You might have seen recently that I covered the upcoming updates for Roblox, and now it's here blocking Wine with their new anti-cheat. This means you won't be able to play it on Linux any more, at all, unless you find some sort of special workaround.
Previously the roll-out of this update was being tested only with some users. Now though it's here for everyone giving a 64 bit client and introducing their Hyperion anti-cheat software which they are intentionally blocking Wine with. Naturally plenty of Roblox fans on Linux are upset by this, asking their team for updates on what their plans are.
In a fresh statement on their official developer forum one of their staff said this, in reply to users asking about updates in regards to Linux support:
Hi - thanks for the question. I definitely get where you’re coming from, and as you point out, you deserve a clear, good-faith answer. Unfortunately that answer is essentially “no.”
From a personal perspective, a lot of people at Roblox would love to support Linux (including me). Practically speaking, there’s just no way for us to justify it. If we release a client, we have to support it, which means QA, CS, documentation, etc., all of which is much more difficult on a fragmented platform. We release weekly on a half-dozen platforms. Adding in the time to test, debug, and release a Linux client would be expensive, which means time taken away from improving Roblox on our current platforms.
Even Wine support is difficult because of anti-cheat. As wonderful as it would be to allow Roblox under Wine, the number of users who would take advantage of that is minuscule compared with our other platforms, and it’s not worthwhile if it makes it easy for exploiters to cheat.
I’m sorry to be such a downer about this, but it’s the reality. We have to spend our time porting to and supporting the platforms that will grow our community.
Again, I’m personally sorry to have to say this. Way back in 2000 I had a few patches accepted into the kernel, and I led the port of Roblox game servers from Windows to Linux several years ago. From a technical and philosophical perspective, it would be a wonderful thing to do. But our first responsibility is to our overall community, and the opportunity cost of supporting a Linux client is far, far too high to justify.
They're clearly not going to be releasing a Native Linux build, which I think most people probably already knew, but at least previously they repeatedly said that Wine was a "priority" to support but now it doesn't sound as likely going by the above.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: RaabenThe masses scream that? Really?!Quoting: Teodosio1) This is why we should always ask for Native releases; Proton is just a fallback
And yet now every time someone does express interest in working on a native version, the masses now scream for them not to because we have Proton and native releases will forever suck/be a waste.
The occasional person says that, yeah. Let's not go overboard.
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo you know, fuck those guys. Especially--I mean, dude said they use Linux for their servers. You can be sure, they do that because it saves them a stack of money.That's what bothers me the most. When I first read that they use Linux for their servers and then they've got the nerve to go out of their way to punish Linux users… I thought that it's a shame that we cannot lock them out of using the kernel.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: RaabenThe masses scream that? Really?!Quoting: Teodosio1) This is why we should always ask for Native releases; Proton is just a fallback
And yet now every time someone does express interest in working on a native version, the masses now scream for them not to because we have Proton and native releases will forever suck/be a waste.
The occasional person says that, yeah. Let's not go overboard.
Maybe I spent too much time on Reddit. It seems any time it's come up people rally behind that idea and argue/downvote anyone otherwise.
Quoting: RaabenAh, well, so you have information I don't, since I spend zero time on Reddit.Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: RaabenThe masses scream that? Really?!Quoting: Teodosio1) This is why we should always ask for Native releases; Proton is just a fallback
And yet now every time someone does express interest in working on a native version, the masses now scream for them not to because we have Proton and native releases will forever suck/be a waste.
The occasional person says that, yeah. Let's not go overboard.
Maybe I spent too much time on Reddit. It seems any time it's come up people rally behind that idea and argue/downvote anyone otherwise.
Quoting: RaabenMaybe I spent too much time on Reddit. It seems any time it's come up people rally behind that idea and argue/downvote anyone otherwise.Any time spent on Reddit is too much time spent on Reddit.
But people do claim that Proton is better than native, even here, which is unfortunate.
mr-victory May 9, 2023
Quoting: Mountain ManThis doesn't sound like they accidentally broke Roblox on Wine, but, rather, they intentionally stopped it from working.They claim that even if they didn't block Wine, the AC would crash but that does not justify their actions. Goodbye Roblox.
What a silly excuse
Last edited by sarmad on 10 May 2023 at 5:47 pm UTC
Avehicle7887 May 9, 2023
Quoting: sarmad"fragmented platform"
What a silly execute
Logged in just to say the same thing but you beat me to it.
This excuse is old and very inaccurate. I've plenty of native Linux games which run perfectly fine on a number of distros, and if the Roblox devs want to make it easy on themselves they could just target a slightly older Ubuntu distro.
Quoting: RaabenQuoting: Teodosio1) This is why we should always ask for Native releases; Proton is just a fallback
And yet now every time someone does express interest in working on a native version, the masses now scream for them not to because we have Proton and native releases will forever suck/be a waste.
the problem with native Linux games is how well they get supported but a lot of the AAA games that have native Linux ports get little support or no support or are missing features or DLC
IMHO this is not a loss
games like this that have an in-game currency that you need to spend real money to get microtransactions or games that have loot boxes or as EA likes to call them surprise mechanics these games need to be banned
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