Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion has dropped Linux support (updated)

But it can't read my mind, and doesn't have a clue if I want to continue playing that game or i'm just speculating.

If you are asking for a refund via the normal "request refund" on Steam, you don't want to continue playing.
That's pretty much a given.

I'm unable to make my point clear enough, sorry, english is not my primary language.
Say I'm a Linux user sick of playing the game X, or maybe i've completed it; I've always played on Linux.
X stop supporting Linux, i receive money because they stop supporting my platform, even if i would'nt have played X anyway.
YAY free game for me!
Automatic refund or the need for do it manually doesn't change that.
Also:
I want to develop game X for platforms w,l,m.
Steam say me i've to continue to support w,l,m or I've to refund all the sells for the platform i will not support anymore.
What will i do? I'm not that confident that the engine i'm using to develop my game will support w.l and m in the future.
Would I risk to refund all the sells, even to people not really interested in the continued support, or maybe i will just support w and let people using l deal with it with some compatibility layer?


Last edited by kokoko3k on 28 August 2021 at 3:43 pm UTC

What will i do?

Don't lie on your store page. If you're going to support a platform, say you'll support it. If you're not going to support a platform, don't say you will. Bait-and-switch is terrible behaviour (and is illegal in lots of places); you shouldn't be able to do it and then just keep the money, even if your game isn't as high profile as, say, Rocket League.

What will i do?

Don't lie on your store page. If you're going to support a platform, say you'll support it. If you're not going to support a platform, don't say you will. Bait-and-switch is terrible behaviour (and is illegal in lots of places); you shouldn't be able to do it and then just keep the money, even if your game isn't as high profile as, say, Rocket League.

Again, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.
If i decide to not 'risk to lie', i would simply avoid the support for that platform alltogheter, and as we know that good part of the games today is built on unity and ue4, that would mean byebye native linux support in favour of the consolidation of a monopoly.
No way around it on my sight.

That's why i think that a compromise in terms of a minimum time range of ensured support could be the balanced way to go.
...or, it has to be judged case by case by Valve itself


Last edited by kokoko3k on 28 August 2021 at 5:12 pm UTC

Again, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

We can do without those press the build button but never bother to actually test releases, thank you very much. If a customer chooses to risk their money on a purchase for an unsupported platform, that should be their informed choice, not the unwitting result of developer lies.

"There aren't that many of these people, so it's OK to cheat them out of their money," which is the position taken by these developers, is morally bankrupt. But, similarly, if there weren't that many people it's not going to affect the developer much when they have to give back their ill-gotten gains.


Last edited by CatKiller on 28 August 2021 at 7:09 pm UTC

Again, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

We can do without those press the build button but never bother to actually test releases, thank you very much. If a customer chooses to risk their money on a purchase for an unsupported platform, that should be their informed choice, not the unwitting result of developer lies.

"There aren't that many of these people, so it's OK to cheat them out of their money," which is the position taken by these developers, is morally bankrupt. But, similarly, if there weren't that many people it's not going to affect the developer much when they have to give back their ill-gotten gains.

Right, so let's put the following way:
Since most of developers are not so good (tm) at their job, not so much native titles will come in the future if you force them to unconditionally support Linux after launch.

Right, so let's put the following way:
Since most of developers are not so good (tm) at their job, not so much native titles will come in the future if you force them to unconditionally support Linux after launch.

Why the hell should anyone be giving them money for a game they won't support? Just because they lied about it to pretend that they would? Taking money under false pretences is fraud. Those are the people you want to buy games from?

Right, so let's put the following way:
Since most of developers are not so good (tm) at their job, not so much native titles will come in the future if you force them to unconditionally support Linux after launch.

Why the hell should anyone be giving them money for a game they won't support? Just because they lied about it to pretend that they would? Taking money under false pretences is fraud. Those are the people you want to buy games from?

I give up, probably there's a language barrier here.

Right, so let's put the following way:
Since most of developers are not so good (tm) at their job, not so much native titles will come in the future if you force them to unconditionally support Linux after launch.

Why the hell should anyone be giving them money for a game they won't support? Just because they lied about it to pretend that they would? Taking money under false pretences is fraud. Those are the people you want to buy games from?

I give up, probably there's a language barrier here.

Allow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

Since developers like this suck so much at customer service, Valve should force them to do better: give automatic refunds to affected customers, to make them whole, and withhold revenue until the cost of that has been recovered. That's what other retailers do. I'm only ever going to buy a handful of games from any particular game dev, but I buy hundreds overall from Steam; my confidence in buying things on Steam becomes less every time a developer pulls this kind of scam, which harms Valve.

Right! I see people on here saying they're bad at software development. That may or may not be true, but what's definitely true is that they lack "soft skills." They don't know how to treat customers right and don't seem to care.

Allow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

They wouldn't be forced to support anything. They'd just have to give the money back if they lied about providing support when they don't, rather than just keeping it.

To put it another way: if you've written on your store page that you're going to support a platform, to entice customers on that platform to give you money, but you are unable or unwilling to provide that support, why should you get to keep the money?


Last edited by CatKiller on 29 August 2021 at 3:05 pm UTC

While I feel your frustration, I do think that such a move would decrease the number of native ports even more since Linux now would become not only a fringe market but also a dangerous one.

How so dangerous? That they should give the money back when they don't provide the goods they said they'd give in exchange? I'd want the same thing for Windows users if a dev took their money and then flatly refused to provide the product that had been paid for. Developers need to use their whole arse, and Valve need to maintain customer confidence in their marketplace.

Valve automatically protecting customers from rogue devs is the nice option. Being forced to do it in every country with consumer protection laws is the less nice, and much less easy, option.

Dangerous in the way that if you in the unforeseen future for some reason are no longer able to support Linux then you have to suddenly redeem all those sales. Note that I'm not claiming that this would make Linux dangerous, just that publishers would see Linux as dangerous so when making a business decision then a Linux port would have a high risk (possibility of 100% refunds) vs low reward (small user base).

Again, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

^ This.

Game developers need to start accepting responsibility for their promises, pretty much like every other industry out there. It's not too much asked for to think about which platforms you want to deploy on and then make sure that you're actually able to. If you're not sure if your finished product will run on Linux/Mac/Mobile, don't promise it. Easy as that. Then just say "Platforms other than Windows are not planned at this time", which is true and honest. Don't compel Linux users to pre-purchase your game if you can't say with certainty that they're able to run it when it's done. This is particularly true if you have no experience with Linux and haven't even decided on any 3rd party components to use in your project.

In short, developers who want to make money with selling games need to start behaving like professionals and not like amateurs.

Allow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

They wouldn't be forced to support anything. They'd just have to give the money back if they lied about providing support when they don't, rather than just keeping it.

To put it another way: if you've written on your store page that you're going to support a platform, to entice customers on that platform to give you money, but you are unable or unwilling to provide that support, why should you get to keep the money?

I get your point, but your assumption is that any developer who drops Linux support has a malicious intent, and they were trying to cheat people out of their money right from the get go. That's where the disagreement really is. I don't believe for example the developer in this article intentionally thought "let me boost my sales by 1% through lies and deceit". They simply bit more than they could chew.

And regarding refund, I do wish there was a refund system for this, but it's not simple to be fair. For example, I had a lot of fun with Rocket League before they pulled the plug, is it justified that I get a full refund? I don't think so. Some cases are very clear to me though, if I bought the game and haven't played it yet, and support is dropped, then yes a full refund makes sense.

I get your point, but your assumption is that any developer who drops Linux support has a malicious intent, and they were trying to cheat people out of their money right from the get go. That's where the disagreement really is. I don't believe for example the developer in this article intentionally thought "let me boost my sales by 1% through lies and deceit". They simply bit more than they could chew.

And regarding refund, I do wish there was a refund system for this, but it's not simple to be fair. For example, I had a lot of fun with Rocket League before they pulled the plug, is it justified that I get a full refund? I don't think so. Some cases are very clear to me though, if I bought the game and haven't played it yet, and support is dropped, then yes a full refund makes sense.

Being unwilling to keep their promise through incompetence isn't actually any better than being unwilling to keep their promise through malice. They don't have to break their game, and they don't have to pull support. If they want to change their game in a way that they struggle to do on a particular platform they've committed to support they can either push on through to make it work, or not make that breaking change, or apologise and return the money to those customers affected. At no point is falsely claiming support and then just keeping the money acceptable behaviour: you wouldn't let a child act like that, much less a professional software developer.

you wouldn't let a child act like that, much less a professional software developer

If a child opens a lemonade stand and sells lemonade *with a cup* for 25 cents, then after you drank the whole lemonade, they regret it and ask for the cup back, will you ask for a full refund of your 25 cents? I sure hope your answer is no.

If a developer supports Linux, I buy and play the game to the end, with no intention of replaying it, then they remove Linux support, should they give a full refund? Do you see the analogy?

That's why I'm saying it's not so simple to define a rule that's fair. A developer pulling Linux support after they made sales is a dick move, but if your solution is to scare them from the start, they will simply chicken out and not do it in the first place. Funny you mentioned children, because that's exactly what I learned from my own child; you scare them to keep them safe and they become cowards.

In short, if you want more Linux support you need to encourage developers, not scare them, and some may very well fail after trying and that's normal.

If a developer supports Linux, I buy and play the game to the end, with no intention of replaying it, then they remove Linux support, should they give a full refund?

Yes.

They've had an interest-free loan from all their affected customers, and they get to not be dicks. Easy choice.


Last edited by CatKiller on 29 August 2021 at 7:40 pm UTC

Being unwilling to keep their promise through incompetence isn't actually any better than being unwilling to keep their promise through malice. They don't have to break their game, and they don't have to pull support. If they want to change their game in a way that they struggle to do on a particular platform they've committed to support they can either push on through to make it work, or not make that breaking change, or apologise and return the money to those customers affected. At no point is falsely claiming support and then just keeping the money acceptable behaviour: you wouldn't let a child act like that, much less a professional software developer.

It is not that anyone using an external engine for "linux" is incompetent.
Still, being able to support a platform depends on that engine.
That means that since the engine dev used to build my game supports ubuntu-ancient, then you're supported while you use ubuntu-ancient.
An "honest" developer wouldn't be able to offer more, it has no knowledge nor control over newer engine versions.
What if ubuntu-next ships with glibc-next and unity-next builds won't run on that?
You would still have the ability to play or redownload the old build running on the specific supported distro: the one you played that worked when you paid it.
I bet there are tons of similar examples in old windows titles too.
Having the game you paid for removed from your library or being unable to reinstall it is another story ofc.

If a developer supports Linux, I buy and play the game to the end, with no intention of replaying it, then they remove Linux support, should they give a full refund?

Yes.

They've had an interest-free loan from all their affected customers, and they get to not be dicks. Easy choice.

So at the end of the day/year/decade, all games will be free on every platform, because no developer will be able support them forever.

But I agree: easy choice. Even though I develop on Linux, publishing for Linux is probably not worth the trouble.


Last edited by Osrandil on 29 August 2021 at 11:15 pm UTC

If a developer supports Linux, I buy and play the game to the end, with no intention of replaying it, then they remove Linux support, should they give a full refund?

Yes.

They've had an interest-free loan from all their affected customers, and they get to not be dicks. Easy choice.

So at the end of the day/year/decade, all games will be free on every platform, because no developer will be able support them forever.

But I agree: easy choice. Even though I develop on Linux, publishing for Linux is probably not worse the trouble.

I get your point... but they're still developing the other platforms. That's the problem here. Not that "after an arbitrary length of time passing, all games must therefore be free because we want a refund".

They chose to simply ditch a platform. The people on that platform have been shafted, treated like second-class citizens. Of course they have a right to demand their money back.

You know, thinking about this, it often gives the lie to how small a platform we are. You often hear "Linux isn't worth the trouble", or "Linux users cost too much in support given their size".

If that were true though, ditching the platform like this should be a trivial business. Offer refunds. We're so tiny, why not? Get rid of us - not worth the trouble and so on.

If you take, say, £50K sales, and assume we're 1%... that's £500. Sure, that's a chunk of money to an individual, but c'mon. If you run your studio like a business, and your experiment with Linux didn't yield results - pony up the five hundred quid. Take the hit and move on. I mean, another argument is that not everyone will refund anyway, because dual-booters still able to play the game on their Windows partition, right?

(just ignore the bit about dual-booters dual-booting because they've had enough of MS's shit and would prefer to ditch that partition at some point in the future...)

So which is it? Are we tiny minority that doesn't matter, in which case pony up. Or are we actually often a reasonable portion of sales and the dev outfit just can't handle the support burden?

Or third option... are they buying into Valve's "don't do native, we'll cover it with Proton" narrative, and realising that it's an easy out for them, since they don't have to do any Q&A on the "Linux build".

I hope it's not the latter.