Epic won’t update Fortnite to run on the Steam Deck. Tim Sweeney says Linux is ‘a terrifically hard audience to serve’ (2022)

Not that I give a crap about Fortnite, but what an asshole.

A terrifically hard audience to serve given the variety of incompatible configurations.

If your game doesn't work with my fully functional operating system (while others do), isn't it literally your game that's "incompatible?"

This from the man who thinks he's "competing" with Valve?

Valve is figuring out how to run games they didn't even develop on Linux, while Epic complains it's too hard to do for even their own games...

That's rich.

This is why I don't give Epic and any exclusives on it's store any money. I know 0% of it is going back into making linux gaming better.

Why is a 2 year old article being posted now?

"We don't have enough developers to support Linux!"

• Tim Sweeney promptly fires 700 developers

He can go fuck himself with a 6" railroad spike.

At least Gaben is pushing the Linux gaming community forward!

This would be news if it were current. At 2 years old it's just clickbait

Just an FYI: This article is 2 years old. Not saying anything has changed or not.

Look, it's just that the engine they use doesn't have Linux support... Wait no that's not true

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/SharingAndReleasing/Linux/BeginnerLinuxDeveloper/SettingUpAnUnrealWorkflow/

Some would say not having Fortnite on Linux is a feature...

Over 15k verifiable playable games work on Linux

https://www.protondb.com/

I know this is an older article, but EAC has had compatibility with Linux for years at this point. Linux is also really easy to compile and develop for compared to MacOS. They just don't want to because there aren't enough players to justify the cost, most likely. Also might have some incentive to keep their game off the hardware of their biggest competitor.

Why tf would you post this without at least putting a date on it lol

Oh yeah, there's so many Steam Deck configurations! /s

Well yeah…. They’re clearly developmentally challenged at Epic. In every sense of the word. I’m not exactly surprised that a platform still lacking basic functionality that should’ve been there on day one, has trouble figuring out Linux.

Linux users are not your audience. Owners of the Steam Deck are. I'd wager the vast majority of Deck users do not have a computer that runs Linux. You don't really need to know how to do anything in Linux even in desktop mode. The environment is so similar to mac and windows for most tasks.

He's just pissy about the idea of designing anything that would benefit Steam; the heavyweight he has tried and failed to emulate.

This is a 2 and a half (almost) year old article. I figured Tim's thoughts on this were common knowledge at this point?

Okay, now give me another free game Epic. I've got over 100 probably on you wacko store and have not paid for a single one.

This is old news but I do often think about the flaw in Tim Sweeney's strategy to try and bully apple and Microsoft into making their platforms work his way.

Honestly Epic should have got in the Linux bandwagon years ago so they could provide their own hardware.

Thank you, Tim Epic

The wording in the tweet in the article is a little less bombastic. He's concerned about maintaining anti-cheat for custom kernels and other Linux-exclusive issues at the scale that Fortnite runs at. Given how large the audience for that game is and the age range (which has a lot more time to dedicate) I can see how that would be a costly endeavor and look at TF2 right now as an example of what happens if you fail to do so. Combine that with the much smaller footprint of the Linux base (which is changing!) and thus, less incentive to tackle any of that in the first place.

Maybe I'm just trying to not read ill intent, but I see "Linux gamers are a hard audience to serve" as "You guys use an OS focused on freedom and customization, which means it's literally harder to serve you all effectively" and not as "Linux gamers are mean".

This is incredibly short-sighted. Having your business model hitched to a single vendor is just asking to screwed by whatever walled garden that vendor puts up. There's a reason Valve is pushing Linux.

Tim Sweeney is a terrifically hard person to get to fuck off.

Linux is ‘a terrifically hard audience to serve’

said owner of a company that last tried to oficially support Linux in late '90s.

Tim Sweeney doesn't work hard.

Tim refuses to stop shooting himself in the foot against Valve. More news at 11

Good old Tim never misses an opportunity to tell Linux users about his nonsense dated opinions

Fuck Tim Sweeney and fuck Epic. Apparently selling a game that already works with Linux and even Windows is too much him.

Oh noes! The customers won't happily swallow whatever bullshit we shove down their throats! Oh the humanity!

2 year old article. Stupid comment. Low key true but still stupid.

It's not that hard to make a game run on Linux thoses days, they're just lazy ass

Lmfao SO many games that were never meant to run on Linux work perfectly well on my machine, some better than windows. He's just throwing a hissy fit because Linux won't allow kernel level malware - I mean anti-cheat. What a dickhead. Apex is a better game anyway.

I mean... I don't really disagree in this specific context.

I assume Fortnite has kernel level/rootkit anti-cheat. And Epic make massive amounts of cash from all the goku skins people buy. Unless they have the resources to test at least the major distros and keep aware of possible hacks/bypasses on that side it is just begging for exploits. And it is big enough that the moment one is identified EVERYBODY is grabbing an ubuntu live CD to get some goku dollars.

I still think it is shit that they don't directly support Linux with the EGS (especially since they distribute Unreal Engine and marketplace stuff via that). But for their "more revenue than the GDP of a small nation" live game? I get it.

A buddy who works on one of the popular live games made the comparison to pokemon cards. Everyone thinks it is a great idea to show them off at school. Until the kid trips, they get scattered on the floor, and it is a god damned feeding frenzy of every single kid losing their minds to scramble and fight over that dog eared pikachu card.

In no way shocked about that one. Sweeney aint gonna help the competition.

Completely unrelated, but what’s the game in the header image?

variety of incompatible configurations

Steam Linux Runtime is a stable "configuration" across all distributions. That's its entire point.

The problem will only get solved if there will be reliable methods for detecting cheats that don't require direct ingeration in a client operating system directly.

Adding that extra file that takes care of everything related for anti cheat must be quite difficult for such a small team. /s

God, Lemmy is filled with sweaty Linux evangelists.

Wow, there are a lot of entitled Linux users in here.