuments.
- Occasional game disconnections, but this can be improved by launching Steam with "steam -tcp" on console.

So I've seen all the new monuments, all the changes to date. And I've suffered with sub-par game-play all this time.

Today, I achieved one of my biggest ever raids on some other players on the server I usually use. The server has been running for the last 3 weeks(ish) and most of the people playing on it have been wiped out. Owing to my play-style and strategies, my bases are still around (where many others are raided and decayed) and I found a formidable Cave Base which had a pair of players using it (I'm a solo player). This base had armoured walls, armoured doors, lots of auto-turret traps (and other traps), and was really difficult to take on. The design was confusing as well (The other players deliberately put in armoured walls in the odd places, to try to mislead raiders where the control room would be).

How did I beat them? Well they made a "fatal" mistake: They built their OP base in a Dual Cave Complex and didn't build a second "build-blocking" base in the second cave. So I took over that second cave, building a Raid Base in it, and was able to keep on spawning and draining all the turrets. Once I got to the Tool Cupboard in their base, I could seal up the front and rear of their base with my own doors, and once it was mine, I could take my time breaking the doors and looting all their crates.

Now that I have both bases in the dual cave complex, they will be most disadvantaged if they want to re-take it back. One last big flourish for me - the solo player :)

----

Not happy with Facepunch's decision about the Linux client, but I note that there are a number of RUST servers (which runs on Linux, FFS) where the Admin has turned off the EAC easy anti-cheat setting, and with this setting off, it has been reported that RUST plays okay on Linux with Proton (Thanks Valve). This means that at least some servers will be able to be used after the Sept 5th Turn Off (Boooooo!)

Personally, I hope that FacePunch can factor in some changes to the RUST server so that there is a feature to detect users using Proton, and then not need EAC to be active for those users (i.e. whitelisting Linux users). I sent them an email about that (with a suggestion that if hacking becomes a problem, this default behaviour could be changed in the Server settings by each server admin). I might see about contacting my usual server admin and seeing if they will turn off EAC on their server.