The Lutris team announced yesterday that Epic Games have now awarded them a sum of money from the Epic MegaGrants pot.
In the Patreon post, the Lutris team announced they've been awarded $25,000. While this might be quite a surprise to some, Tim Sweeney the CEO of Epic Games, did actually suggest they apply for it which we covered here back in April. To see it actually happen though, that's seriously awesome for the team building this free and open source game manager.
While it's a shame Epic Games have no current interest in officially supporting their store on Linux, at least this way the Lutris team has some extra funding towards getting it nicely running with Wine and their Lutris application.
As for what they're planning to to with the funding:
The funds received will go forward improving the platform as a whole but in particular towards the development of tools ensuring the stability of games or launchers installed through Lutris.
Lutris
Lutris has come a long way in a short time too. It's an extremely handy application, allowing you to sort through games gathered across multiple stores like Steam, GOG, Humble Store, plus Emulators and Wine/Proton for everything not available on Linux (like the Epic Store).
Running the Epic Games Store through Lutris/Wine doesn't mean every game will work though, that will depend on the individual game. Fortnite, for example, won't work at all due to the anti-cheat and it's likely going to take a long time before Wine gets to a stage where it can work with it. Still, it's nice to see steps like this taken by Epic Games.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
eddie-foss Dec 1, 2019
Good to hear that, sporadically I write some installers and fix the ones that won't work with the games I have.
As Lutris mostly do "file 1" with "file 2" and "file 3" merge in same directory which could be done without any interface or even Lutris itself, in the guts every YAML / JSON script do the same thing take some files put here and there and run for everyone's fun, sometimes with some special options, a GUI to simplify the process to create "installer" will be welcome for who doesn't have any programing skills and loves Linux.
As Lutris mostly do "file 1" with "file 2" and "file 3" merge in same directory which could be done without any interface or even Lutris itself, in the guts every YAML / JSON script do the same thing take some files put here and there and run for everyone's fun, sometimes with some special options, a GUI to simplify the process to create "installer" will be welcome for who doesn't have any programing skills and loves Linux.
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Semi-relevant: Psyonix (Rocket League) was bought by Epic, and they announced that by the end of the year it (RL) would no longer be purchasable from Steam, only epic gamestore. It would remain accessible on steam for those who already owned it, and continued to get updates etc. Personally I took that as a possibility that epic would be putting effort into making their launcher for linux so that new users could continue to get it, and hell maybe finally even make fortnite playable. While this piece of news about the grant doesn't exactly exclude these possibilities, it really makes me concerned for the future state of the RL client.
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TheRiddick Dec 1, 2019
Well this is better then nothing. EGS does work decently under Lutris if you enable the container to be windows10 compliant (of sorts) via winecfg.
It could perform better but I suspect that's more of a wine thing then lutris, time will tell.
I can do everything Lutris does via the terminal with commands but it is a chore trying to remember all the command syntax and variables, quite a chore for someone like me whom is the absolute worst at remembering things.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 1 December 2019 at 6:55 am UTC
It could perform better but I suspect that's more of a wine thing then lutris, time will tell.
I can do everything Lutris does via the terminal with commands but it is a chore trying to remember all the command syntax and variables, quite a chore for someone like me whom is the absolute worst at remembering things.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 1 December 2019 at 6:55 am UTC
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Not to quibble, but at $25,000 it seems more like a kilogrant than a megagrant.
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Quoting: GrifterSemi-relevant: Psyonix (Rocket League) was bought by Epic, and they announced that by the end of the year it (RL) would no longer be purchasable from Steam, only epic gamestore. It would remain accessible on steam for those who already owned it, and continued to get updates etc.Seriously, where do people keep coming up with this? They did not say it would no longer be purchasable on Steam.
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So they gave 25k for Lutris to run their windows games, however, Lutris is using Steam's Proton technology which costs probably millions for Valve. How nice of Epic...
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Quoting: STiAT... with 1,245 on patreon, that's for sure welcome.As a Patreon backer for Lutris, thank you for pointing out that the Epic Grant is still roughly double what Lutris gets from our own community, and that's the bigger shame. After Valve and Wine, Lutris is the third most important tool for compatibility that we have, with several items that would not run to a broad swath of our community without the work of it's devs and script writers like someone who posted earlier. I hope this is a big prompt for more to go to Patreon and give themselves to important Linux gaming resources like Lutris (and GOL!)...
Last edited by iiari on 1 December 2019 at 12:27 pm UTC
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Nevertheless Dec 1, 2019
It's appreciated! Still I won't buy from EGS, nor take their gifts. While I never thought Epic hates Linux, they keep using the monopolists toolbox to fulfill their self made up market liberation story, where they fight the evil Steam monopoly to grant developers a bigger share and to make everyone happy.. well, not everyone at the same time.. first Epics shareholders, then developers, and of course the gamers who should be happy because of more competition in the market.
I still think competition is good, but using monopolistic tools like exclusive contracts, locking potential competitors and whole platforms out, is not competition, it's micro monopolies instead.
I still think competition is good, but using monopolistic tools like exclusive contracts, locking potential competitors and whole platforms out, is not competition, it's micro monopolies instead.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyNot to quibble, but at $25,000 it seems more like a kilogrant than a megagrant.Maybe they're counting in cents? :P
Quoting: Liam DaweProbably people who did not see the updates to https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/psyonix-creator-of-rocket-league-is-joining-epic-games.14047Quoting: GrifterSemi-relevant: Psyonix (Rocket League) was bought by Epic, and they announced that by the end of the year it (RL) would no longer be purchasable from Steam, only epic gamestore. It would remain accessible on steam for those who already owned it, and continued to get updates etc.Seriously, where do people keep coming up with this? They did not say it would no longer be purchasable on Steam.
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Quoting: Liam DaweSeriously, where do people keep coming up with this? They did not say it would no longer be purchasable on Steam.
From Psyonix, they've chosen their words carefully and said for now, until it hits EGC it will remain as is on steam, and afterwards anyone who owns it will still be able to play it on steam. Well anyway, I guess we'll see when the time comes.
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Quoting: GrifterI said about this before, but I will say it again: I fully suspect their wording is because it will be going free to play, which is why they're saying it will be supported.Quoting: Liam DaweSeriously, where do people keep coming up with this? They did not say it would no longer be purchasable on Steam.
From Psyonix, they've chosen their words carefully and said for now, until it hits EGC it will remain as is on steam, and afterwards anyone who owns it will still be able to play it on steam. Well anyway, I guess we'll see when the time comes.
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I suppose that is possible, I assume the same but I always thought that they'd limit account creation to EGS, it didn't occur to me that they might let free to play accounts be generated by steam... That actually makes me feel a little easier =)
EDIT: And that would actually jive more with the decision to remove the DLC from the platforms, and put everything into the client as ingame purchases.
Last edited by Grifter on 1 December 2019 at 4:12 pm UTC
EDIT: And that would actually jive more with the decision to remove the DLC from the platforms, and put everything into the client as ingame purchases.
Last edited by Grifter on 1 December 2019 at 4:12 pm UTC
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Doc Angelo Dec 1, 2019
If they wanted to be clear about this, they could've clear it up. They did not.
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Quoting: GuestSupporting Lutris/WINE means they have no plans for supporting or releasing for Linux.
That's what I'm thinking too. Moreover, I imagine that Epic is grooming Lutris to become an Epic games on Linux by proxy. I imagine $25k will go a long way to improving Lutris for a lot less than it would cost Epic to offer equal support for Linux in-house.
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orochi_kyo Dec 2, 2019
This is like receiving human trafficking money for using it to save the environment.
I do use Lutris but whats is funny here is how WINE/Proton/DXVK arent receiving Tim money.
We sure live in a twisted world, it is justified to take money from the same who actually wants to take PC gaming 15 years back?
Have a good day.
I do use Lutris but whats is funny here is how WINE/Proton/DXVK arent receiving Tim money.
We sure live in a twisted world, it is justified to take money from the same who actually wants to take PC gaming 15 years back?
Have a good day.
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I do hope they use this money for things other than supporting the Epic Games Store. I'm still not interested in that.
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It's weird, I used to be a massive fan of Epic games, right from the days of Epic Pinball, Jazz Jackrabbit and the original Unreal. They had people working there back then that cared about Linux and supported it to some degree, but as they've grown, they've lost their way, sold out to foreign investors and generally not a nice company they once were. I'm not saying they owe the Linux community anything, but they've invested about as little as possible into Vulkan and Linux with their own Unreal Engine, it's took outside developers to come in and fix things up for them. So while it's nice Lutris has some money for a well deserved project, this really is chump change to Epic.
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appetrosyan Dec 3, 2019
Don’t mean to sound rude, but that’s peanuts, and doesn’t compare to harm that these “good people” have done to Linux gaming by cutting games that worked via steam play and cutting them out. Also, venturing it into Lutris is telling. I think if they had any intention of developing their storefront t beyond the very basics, they would have simply released a Linux beta.
To give you an analogy of how disappointing this news is, think of a headline “a gamer donated £25 to the Linux foundation”. Don’t give them coverage.
To give you an analogy of how disappointing this news is, think of a headline “a gamer donated £25 to the Linux foundation”. Don’t give them coverage.
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