While the Epic Games Store doesn't support Linux or Steam Deck officially, this industry news is something we should all know about with Epic now opening up self-publishing along with some new rules for their store.
Just like Steam, developers will be able to put their games up on the Epic Store for $100 per-game. However, they have a rather interesting rule when it comes to multiplayer games. In their announcement, they mention how multiplayer titles "must support crossplay across all PC stores" so that "any store can easily connect with other players, regardless of where the game was purchased".
Their reasoning is sound, as there's no good reason to lock online play per-store, and on Linux in the past the problem was even worse, with certain ports from Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive having multiplayer locked to Linux or Linux and macOS with Windows being by itself. I have absolutely no problem with Epic's online play rule at all, as it's actually great for us players.
Developers publishing on the Epic Store are free to use whatever method they wish for this, which is obviously good but rolling your own cross-play can be expensive and difficult. So, this will be another way for Epic Games to push their Epic Online Services which supports Linux, macOS, Windows, consoles and mobiles and provides the likes of voice chat, achievements, matchmaking and more. Compare that to Steamworks from Valve which, while feature-filled, is for Steam directly.
So for developers publishing on multiple stores for online games we're likely to see a lot more of Epic Online Services, or various other launchers and services being used even on Steam directly. We've already begun to see more of that and it will only continue to be a bigger thing now.
In a chat with PC Gamer, Epic's Tim Sweeney noted: "They have a classic lock-in strategy where they build these services that only work with their store, and they use the fact that they have the majority market share in order to encourage everybody to ship games that have a broken experience in other stores," Sweeney said. "And we were bitten by this early on with a number of multiplayer games coming to the Epic Games Store. Steamworks didn't work on our store, so they had either a reduced set of multiplayer features or none, or they were just limited to a much smaller audience back in the launch days of the Epic Games Store, so you had a lot of multiplayer games that really felt like they were broken. And remember, Call of Duty went through a debacle launching on the Windows Store a while back in which you could only matchmake with other Windows Store players, and that is not how PC should work.".
Not just an issue for Epic, it's a problem GOG have too and they're much smaller so this rule Epic have is likely to benefit GOG releases as well (as long as their Galaxy API plays nicely with others…).
It will be interesting to see if Valve have any plans to expand Steamworks to be more cross-platform. I've reached out to Valve press to see what they have to say, if anything. Will update if I get a reply on that.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Well valve maintain their servers, they pay for them, it is logical to have it "closed" and prevent other competitor companies to use their services for free, I don't see anything strange, besides this has benefited small developers who do not have the money and infrastructure. Sweeney's comments have always been, and it is obvious, for commercial interests nothing else, they are not the sisters of charity or anything like that.
On paper what Sweeney says has always sounded nice, we will see how it works in practice.
On paper what Sweeney says has always sounded nice, we will see how it works in practice.
10 Likes, Who?
Do the Epic Online Services require one to have an Epic Store account to use?
While cross-store cross-play is nominally good for games and gamers, I don't feel particularly inclined to sign up for a store that only supports Windows. :/
In my ideal dream world we'd have an open source and distributed system for connecting, matchmaking, etc. with federated servers, such that even open source games could integrate the library for online play. I'm pretty sure it's all solved problems technically (STUN/TURN, DHT, etc.), it just needs someone/s to roll together the functionality into an easy and openly licensed API. I just don't have the energy or drive to even start experimenting with that right now. :(
While cross-store cross-play is nominally good for games and gamers, I don't feel particularly inclined to sign up for a store that only supports Windows. :/
In my ideal dream world we'd have an open source and distributed system for connecting, matchmaking, etc. with federated servers, such that even open source games could integrate the library for online play. I'm pretty sure it's all solved problems technically (STUN/TURN, DHT, etc.), it just needs someone/s to roll together the functionality into an easy and openly licensed API. I just don't have the energy or drive to even start experimenting with that right now. :(
9 Likes, Who?
LOL... as if I'm going to listen to that creep, who offers carrots to publishers to sell their games exclusively in the Epic store. Epic is a publisher oriented service, NOT user. He has personally said that. They even allow publishers to disable user reviews on games. They couldn't give a toss about you. "Fck you, pay me"
That said, now I'm going to have to be careful and check to see that games are not using EOS, lest I go through the motions only for refund. I screwed around for most of the evening trying to get Returnal to launch, it was the EOS services... I was having IPC issues, the launcher wouldn't even get off the ground. It looked like it was glibc related (I had just upgraded glibc the day before that... latest kernel API headers too and a GNU bootstrap after that). It could be the kernel itself too, I'm always on the latest release (or "mainline" in the case of a .0). I've not had any trouble with anything else I've been trying to do, so pfft to that...
P.S. Middleware is trouble, I don't care who it is, EA, Epic, Ubisoft, all of that can stuff up perfectly good games from launching. The difference is that Valve makes sure theirs works for us.
Last edited by Grogan on 9 March 2023 at 6:04 pm UTC
That said, now I'm going to have to be careful and check to see that games are not using EOS, lest I go through the motions only for refund. I screwed around for most of the evening trying to get Returnal to launch, it was the EOS services... I was having IPC issues, the launcher wouldn't even get off the ground. It looked like it was glibc related (I had just upgraded glibc the day before that... latest kernel API headers too and a GNU bootstrap after that). It could be the kernel itself too, I'm always on the latest release (or "mainline" in the case of a .0). I've not had any trouble with anything else I've been trying to do, so pfft to that...
P.S. Middleware is trouble, I don't care who it is, EA, Epic, Ubisoft, all of that can stuff up perfectly good games from launching. The difference is that Valve makes sure theirs works for us.
Last edited by Grogan on 9 March 2023 at 6:04 pm UTC
12 Likes, Who?
Do the Epic Online Services require one to have an Epic Store account to use?(
Nope, at least Returnal from Sony was transparent. Perhaps, because it was a Steam release, Sony found a way to pass in my SteamID? But if it did, it didn't tell me.
Epic is a hard no from me. I don't mind if games incorporate EOS into their offering, but if they ever get to a point where they ask me to login to an Epic account, or even register my SteamID against an Epic account, I'm out.
Sadly, I suspect that's their end-game: get EOS on as many games as possible, then enforce a login. That's the kind of person Sweeney is.
19 Likes, Who?
This sounds like it could be a win for Linux gamers in the future. Or at least a small win for Linux gamers with friends that play on other operating systems. I'm worried that the linux versions of games we could have will end up functionally nerfed like Rocket League.
1 Likes, Who?
I don't personally like multiplayer gaming, so I don't have a horse in this race, but I will say that cross play needs to be a thing. It's a popular feature these days, and Valve needs to cooperate with it.
5 Likes, Who?
benstor214 Mar 9, 2023
That said, now I'm going to have to be careful and check to see that games are not using EOS, lest I go through the motions only for refund.There is a Steam Curator called "Epic Games S*cks", where * is a vowel, who does this for you.
8 Likes, Who?
What do I think of EOS in all titles? Even on GOG? No. Just no. That would mean games would have DRM (EOS) built in, even on GOG.
That's just bad. Looks like I'll have to check closer as to what games bundle even more now.
That's just bad. Looks like I'll have to check closer as to what games bundle even more now.
9 Likes, Who?
In a chat with PC Gamer, Epic's Tim Sweeney noted: "They have a classic lock-in strategy where they build these services that only work with their store, and they use the fact that they have the majority market share in order to encourage everybody to ship games that have a broken experience in other stores," Sweeney said.
He says that as if you are obligated to ship your game on Steam using Steamworks, not to mention that Steamworks predates all those other stores... Disingenuous Tim Sweeney strikes again. 🤦♂️
8 Likes, Who?
This sounds like it could be a win for Linux gamers in the future. Or at least a small win for Linux gamers with friends that play on other operating systems. I'm worried that the linux versions of games we could have will end up functionally nerfed like Rocket League.
As an avid RL player, I can tell you that the windows version through proton (or wine if you're playing it through the epic store) is not limited in any way. The native Linux and MacOS clients were dropped, but are not required in the slightest anymore with Valve's work on proton/wine, dxvk, etc.
That's not to say that the windows client has been perfect. It got substantially more resource demanding when it was updated to use dx11 instead of dx9. Thankfully it is substantially better than it was a year ago - it has since been refined and optimized enough to run quite well on the Steam Deck (I normally play it at 1080p 60fps) and it is Steam Deck Verified.
FYI: RL at this point does not use Easy Anti-cheat, which is something I'm very happy about. One less thing to worry about potentially breaking the game for us Linux users.
Last edited by lectrode on 9 March 2023 at 8:50 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
lol what a hypocrite. Epic Store would be a curated store according to Timmy but now it's just a $100 deposit. I don't trust Epic nor their trojan-horse called EOS and whatever data it scraps from the PC without consent, collects and sends to whoever, so I'm basically done with the studios that will go that route. That's why I 've stopped supporting gaming studios by buying their cosmetic stuff long ago, because no one is ever "secured" that they won't jump to EOS at some point, see Killing Floor 2 and others.
Last edited by sudoer on 9 March 2023 at 9:22 pm UTC
Last edited by sudoer on 9 March 2023 at 9:22 pm UTC
10 Likes, Who?
"Epic Games" just means "Epically Avoid These Games" now........
6 Likes, Who?
I love how Tim Sweeney once again makes a an extremely hypocritical, smugly delievered statement, this time where he complains about something being "a classic lock-in strategy" yet Epic is the one doing exclusivity deals, not Steam. And they "lock in" many people to windows by not enabling EAC on linux for Fortnite, too.
God I hate this dude. If that statement came from someone from GOG or any other storefront there would be absolutely no issue in my opinion with saying that, but as it stands with the way things are now it comes off as undeservedly smarmy and hypocritical. It's like he's completely oblivious to why people dislike Epic, or is intentionally ignoring it. Didn't he say at one point that Epic would be more curated too during one of this moments where he throws stones at steam from his glass house? Guess he's walking that back too with the $100 entry.
As for the decision itself, I'm all for cross platform play, it's why I'm one of the seemingly few people who actually welcomes mod.io in place of Steam Workshop, but Epic doing it with one of their services really comes off as sketchy to me, since they have built anything but a positive consumer reputation so far.
Last edited by WMan22 on 10 March 2023 at 12:05 am UTC
God I hate this dude. If that statement came from someone from GOG or any other storefront there would be absolutely no issue in my opinion with saying that, but as it stands with the way things are now it comes off as undeservedly smarmy and hypocritical. It's like he's completely oblivious to why people dislike Epic, or is intentionally ignoring it. Didn't he say at one point that Epic would be more curated too during one of this moments where he throws stones at steam from his glass house? Guess he's walking that back too with the $100 entry.
As for the decision itself, I'm all for cross platform play, it's why I'm one of the seemingly few people who actually welcomes mod.io in place of Steam Workshop, but Epic doing it with one of their services really comes off as sketchy to me, since they have built anything but a positive consumer reputation so far.
Last edited by WMan22 on 10 March 2023 at 12:05 am UTC
17 Likes, Who?
As an avid RL player, I can tell you that the windows version through proton (or wine if you're playing it through the epic store) is not limited in any way.
FYI: RL at this point does not use Easy Anti-cheat, which is something I'm very happy about. One less thing to worry about potentially breaking the game for us Linux users.
To the first point, it's limited in the sense that they now require an epic account and to link that account to your steam account (though it can be a half-account, but that's a whole other mess)
To the second point, the writing is on the wall after all the uproar on reddit about bots and cheat-clients, though they are really slow to respond to such things in actual code, so you probably have at least 2 more months of playing before anything is implemented (if it is, but I think that seems likely at this point).
1 Likes, Who?
benstor214 Mar 10, 2023
I'm one of the seemingly few people who actually welcomes mod.iomod.io is tencent
0 Likes
And?I'm one of the seemingly few people who actually welcomes mod.iomod.io is tencent
1 Likes, Who?
What a conveniently cheap way to do it. Oh, publishers have to imlement cross (store) play and oh, what a coincidence, we have a proprietary software just doing this.
If all of the PR babbling reffering to their motivation were true, than they could easily make it free, as in free software and not as in free of royalty, hand it over to a foundation and ensure that their shop is compliant to this neutral instance. As it is right now it's only a white painted attempt to funnel Steam purchases to their own store with the addition that they can change the terms of use as they wish at any time, for developers and costumers alike.
If all of the PR babbling reffering to their motivation were true, than they could easily make it free, as in free software and not as in free of royalty, hand it over to a foundation and ensure that their shop is compliant to this neutral instance. As it is right now it's only a white painted attempt to funnel Steam purchases to their own store with the addition that they can change the terms of use as they wish at any time, for developers and costumers alike.
7 Likes, Who?
My thoughts?
Liam, please be careful about what EG means as multi-platform crossplay and what you think it should mean.
Because I see that for Sweeney & Co. the term "platform" defines the content delivery environment (EGS, Steam, GOG, Windows Store, individual launchers, etc.) used to purchase/get titles from and identify the owner in multiplayers, and how the middleware tied with that specific environment plays nice with other authentication/identification methods or launchers. Basically, who "owns" the login credentials.
While for you the term "platform" means Windows, MacOS, Linux-based OS'es, consoles, etc. so if I'm on Ubuntu while my buddy uses Win11 we can still play together (your example of Borderlands 2 having different, incompatible versions for Lin and Win).
The way "crossplay" is interpreted and intended varies a lot between the two meanings. In particular, Epic Games never ever cared adding Linux in the crossplay pool as much as cares about grafting Steam market share by fair or foul means.
Liam, please be careful about what EG means as multi-platform crossplay and what you think it should mean.
Because I see that for Sweeney & Co. the term "platform" defines the content delivery environment (EGS, Steam, GOG, Windows Store, individual launchers, etc.) used to purchase/get titles from and identify the owner in multiplayers, and how the middleware tied with that specific environment plays nice with other authentication/identification methods or launchers. Basically, who "owns" the login credentials.
While for you the term "platform" means Windows, MacOS, Linux-based OS'es, consoles, etc. so if I'm on Ubuntu while my buddy uses Win11 we can still play together (your example of Borderlands 2 having different, incompatible versions for Lin and Win).
The way "crossplay" is interpreted and intended varies a lot between the two meanings. In particular, Epic Games never ever cared adding Linux in the crossplay pool as much as cares about grafting Steam market share by fair or foul means.
4 Likes, Who?
My thoughts?I’m not entirely sure what exactly you’re getting at here? EOS has full Linux support. It’s entirely separate to the Epic Store, which yes does not support Linux.
Liam, please be careful about what EG means as multi-platform crossplay and what you think it should mean.
Because I see that for Sweeney & Co. the term "platform" defines the content delivery environment (EGS, Steam, GOG, Windows Store, individual launchers, etc.) used to purchase/get titles from and identify the owner in multiplayers, and how the middleware tied with that specific environment plays nice with other authentication/identification methods or launchers. Basically, who "owns" the login credentials.
While for you the term "platform" means Windows, MacOS, Linux-based OS'es, consoles, etc. so if I'm on Ubuntu while my buddy uses Win11 we can still play together (your example of Borderlands 2 having different, incompatible versions for Lin and Win).
The way "crossplay" is interpreted and intended varies a lot between the two meanings. In particular, Epic Games never ever cared adding Linux in the crossplay pool as much as cares about grafting Steam market share by fair or foul means.
0 Likes
Tim can do whatever he wants ofc but as usual he's dishonest when he puts the blame on Valve for the absence of cross platform multiplayer on many Steam games.
Especially since their games are cross platform in the first place so their are a virtuos developer and setting the good example for the others. What else should they do? Coerce everyone like he do? If Steam was 5% market share probably they could get away with it. But since Steam is so huge that would be a death sentence for all devs that don't have the resources to do that.
Last edited by Mal on 10 March 2023 at 10:33 am UTC
Especially since their games are cross platform in the first place so their are a virtuos developer and setting the good example for the others. What else should they do? Coerce everyone like he do? If Steam was 5% market share probably they could get away with it. But since Steam is so huge that would be a death sentence for all devs that don't have the resources to do that.
Last edited by Mal on 10 March 2023 at 10:33 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
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