Sad news today Linux gamers, Psyonix emailed us directly to make sure we saw the news that they're officially ending support of Rocket League on Linux and macOS.
Their published statement on this was quite short and didn't really explain much:
As we continue to upgrade Rocket League with new technologies, it is no longer viable for us to maintain support for the macOS and Linux (SteamOS) platforms. As a result, the final patch for the macOS and Linux versions of the game will be in March. This update will disable online functionality (such as in-game purchases) for players on macOS and Linux, but offline features including Local Matches, and splitscreen play will still be accessible.
If you purchased Rocket League for Mac or Linux on Steam, the game will still work with full functionality when installed and played on a computer running Windows 7 or newer.
So the Linux and macOS versions will still be there, but left old and online play will be disabled. Not good. Not good at all and as a huge Rocket League fan I'm not pleased—annoyed you might say.
This "new technologies" bit was interesting, perhaps they've decided to go DirectX 12 with an Unreal Engine upgrade? At this point we can only speculate with so little information. In the expanded support page, for Linux they mentioned playing Rocket League with Steam Play Proton is possible although they will not be supporting it.
When Psyonix became part of Epic Games back in May last year, many speculated that Rocket League would not only drop Linux support but also leave Steam. I didn't think either would happen but here we are, Psyonix has still never said they will continue to sell the game on Steam only that it would see "continued support". Originally, I thought meant it would go free to play, but with this move it seems a little more likely it will move over to the Epic Store which doesn't support Linux.
Update: Psyonix are now suggesting to request a refund from them on their support portal.
Update 2 - 24/01: Psyonix are now telling us "macOS and Linux players can reach out directly to Steam to request refunds and they will be honored. In these cases, Steam will make an exception to their 2 hours limit rule.". Their own support ticket team are now also saying to ask Steam for the refund, although Valve has denied my own refund twice.
In situations like this, Valve ideally need a better support system in place or at least an option of platform removal to get around the usual way. As we end up going in circles.
Update 3: After making their PR team aware what was going on with the refund situation, they've now released a statement on Reddit. Refunds will be accepted on Steam now, plus they gave the reason behind removing Linux and macOS support.
It's what I suspected as written above, they're upgrading to a higher version of Direct X which is a problem as the "macOS and Linux native clients depend on our DX9 implementation for their OpenGL renderer to function" and they're not willing to put resources into Vulkan/Metal for Linux/macOS when the combined player-base was apparently "0.3%" of the active total and when "viable workarounds exist" with Wine being mentioned.
They could have gone for Vulkan though to get Windows + Linux (and Stadia) and possibly even macOS with MoltenVK. It's a shame another company decided to stick with a proprietary API. That said, it may not have been possible if they're on quite an old version of Unreal Engine.
If you do get a refund for it, be sure you use that Steam Wallet funding for a developer that does support Linux. Make it count.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: erlogQuoting: gojulGot refunded by Steam, but oddly not for the DLCs, just the original game.
How did you do it?
I am still trying...
Tried two times.
The second time I sent as the reason "my computer does not have the required configuration". Then I put something like this :
Hi,
Psyonix has just announced they would remove support for macOS and Linux on this game. This makes it basically useless since this is a pure on-line game, and there's almost nothing for solo mode.
Here's the official announcement : https://support.rocketleague.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042201433
Given the situation could you please refund me the game ?
Thanks and regards,Then you have to be a bit lucky and cross your finger that the Valve employee will grant your request.
Quoting: GustyGhostQuote...of the active total and when "viable workarounds exist" with Wine being mentioned.
"Wine is not harmful to Linux gaming
…
Have we learned our lesson yet?
WINE is not harmful to the Linux gaming. Not only WINE existed for long before Linux gaming started to grow in 2011 (hence, WINE could not be blamed for recent developments), but it provides a lot of essential capabilities for swithchng from Windows™: banking and stock exchange trading applications, CAD/CAM/CAE solutions, custom gaming/modding/resource unpacking utilities created by community etc.
WINE is very useful for Linux adoption!
Now, Proton™ on the other hand…
Despite what some very influential top members of this site tell, we did not see any (not just substantial, but any) Linux share growth on the Steam Statistics (yet?). And at the same time I personally have observed the influx of "Linux gamers" on the Reddit sub-forum, theorizing about why native Linux builds are essentially bad as "they become nonfunctional with OS upgrades and have inherently bad compatibility", concluding that "it would be better that every developer stopped wasting time and money on bad native ports and just used Proton™ with Windows API as some sort of gold standard." Seriously, these chaps are flooding the place (refusing to go to "WINE_gaming" sub-forum).
My conclusion is that it is not the technology that is bad, but our disposition towards its misuse. There wouldn't be any problems if we started teaching newbies that WINE not-an-emulation is only a temporary transitional solution for already owned games instead of advertising Windows™ games on the premise that they "Work great with Proton" (examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/erl0ww/far_cry_5_now_runs_almost_out_of_the_box_thanks/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/enmhl1/nioh_linux_dxvk_wine/).
Meanwhile, the drama is continuing to unfold. Even after the explanation and assurances that "from now on refunding should work" people are still complaining about auto-rejects.
Last edited by Alm888 on 25 January 2020 at 10:58 am UTC
[email protected] Jan 25, 2020
Quoting: gojulGot refunded by Steam, but oddly not for the DLCs, just the original game.
Quoting: qptain NemoQuoting: Guest...not to mention the item store purchases (which I know are impossible to refund)Are they impossible to refund?
Not impossible but more difficult the issue it is way more likely that you will get the base game price back but if you sunk anything into dlc you wont be getting that back. The same thing happened when warhammer online collaspsed back in 2015 i got my game price back but not the 15 quid i spent on in game store.
Quoting: GuestIf this was a good news for us you will be saying "OMG i love Psyonix they are great!".I have been a long time UE user, and ever since Tencent acquired such a significant stake on Epic, Epic Games did a 180 on a lot of things that made them great. That even includes ending plans for Linux support for the unreal engine editor.
I doubt we are going to have many "good news for us" coming from them now and, if it ever happen, I'll probably be really skeptic, know that there's a catch somewhere and forget about it; definitely not go around saying anyone is great.
Last edited by dejaime on 25 January 2020 at 12:26 pm UTC
Quoting: [email protected]Refund request rejected.
Same here. £11.84, bought directly from Steam. Played 10 hours. Rejected.
Psyonix really dropped the ball on this. This is just smoke and mirrors now.
edit: screenshot here: image
Last edited by scaine on 25 January 2020 at 2:03 pm UTC
Given their reason for doing so, this would have been a nice use case for https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/pull/1264
Though I guess some time will pass until this really is a serious option for bigger studios, if ever.
PS: just to be sure, I don't mean the discussion about DXVK's maintainability, but the actual PR which kind of offers DX support on Linux.
Last edited by jens on 25 January 2020 at 2:03 pm UTC
I didn't play it but I kind of feel the pain.
I mean now it's more and more complicated to chose what games you put your money in... If "big" games like this drop Linux support any time without further notice. And worst with this Steam Policy where you can't be refunded (or really hard as it shows in many comments here).
Not to mention the reason behind all of that... a newer version of DirectX, really?
There are people who like live in prison apparently, but sadly I'm not surprised about this shitty move.
GustyGhost Jan 25, 2020
Quoting: CyrilNot to mention the reason behind all of that... a newer version of DirectX, really?
That is the entire purpose of the existence of DirectX, to tax development against any other platform. The strategy is working brilliantly as evidenced by Psyonix's decision and countless other games, studios and projects which have fallen for the bait over the decades.
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