After being in Beta for a while for pre-orders, Big Ambitions, a role-playing business sim from Hovgaard Games (who previously developed Startup Company) launched in Early Access on Steam and then dropped Native Linux support.
It entered Early Access on March 10th, with an announcement made in their Steam forum noting they "no longer offer native Linux support for Big Ambitions" but they will "continue supporting and testing against Proton" and they plan to get Steam Deck Verified too.
For players who don't see Proton as an option, they said Steam will give refunds.
As for why? They saw a "very high amount of non-gameplay-related bugs (random crashing, high VRAM usage, file access issues, etc.)" and noted the low amount of players on Linux so they didn't think it was "fair to the rest of our player base" to spend more time on it.
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It's a shame when this happens but thanks to the Steam Play Proton translation layer, it does still mean Linux players will be able to run it and in this case the developer will support it there. Unless developers have Linux expertise and extra time for the currently smaller amount of users, Proton can often just work better, because it's constantly upgraded and optimized by Valve developers.
They're not the first by a long stretch to do this, and they won't be the last.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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They saw a "very high amount of non-gameplay-related bugs (random crashing, high VRAM usage, file access issues, etc.)"Given that a large number of Unity games with native Linux versions seemingly don't experience random crashing, high VRAM usage, or file access issues, I would classify these as likely "non-knowing-how-to-use-Unity" bugs, which will probably bite them in the Windows sooner or later anyway.
Oh well.
There were symptoms of things like that in the demo. First version of the demo didn't have crash issues, though it had some kind of menu glitch. After that was patched, I got to experience the crashes. I might have mentioned that to the developer, but I don't remember getting new releases to test.
Though to be fair, some developers don't have much experience in low level things if any. Exporting to different platforms might be easy, but figuring out what to do when things don't work is another matter.
I guess if you find developer that's willing to learn, keep throwing money that way.
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Luke_Nukem Mar 21, 2023
Maybe we should start saying they dropped Native Steam Deck support instead.
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Anyone of us who has used Linux for years prior to the advances of gaming understands why those of us who are lifelong gamers have two PC builds.
I can see why you would want to do that, especially if you want to play certain multiplayer games.
But no. I'm on Linux since 1995 or so, and deleted my DOS/Windows3.11-partition in 1996 when DOOM came out on Linux. So I've been a Linux-user AND a gamer years "prior to the advances of gaming".
And yes, if a game doesn't run on Linux, one way or another, native or with wine or with emulators, I'm not interested. I won't run (native) Windows ever again.
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Anyone of us who has used Linux for years prior to the advances of gaming understands why those of us who are lifelong gamers have two PC builds.Another lifelong gamer here, exclusively desktop gaming on Linux since almost 20 years.
I can still remember that moment when I realized the only reason I kept starting up my Windows partition was to install updates. Nuked it from orbit, never looked back. Not once.
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Another, another, lifelong gamer and I switched exclusively and permanently shortly after win8.1. no dual booting, no second machine. Windows isn't worth installing for personal use, period. There are so many great games that can be played on Linux (one way or another) that there's just no justification, and given the consistent trend of AAA games being absolute trash I don't bother getting incompatible multiplayer games just to play with friends because they all end up hating the game after a couple weeks anyway (and I end up being the only one not wasting $60+ on the garbage!).Anyone of us who has used Linux for years prior to the advances of gaming understands why those of us who are lifelong gamers have two PC builds.Another lifelong gamer here, exclusively desktop gaming on Linux since almost 20 years.
I can still remember that moment when I realized the only reason I kept starting up my Windows partition was to install updates. Nuked it from orbit, never looked back. Not once.
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fenglengshun Mar 23, 2023
Huh, understandable, sucks that this happens, but it is what it is. As long as the Proton version works well enough, then I'm pretty happy about it.
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Haven't touched windows since Windows 7 died and haven't looked back. If I can't play it I ll wait for it to be patched or ge version of proton which will probably make it playable. My need to game day one has long been thing of the past
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InhaleOblivion Apr 2, 2023
So clearly people forgot the days when the vast majority of currently released games didn't work on Linux. I'm old enough to remember when Nvidia was considered evil by Linus himself LOL. Which was the GPU I had at the beginning of my Linux journey. Thanks to development of WINE/Proton Steam, programs like Lutris, Bottles, ProtonUp, and ultimately Valve and the Linux foundation, do we have the options today that allow us to plug and play most titles. I maintain 2 builds ironically to not throw out old hardware. Nice to see so many gamers don't care about ewaste.
My sons get the secondary Windows 10 build. I only use it to test upcoming releases. Though I started them out on the Raspberry PI 3 and 4 to learn the basics of computing and Linux. I also have alpha and beta tested some of your favorite games prior to release over the years. Which sadly is all done almost 100% on Windows. If we're being honest about that fact. Especially multiplayer online only games, like MMOs. Never been a fan of dual booting due to various issues, and bugs.
The Steam Deck(which I also game on)itself has helped Linux organically grow in gaming circles, but only because Linux doesn't get in the way with the gaming part. Proton has reached a critical mass where the vast majority of games work out of the box. Anti-cheats collectively finally have support(not all). My daily driver is desktop Linux, but I'd have to forgo testing your next upcoming game if I went 100% with Linux regarding all things gaming. To be fair it's not like the devs listen to many of us anymore. Though I'll gladly still take their money, and free games LOL. Your mileage may vary.
My sons get the secondary Windows 10 build. I only use it to test upcoming releases. Though I started them out on the Raspberry PI 3 and 4 to learn the basics of computing and Linux. I also have alpha and beta tested some of your favorite games prior to release over the years. Which sadly is all done almost 100% on Windows. If we're being honest about that fact. Especially multiplayer online only games, like MMOs. Never been a fan of dual booting due to various issues, and bugs.
The Steam Deck(which I also game on)itself has helped Linux organically grow in gaming circles, but only because Linux doesn't get in the way with the gaming part. Proton has reached a critical mass where the vast majority of games work out of the box. Anti-cheats collectively finally have support(not all). My daily driver is desktop Linux, but I'd have to forgo testing your next upcoming game if I went 100% with Linux regarding all things gaming. To be fair it's not like the devs listen to many of us anymore. Though I'll gladly still take their money, and free games LOL. Your mileage may vary.
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So clearly people forgot the days when the vast majority of currently released games didn't work on Linux. I'm old enough to remember when Nvidia was considered evil by Linus himself LOL. Which was the GPU I had at the beginning of my Linux journey. Thanks to development of WINE/Proton Steam, programs like Lutris, Bottles, ProtonUp, and ultimately Valve and the Linux foundation, do we have the options today that allow us to plug and play most titles. I maintain 2 builds ironically to not throw out old hardware. Nice to see so many gamers don't care about ewaste.
My sons get the secondary Windows 10 build. I only use it to test upcoming releases. Though I started them out on the Raspberry PI 3 and 4 to learn the basics of computing and Linux. I also have alpha and beta tested some of your favorite games prior to release over the years. Which sadly is all done almost 100% on Windows. If we're being honest about that fact. Especially multiplayer online only games, like MMOs. Never been a fan of dual booting due to various issues, and bugs.
The Steam Deck(which I also game on)itself has helped Linux organically grow in gaming circles, but only because Linux doesn't get in the way with the gaming part. Proton has reached a critical mass where the vast majority of games work out of the box. Anti-cheats collectively finally have support(not all). My daily driver is desktop Linux, but I'd have to forgo testing your next upcoming game if I went 100% with Linux regarding all things gaming. To be fair it's not like the devs listen to many of us anymore. Though I'll gladly still take their money, and free games LOL. Your mileage may vary.
Never forgot the days when wolf enemy territory was the best you could get on Linux and frozen bubble was legit my most played game on Linux. I do remember when wine and wine bottles was maybe it will work maybe it won't. So yes proton and vulkan basically means if it came out in the last five years there's a strong chance it will work if it's older or dx9 title it will probably work better on Linux than windows. We know the reality we are too small a market to get native games. Proton basically means ports from feral are gone BC what's the point in financial terms you have to pay for that, under valves proton it's a free extra revenue stream with no cost
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