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.
(And yes, statcounter says "unknown" for what all the new devices have shifted to, however: we already know that they were planning on dropping windows in favor of linux for government and educational institutions as of this January (and if it's what they're now teaching students on, presumably those same students would want that on their own systems) - it is probable that we're seeing the resulting shift in monthly snapshots...it's not far-fetched that statcounter doesn't support counting every single linux distribution as "linux")
Last edited by lectrode on 9 May 2023 at 10:42 pm UTC
Many companies starting to feel that Valve set a trap with Steam Deck and Proton. They were happily making money out of developing games for Windows. Now, they have to deal with users that demand to support the poorly documented Windows emulator.
People can always run Windows to play this game. On the other hand, it doesn't solve this issue because you can expect more companies to block Wine/Proton users.
It's too adventurous for me to waste time and money on companies that ignore us. They are so many great companies and programmers that port games to Linux. I think that they deserve to buy games from them.
I'm mad when a company drops support for the native version for Linux. From the get-go, some companies ignore Linux users, and people are always angry because they decided to block them. I presume their decision was predictable, and we can't do anything about it.
You can't win "a game" with a company that created it.
Last edited by gbudny on 9 May 2023 at 11:16 pm UTC
Quoting: EikeThere might be trouble in it and it's very little they lose by not supporting it. Sad, but true.
Actually they are going to lose more than they think. Also, it's not just that they aren't "supporting" Linux, they are actively sabotaging, with failure of the client when the environment is detected.
Here's how they lose. People like me, who were at best indifferent to their stupid game, are now actively hostile towards them. I won't see anyone play this game without admonishment, I'll warn parents (my computer service customers) about it ("the exploitation of children"... buzzwords right there) and any opportunity I get to discourage will be my pleasure. Fair game.
Quoting: lectrodeI wonder how many of their players are in India, considering the mass exodus from Windows happening there (down to 53% as of April). Roblox claims it is a "global platform that brings people together through play". Is more than 1/16th of the total world population (apparent Linux users in India alone) not enough to justify supporting the Linux platform?That is very interesting. But a note of caution--although, yes, that "India dropping Windows for Linux" article refers to a broader national policy somewhere within it, the main body discussing real world government and educational Linux use is just about Kerala state. That's not a surprise because Kerala is run by a bunch of raving socialists who believe in unfashionable things like the public benefiting from government. But most of India is not run by people like that; most of it is run by corrupt neoliberals, some of them with fascist tendencies. In those other places I have doubts that having a policy will be enough to result in real change, especially when the bribes start flowing.
(And yes, statcounter says "unknown" for what all the new devices have shifted to, however: we already know that they were planning on dropping windows in favor of linux for government and educational institutions as of this January (and if it's what they're now teaching students on, presumably those same students would want that on their own systems) - it is probable that we're seeing the resulting shift in monthly snapshots...it's not far-fetched that statcounter doesn't support counting every single linux distribution as "linux")
mr-victory May 10, 2023
Quoting: lectrodeAnd yes, statcounter says "unknown" for what all the new devices have shifted to,Other countries have a surge of "unknown" as well, but smaller than India. IMO "unknown" isn't entirely but only partially Linux on India, because countries like ie. Turkey certainly aren't going to switch to Linux in a month so "unknown" indicates whatever that lost market share.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/microsoft-ending-support-to-windows-10-current-version-to-be-final-updates-101682831410557.html
Combine India's huge mass of old PCs that can't be changed to a new PC and Win11's official minimal supported hardware restrictions, and you have effectively Microaoft to thank for any uptick in Linux usage there
ps: win11 can be installed on older hardware, but MS makes it abundantly clear this is not supported and puts several roadblocks on it
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-install-windows-11-on-older-unsupported-pcs/
Last edited by Marlock on 10 May 2023 at 9:32 am UTC
Quoting: MarlockHere is a plausible reason why people might be more motivated to try Linux at home and at work there now, besides govt policies:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/microsoft-ending-support-to-windows-10-current-version-to-be-final-updates-101682831410557.html
Combine India's huge mass of old PCs that can't be changed to a new PC and Win11's official minimal supported hardware restrictions, and you have effectively Microaoft to thank for any uptick in Linux usage there
ps: win11 can be installed on older hardware, but MS makes it abundantly clear this is not supported and puts several roadblocks on it
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-install-windows-11-on-older-unsupported-pcs/
Strange enough, the means (provided by Microsoft) against the roadblocks for updates are different ones than those for the installation. So you might end up with an installation that you cannot update one day - when not being able to update made you change from 10 to 11 in the first place...
Quoting: Avehicle7887Logged in just to say the same thing but you beat me to it.They don't even need to do that: Valve have abstracted away the library differences between distros with the Steam Linux Runtime. Build against those libraries and it doesn't matter what the distros do - your game is run in a container isolated from the system libraries.
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.
Testing on Ubuntu as your target platform is still sensible, of course, as the popular distro with conservative updates (the same reasons Valve picked it as the basis for the SLR).
Quoting: MarlockStrange enough, the means (provided by Microsoft) against the roadblocks for updates are different ones than those for the installation. So you might end up with an installation that you cannot update one day - when not being able to update made you change from 10 to 11 in the first place...
As stated by the linked article:
QuoteThis procedure is NOT SUPPORTED by Microsoft. While company blog posts suggest the company is aware of users taking these drastic steps, they have not yet taken counter steps to block them, and they don’t currently have plans to do so—but that doesn’t mean that they won’t.
Also there are bare minimal requirements (even with the workarounds) that may already preclude usage of a significant fleet of old machines:
QuoteIt is important to note that successful Windows 11 installations will still require TPM 1.2 or better and UEFI boot capability. This will also only work for the 64-bit versions of both operating systems. Those requirements are immutable.
Win11 is just not possible where any of the above is missing, and that would include perfectly fine gaming machines like my AMD Phenom II x4 (recently broken, donated to a friend electrician and put back to use by him, gaming included). It's a nice 4 core cpu @ 3,4ghz but no UEFI.
Last edited by Marlock on 10 May 2023 at 12:21 pm UTC
I don't think it changes much in discussion of Proton/Wine versus native - this is DRM we are talking about. Which ends up saying more about litigation side of this - there is no evidence DRM being supported or even unintentionally working under Wine/Proton undermines games - but it is more security vendors saying "we can't cover you in this case, so it is your call to block setups we do not support".
Decision making around this always involve producers and these people do not care about technology per se - for them it is about mitigating risks and minimizing QA calls on theoretical level.
They are not first and probably not last company reacting like this. Sometimes gaming and open source and free software spirit of Linux is not compatible and we will have to live with that.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me