Borderlands 2 will see no further updates for Linux / macOS from Aspyr Media

It's all well and good to say that "It's just business" and "businesses have to make a profit." I get that. It's what makes business business, after all. But I entirely reject that --- as I believe Aspyr has done here --- a business must treat their customers haughtily, dismissively, or otherwise less than worthy of simple honesty or civility, in order to make a profit.

Aspyr said they were coming out with a patch, ignored us, for what --- a year? And now, after repeated requests for news, have finally deigned to admit that, no, they're doing no such thing? That's not a matter of profit. That's a matter of simple civility, on par with saying "hello" to someone who says "hello" to you, or "thank you" when someone does something nice for you.

Thank you Liam for staying on top of this story, for finally getting an answer out of the group of ne'er-do-wells that is Aspyr.


Last edited by Nanobang on 13 September 2020 at 3:03 pm UTC

The only question I have is why was this not communicated directly after the release of the windows patch? All this massive delay did was fuel annoyance the of customers.

What do they care? They apparently have no further interest in Linux gamers as customers, so they're free to piss us off all they want.

Imagine the next super AAA being six months timed SteamOS/Linux exclusive because, instead of taking the regular 30% cut, Valve takes the 10% of the game price only with that condition... 2 points less than Epic Store, by the way..

That’s just a race to the bottom—who runs out of money first? Valve can afford to keep its current cut because they have the features the users want and the audience the publishers want.

Hate to say i called it but i called it Aspyr have seemingly given up on linux that much i expected but to give up on mac as well there publisher arm must be doing well if it can let the porting side of business go.

The Mac version is already at parity with the Windows updates as far as I know. Took them a few months, but they updated that port. So it’s not much to say that they don’t plan to update it again.

Case in point Mac has a larger base than linux and by all accounts porting games to mac is still highly profitable. My main point is we are not getting native games again anytime soon the buzz has gone on that. Maybe is steam machines were outselling consoles maybe if valve had actually supported the project with a game that ended in 3 that people have been waiting for it would of been a whole different story. But back to the topic at hand basically if you are on linux and determined to game on linux proton/wine is it forget everything else. Without getting into a full debate yeah i know there are tons of linux native indie games but lets be real here most of them are trash. There are good indie games but there is more drek then gold.

I was thinking about this the other day. While we have both Unity and Unreal engines with the potential of a 'click to export to Linux' have we really seen a large amount of Unreal based games coming natively to Linux?

The major standard engines support Linux, but, yes, a lot of the middleware components devs plug into their games to save time, do not. Since studios tend to develop the entire game on Windows until it's done, even when they promised a Linux version, they often don't even find out until it's too late.

Another, newer effect is Proton, which is totally awesome, but also gave these Windows-only developers an excuse not to care about ports.

And the third one is that Steam Machines failed the way they did. In the beginning, a lot of studios believed Steam Machines to become a thing, but gave up on Linux once it turned out that they did not. We're still just the 1% market share they don't really care about.

In short, yes, it seems porting is largely dead. Thankfully, thanks to Proton, Linux gaming is not. Ironically we can play more games on Linux now than ever.

Exactly.

"Since studios tend to develop the entire game on Windows until it's done, even when they promised a Linux version, they often don't even find out until it's too late."

That why the kickstarters* sentences like "we are working on the Windows version, and we will see for Linux later" is a no-go for me: 99% chances of never see a Linux build because X middleware is Windows only.

"Another, newer effect is Proton, which is totally awesome, but also gave these Windows-only developers an excuse not to care about ports"

Same here, i think proton is a very good piece of software, but now i buy native ports only, because if we all use proton, risk is to enter a era with no port at all...
I think the best way to support Linux Gaming is to not use Proton (yes, it's sad because great games are working only via Proton, honestly, if i find *very* good bundles, i'll take it, but i dont pay full price for a game running via Proton).
I'm surprise to see Proton-Only game's articles here. Obviously a game running via Proton is a game playable on Linux, so it's relevant, but i think it may be counterproductive if we want developper to support Linux.

"We're still just the 1% market share they don't really care about"

Yes, but this 1% is more valuable than a 1% in Windows, because your game will have more visibility, competition in this 1% is limited.
If you are working on a battle royale for example, how many games are you in competition with in this 1% ? There is no fortnite, no PUBG etc...
Of course, 1% even with this in mind, remain still too little.


Last edited by DebianUser on 14 September 2020 at 10:12 am UTC

There is not much positive in Proton in the mid to long term.
I never drank that Kool-Aid.

Just think for a moment that MS releases a new, significantly different, Direct3D version,
that in contrast to Direct3D 12 gets wide adoption.
We can't be so sure compatibility layers will be able to catch up fast.
Currently, this dependency might have been shadowed by the very slow advances of Direct3D
over the last years and many new games still support Direct3D < 12.

This is damn complex tech.

Case in point Mac has a larger base than linux and by all accounts porting games to mac is still highly profitable. My main point is we are not getting native games again anytime soon the buzz has gone on that.

We are not getting native ports of AAA games. We're still getting plenty of new native games, I see articles about them right here every single day. They're just generally not from the very top tier, which is a problem, but it's not the same problem you're describing.

Without getting into a full debate yeah i know there are tons of linux native indie games but lets be real here most of them are trash.

Without getting into a full debate, I think I've just read some trash.

I'm surprise to see Proton-Only game's articles here. Obviously a game running via Proton is a game playable on Linux, so it's relevant, but i think it may be counterproductive if we want developper to support Linux.

IMO, the problem is not the "Proton-Only game's articles" per se, but these articles here, on this site. The article writers shall convince Windows-gamers on Windows games news sites (and forum threads) to try out Linux because a game X "works fine with Proton™", not Linux locals of this site to spend their money on a Windows game (no matter the quality!) instead of supporting Linux gaming. Honestly, it is worse than preaching to the choir, it is almost like an act of direct sabotage.
Sure, some Windows-games may be good, but this is not an excuse for being an un-paid Windows-game promoter/advertiser. One shall know not only where we are, but also where we want to be; and I, for one, clearly do not want to be in a world of Windows-only games sometimes translated into Linux ecosystem via wrappers and developers not giving a damn about their games' compatibility with said wrappers. I want full-fledged day-1 first-class-citizen style releases.

Thankfully, these windows games' ads have become rare here to my delight. :)

Case in point Mac has a larger base than linux and by all accounts porting games to mac is still highly profitable. My main point is we are not getting native games again anytime soon the buzz has gone on that.

We are not getting native ports of AAA games. We're still getting plenty of new native games, I see articles about them right here every single day. They're just generally not from the very top tier, which is a problem, but it's not the same problem you're describing.

Again i repeat my previous statement most of them are drek and you would not normally look at them but because we are getting so few native triple a games people are buying them.

[quote=Alm888]

Without getting into a full debate yeah i know there are tons of linux native indie games but lets be real here most of them are trash.

Without getting into a full debate, I think I've just read some trash.

Ha good one, so have I you may love indie games that look like really bad snes games but i grew up in that era and snes games looked better than that. I know what i like and i know what i find engaging while you may think they are innovative i see re treads of better games with worse graphics.

Case in point Mac has a larger base than linux and by all accounts porting games to mac is still highly profitable. My main point is we are not getting native games again anytime soon the buzz has gone on that.

We are not getting native ports of AAA games. We're still getting plenty of new native games, I see articles about them right here every single day. They're just generally not from the very top tier, which is a problem, but it's not the same problem you're describing.

Again i repeat my previous statement most of them are drek and you would not normally look at them but because we are getting so few native triple a games people are buying them.

Tastes apparently differ. I can't remember when I read about an AAA game that sounded like something I wanted to play. I won't go so far as to call them all drek--clearly plenty of misguided souls for some bizarre reason have different opinions on this subject from my own. You might want to pull your horns in a bit, too.

They should release the code so that others who are willing and able to do the maintenance can do so. lol

Proton/Wine/Eon == Gaming on Windows on Linux

Maybe Liam has too much time on his hands and should also create www.windowsgamingonlinux.com? :P

[quote=Whitewolfe80]

Without getting into a full debate yeah i know there are tons of linux native indie games but lets be real here most of them are trash.

Without getting into a full debate, I think I've just read some trash.

Ha good one, so have I you may love indie games that look like really bad snes games but i grew up in that era and snes games looked better than that. I know what i like and i know what i find engaging while you may think they are innovative i see re treads of better games with worse graphics.

Speaking of trash, whatever happened to Bum Simulator? Was totally looking forward to that!

This makes me so mad. It was a disappointment when Rust and Rocket League dropped Linux support but they handled it better than these people who pretend nothing is wrong. I waited over a year for this update. I wouldn't even have bought the game if I knew the Linux port was abandoned. I tried Proton but it played terribly. Can you even fix the Phyxs issue in Proton? There is a refund petition in the Borderlands 2 Steam forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/49520/discussions/0/2944747978653669496/

I doubt anything will come of it because they waited long enough for the excitement regarding the new DLC to evaporate away before coming clean. Facepunch and Psyonix at least respected us as human beings. These people don't.

This makes me so mad. It was a disappointment when Rust and Rocket League dropped Linux support but they handled it better than these people who pretend nothing is wrong. I waited over a year for this update. I wouldn't even have bought the game if I knew the Linux port was abandoned. I tried Proton but it played terribly. Can you even fix the Phyxs issue in Proton? There is a refund petition in the Borderlands 2 Steam forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/49520/discussions/0/2944747978653669496/

I doubt anything will come of it because they waited long enough for the excitement regarding the new DLC to evaporate away before coming clean. Facepunch and Psyonix at least respected us as human beings. These people don't.

The thing I don't understand with things like DLC, how could it even be that hard to 'port' it'd pretty much be just data files and some most likely minimal patching. Is it as simple as the contract between the porting company and publisher end after X time, and so they don't want to renew it?

…so have I you may love indie games that look like really bad snes games but i grew up in that era and snes games looked better than that.

So, these indie games:

• EVERSPACE™


• Alwa's Legacy


• Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark


• ATOM RPG: Post-apocalyptic indie game


• CrossCode


• X4: Foundations

do not look fancy enough for you? Believe me, I have more just on GOG (and Steam probably has 100x the amount).
Honestly, I'm in shock from the fact that you assumed I have no taste for graphics.

But, more importantly, as was written somewhere, details are of importance to good games, not the "level of detail". All those so-called AAA-games are just lootbox/casino/pay-to-pay-to-win/second-work with high polygon count to me.

Speaking of trash, whatever happened to Bum Simulator? Was totally looking forward to that!

Honestly, did not even know about this. Steam™ sure can surprise sometimes.

This makes me so mad.

This was to be expected to happen at some point. Porters like Aspyr, Virtual Programming or Feral are just crutches we were relying while we had almost no games (back in the day "The Battle for Wesnoth" was the best game available on Linux). Now is the time to discard the crutches. Surely, it will hurt a little for the first couple of days, but soon we will walk and run just fine!

I'm going to go out on a limb and point out that Borderlands 3 was an Epic Games Store exclusive for a while. Every time I see the name Epic become involved, Linux support seems to go away. Didn't something similar happen with Rocket League? Or am I remembering wrong? I refused to buy BL3 until I saw cross-play fixed for Linux on BL2. I guess I'll never know what BL3 is like. I'm stubborn like that.

There was free weekend some time ago and I played most of the intro. At that point videos didn't work with default Proton, which prevented me from advancing further. Proton GE should have worked, though apparently switching between Proton versions needs some additional fiddling around. At that point I gave up.

So you haven't missed that much...

I'm going to go out on a limb and point out that Borderlands 3 was an Epic Games Store exclusive for a while. Every time I see the name Epic become involved, Linux support seems to go away. Didn't something similar happen with Rocket League? Or am I remembering wrong? I refused to buy BL3 until I saw cross-play fixed for Linux on BL2. I guess I'll never know what BL3 is like. I'm stubborn like that.

There was free weekend some time ago and I played most of the intro. At that point videos didn't work with default Proton, which prevented me from advancing further. Proton GE should have worked, though apparently switching between Proton versions needs some additional fiddling around. At that point I gave up.

So you haven't missed that much...

I ended up getting BL3 on the PS4 so my brother and I could play it online.