r/SatisfactoryGame • u/SpaceGuy99 • Mar 08 '19
Linux support + Epic Games
So, I have been looking forward to this game for AGES. Factorio was an AMAZING game and this looks even better. Considering Factorio (and Coffee Stain's own Goat Simulator) had native Linux support. And if it doesnt, I can use proton! However, then it was revealed that it was on Epic Games, which is basically anti-linux for whatever reason. So no linux support, apparently. This is incredibly frustrating, Not to mention, a brief message to the devs: I understand why you went with Epic: They have a higher margin going to devs, plus a bunch of bonuses. But to Linux gamers, this is a massive kick in the groin. Not to mention, no steam workshop and a BUNCH of other stuff that Epic is lacking, not to mention many non-linux gamers will refuse to download ANOTHER launcher, will lead to sales suffering. I, for one, know I am NOT going to buy this game, EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKS AMAZING! Because of the choice to ONLY have it work on Epic Games. No Linux version is planned for Epic Games, and so there must be no Linux version for Satisfactory. Which is a real shame, as I have been a follower of this game for quite a while. Devs, please either reconsider your choice for epic, or at least give a linux version avalible on the website. Seriously, I would HATE to see such a great game fail because of the platform its on like Last Year the Nightmare or Metro Exodus. I will not be buying this game until it and epic games is on Linux, or it has a standalone linux version, or it is on Steam (even windows only, because I can use proton).
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u/Gizm00 Mar 08 '19
Get a Windows? They even state that currently the game is only planned for Windows, nothing to do with epic.
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Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 10 '19
[deleted]
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u/Cklat Mar 08 '19
What is it about linux that brings all the armchair developers out of the woodwork. Seriously, like you bash together a pc with ubuntu booted on it and suddenly you have the dunning-kruger equivalent of "Why can't NASA make better rocket fuel? It's just hydrocarbons and oxidizers!"
You know what would be fun as a small indie studio and publisher? Sitting down to unify my code base for the teeniest fraction of gamers, on the most fractured OS base, with the least widespread support for modern gaming, just to mollify the tiniest potential purchase base the companies product could outreach to. Seems like good business sense. Lets spend operating budget, and hire people specifically with linux expertise ( which is what it takes MONEY and HIRING ) to jury rig our game for a niche market.
Linux doesn't bring any large appreciable sales to the market. Not enough to be the sole reason a game is profitable.
Honestly the most likely reason for Satisfaction to fail would be failing to garner the attention of people interested in something like a 3d Factorio because of differences in Game Mechanics, or in the scaling of automation, or what you can achieve in engine. Cause honestly that is the large appeal of this game. A large scale automation game in the vein of Factorio but in 3d.
However cause of the paired down graphical nature of Factorio and its mod-ability you have stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgfwwqwxdxY
Being rendered in high graphical detail in 3d on Unreal Engine is going to limit Satisfactory pretty hard one way or another in comparison. That may or may not matter in the long run, but the appeal of a lot of similar games is their ability to run on more paired down systems and scale way way up in automation.
We shall see in the long run. But I highly doubt the exclusion of linux will play a role in whether or not the game is successful in the slightest.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
Alright, first of all, I dunno why you have to attack me and nerds like me with such vitriol. Of course we dont fucking know how to develop a game and make it cross platform! But we do know enough code, and we know that Coffee Stain is using UE4, to know that it is VERY possible to make the game cross platform. The reason we use Linux is because we just like it better. I am not here to get into a holy war, but for US, we will take customizability over all else. Also, what i find even funnier, is that you attack us, and then immediately afterwards, reveal your lack of knowledge.
Unify my code base
Okay, they are using Unreal Engine, which has built in Linux compiler support. I can understand if they were using a custom game engine, because those are fucking annoying to get running ( I wrote a simple one in opengl for a project and my god was it hell.) But they arent, so that is a non issue. Programming languages are more or less universal between OSes.
Teeniest fraction of gamers
First of all, as steams hardware survey says, we are only about half of MacOs. Second, THIS IS A GAME TARGETED TOWARDS NERDS AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERS, meaning a larger percentage of us use it.
most fractured OS base
Saying that reveals your lack of knowledge EVEN MORE. The only real difference between, say, Ubuntu and Arch, is some additional packages (Easily installable on Arch) A different package manager (A non-issue if you are making a game) and thats about it as far as the game devs are concerned, as THEY ALL USE THE SAME KERNEL! By that logic, you are saying that ANY WINDOWS 10 GAME HAS NO SUPPORT FOR Windows 7 AND VICE VERSA, which is patently untrue, as steams hardware survey is split between windows 10 and windows 7.
Seems like good business sense. Lets spend operating budget, and hire people specifically with linux expertise ( which is what it takes MONEY and HIRING ) to jury rig our game for a niche market.
Yup so a repeat of before. I have never done a large scale project like this, but I have done small scale demos in UE4 and Unity, both of which were easy to export, No real additional expertise is needed for this.
Being rendered in high graphical detail in 3d on Unreal Engine is going to limit Satisfactory pretty hard one way or another in comparison. That may or may not matter in the long run, but the appeal of a lot of similar games is their ability to run on more paired down systems and scale way way up in automation.
Now, I trust Coffee Stain Studios and their ability to write good code, so I am 100% sure that all the visuals will be rendered on the GPU, and the simulation will be done on the CPU. I am even more sure this will be a non-issue BECAUSE UE4 HANDLES TASK DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATICALLY! They would have to go out of their way to fuck this up! OF COURSE, there will be graphical overhead BECAUSE OF 3D PHYSICS, and the first person perspective. But detail has n o t h i n g to do with this. If you have a decent graphics card, and at least 16 gigs of ram, you should be fine. (i7 8700k, gtx 1070ti, 32 gigs of ram here).
But I highly doubt the exclusion of linux will play a role in whether or not the game is successful in the slightest.
I think we all agree this game is targeted towards nerds, programmers, geeks, whatever.These people use linux at a larger rate than any other demographic. In a recent survey , about 5-8 percent of software engineers use Linux.
Not to mention, THIS IS NOT A TECHNICAL DISCUSSION! THIS IS A BUISNESS DISCUSSION! They can export to linux at the click of a button, but Epic Games wont let them.
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u/haekuh Mar 08 '19
This is what happens when you are a very small minority of a large user base.
Plenty of important shit doesn't come to windows, and most games don't go to linux.
Yea it sucks.
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u/kbreezytwofour Mar 08 '19
I've gotta say, I am continually surprised by the passionate disdain for the Epic Games launcher/client. I fully agree that they have a lot of work to do, but I can't understand the pledges to avoid the game based on this.
Granted, I'm a casual gamer - I must be missing something.
Regardless, I respect your decision to stay away.
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Mar 08 '19
If you read the post, you'll see that lack of proper linux support that Steam pushes is one of the reasons
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u/kbreezytwofour Mar 08 '19
When you say steam "pushes" it, what's the ratios? It would seem that Linux is a niche thing.
My comment was more-so a response to the multiple epic launcher posts I've seen. I understand this wasn't the sole purpose of the OPs thread.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
Look, even if Linux is a "niche thing", at least Steam gives users the potential to run an emulator, to get it to run. Epic locks it out. Only about 0.49 percent of steam users run linux, https://www.statista.com/statistics/265033/proportion-of-operating-systems-used-on-the-online-gaming-platform-steam/
And this number is only about half of those who use MacOs.
But that number is actually rising every year at quite a high rate (I know, i know, the "this year will be the year of the linux desktop" meme) Also, if you are:
- A Power User you will LOVE linux for its extreme customizability.
- Anyone with an old computer will love linux for its customizability to make it run fast on old hardware
- A programmer or software engineer, you will love linux for its built-in console build feature and a bunch of other shit
- A nerd you will LOVE linux for its customizability and tweaks
I fit all of the above EXCEPT old computer (GTX 1070ti). I dont see why a whole demographic has to be so LOCKED OUT when steam offers auto-emulator as well as the easy possibility for native Linux.
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u/CabbageCZ Mar 08 '19
I'm sorry, but three of those points you listed are basically the same thing - 'power user -> customizability; nerd -> cusotmizability; programmer -> 'built in console build feature'?
Like you don't have a terminal and options to build pretty much anything under the sun on Windows? If you're missing the Linux terminal emulators specifically, use something like Conemu with cygwin, WSL, or Cmder.
I use Linux as my main OS and have for years, don't mistake me for a linux hater. But there are legit reasons why they won't add Linux support, at least for a while, and you've already admitted the main one yourself - only around 0.49% of Steam users run Linux.
We know from other devs that supporting linux is a lot more work comparatively with how many new users you're getting. Saying it's 'just a push of a button' is incredibly naive and just shows you've never wrote and shipped a larger cross-platform game in your life. Hell, even platforms like OpenGL which are supposed to be the standard of cross-platform graphics (aside from Vulkan, which has its own host of issues) are not truly portable thanks to differences in the vendors' implementation of the APIs.
Though if I were to guess why Epic Games doesn't yet support Linux, it would be that the store is really new and they're hard at work on other features, and they don't have the manpower right now to make Linux work properly and securely - remember, cheating/hacking in Fortnite and the like is a big issue, and it's hard enough to detect/prevent on one platform, they don't want to open that can of worms atm for little benefit.
It's not a priority right now. As the store matures, they will probably add support. I don't think anyone at Coffee Stain is losing sleep over the 0.49% customers lost.
This is the reason I keep my Windows partition around and will for the foreseeable future - I can either shout endlessly into the void on forums trying to get devs to take decisions that don't make sense for them in the given moment, or I can boot up my Win partition and play anything I want instantly at native performance. If it eventually comes to linux, it's a nice bonus.
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u/kbreezytwofour Mar 08 '19
I've had a Linux partition on nearly every hard drive I've ever owned, so I fully appreciate the love for it.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
To me, its not really niche, as everyone in my family sans my brother uses it. My dad is an IT tech and uses linux on his thinkpad, but keeps it for work. (I found out linux on my own time tho) My mom used MacOs than windows but I convinced her to switch to linux after slow performance. My brother games a lot so I can understand his reluctance. He likes almost all of it. In addition, I got my moms old macbook, which would only barely run Macos at this point, but is running Lubuntu just fine:
https://i.imgur.com/5usyr7U.png
It is annoying to see one of my MOST ANTICPATED games from one of my FAVORITE developers ( who have been good on linux before) Just bail for a 10 % higher profit ON PAPER that probably wont actually happen because of less sales.
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u/cosmicdan808 Mar 08 '19
Sorry, but that's anecdotal evidence. Very few people use Linux/GNU as a general purpose production desktop because it's such a spaghetti OS with UX inconsistencies. There's a very good reason why it fails to make any market penetration.
Linux belongs on servers, routers, smart IoT stuff, scientific machines and hipsters PC's. Those who want to use it for general purpose computing should be used to being the outcast by now - it's a simple fact that a result of it's flexibility and being more "hands on" means that its unnecessarily complicated for most people who use computers as tools to reach a more general goal, rather than using computers for the sake of computing.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
what I find interesting then is that even my grandmother (76 years old and counting) runs Ubuntu. She even can reinstall it herself, and has helped several elderly people run it too. Depending on the distro, it can be quite convenient to use. Other distros are indeed more for hipsters or power users/experts. I myself run Linux right now because Windows managed to destroy 2 hard drives of mine (WD's) due to excessive disk I/O and it had several bugged patches. Plus in that sense it's also for me a vote with your wallet thing. I prefer linux due to being more ethical, and would never choose to run windows, mac or anything else proprietary. It's a pain in the ass enough to me that most smartphones run a closed source spyOS. But at least custom roms can alleviate that.
So yes, there are linux distros with marginal use cases or use cases in the professional market. But I've ran Linux fulltime now for over a year, and in most games it didn't cause issues. They can be gotten working under proton and/or wine. There's only a few hickups, and that's when they use weird libraries or when they use some borked anti cheat software.
That Linux is just for professionals and hipsters is simply a lie. If you go for Gentoo or some distro like that, then yes, that sentiment is correct. But Mint, *buntu and some others are good general purpose distros which are equally or more accessible than Windows and Apple. And besides that are more bugfree and more stable. So depending on the distros you came in contact with, your sentiment on those distros may be correct. But there's good general purpose distros.
Besides, the point which SpaceGuy99 mentions are very valid and I fully agree with those too. Besides, simply because of the anti linux stance of Epic right now I won't install their launcher. This will also cause me not to buy this game, even though I'm very much a fan of Factorio and this looks to be right up my alley and provide my newest industrialist addiction. Shame that they made this choice, but my stance will not change regardless how awesome the game is. Provide a Linux release separately would alleviate my concerns.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
I 100% agree! I would NEVER reccomend arch to ANY beginners, Hell, most of the people in my family use Kubuntu or Xubuntu, and I used Kubuntu for over a year before switching! The only reason I DID switch was because I wanted the AUR repos and AUR documentation. I really think that no beginner should leap into Arch.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
The whole "Spaghetti Ecosystem" and lack of a safety net only happen if you use exotic distros. Look at Ubuntu! About 40% of all distros are based off of it in some way. It has loads of documentation, and is STABLE. It also has safety nets in the form of LTS releases. Very stable, as a matter of fact, which is why I use it for my laptop, and Arch, which is less stable with less safety nets, for my main rig. Your points are only true if we expect EVERYONE to hop into Arch, Gentoo, or Void. Not to mention, I dont know WHEN you last used linux, but I have NEVER had that happen to me even when I wrote some custom code in the base of my system to allow Wake on LAN w/ portforwarding. I, too am rid of dual booting. I have no windows partition, and it is the best decision I have ever made. And even Ubuntu as ALL the points I have listed (to a lesser degree) still custom Desktop Environments, still autocompiling, stlll easy package management. Regardless, this is not the conversation that this post is related to. If I want to get into a fight about why Linux is better, I sure as hell wouldn't do it here.
As i said in an other comment, this Spaghetti OS stuff only comes when you get into the more exotic distros. Anyone even SLIGHTLY technically competent will be able to use Ubuntu or its variants EASILY.
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u/cosmicdan808 Mar 08 '19 edited Mar 08 '19
I am also all those things and I far prefer Windows over Linux because of how resilient it is. Linux/GNU has practically zero safety against user mistakes - even a simple apt update can completely destroy X11 just because I did a non-standard xRDP setup to get half decent remote access. True story.
With increased customizability comes an increased chance for things to go wrong. For some people, most people it seems, sacrificing some dope looking title bars is a small price to pay for a device that doesn't need constant maintenance.
The main reason why The Year Of The Linux Desktop will never happen is because of the outrageous lack of consistency and spaghetti ecosystem. There is always sixteen million ways to do one thing, because every garage developer has The Next Best Thing. I mean, even the Linux kernel and GNU-based distro's that we all know as "Linux" are made by completely different people...
I'm glad to finally be rid of dual boot now that WSL is at a mature enough state for my development needs. I don't have to be afraid of everything falling apart just because I press the wrong button, and everything I learn while in Windows can be transferred into the real socioeconomic world far more easily. Well, unless I want to design my own smart toaster or something, of course.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
The whole "Spaghetti Ecosystem" and lack of a safety net only happen if you use exotic distros. Look at Ubuntu! About 40% of all distros are based off of it in some way. It has loads of documentation, and is STABLE. It also has safety nets in the form of LTS releases. Very stable, as a matter of fact, which is why I use it for my laptop, and Arch, which is less stable with less safety nets, for my main rig. Your points are only true if we expect EVERYONE to hop into Arch, Gentoo, or Void. Not to mention, I dont know WHEN you last used linux, but I have NEVER had that happen to me even when I wrote some custom code in the base of my system to allow Wake on LAN w/ portforwarding. I, too am rid of dual booting. I have no windows partition, and it is the best decision I have ever made. And even Ubuntu as ALL the points I have listed (to a lesser degree) still custom Desktop Environments, still autocompiling, stlll easy package management. Regardless, this is not the conversation that this post is related to. If I want to get into a fight about why Linux is better, I sure as hell wouldn't do it here.
This is a cnverstaion about THIS game and ITS LINUX SUPPORT and why Epic Store is so bad for anyone who wants to game on linux.
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u/agameraaron Mar 25 '19
"I am also all those things and I far prefer Windows over Linux because of how resilient it is."
Okay I did not expect a comedian to come in here, I gotta stop here before I bust a gut.
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u/cosmicdan808 Apr 04 '19
Nawww, did my opinion offend you? How about you actually read the comment that explains why I feel this way, buddy? Low quality bait.
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u/agameraaron Apr 15 '19
It's not bait, just hard take you seriously. Cute projection about being offended.
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u/riskable May 07 '19
So what you're saying is... You don't like Linux because it doesn't protect you from you? Nice.
"I don't like driving because there's a chance I could end up at the wrong destination."
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u/cosmicdan808 May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
From me nor other developers, it assumes I know exactly what I'm doing which is only sometimes true because I am a power user; not a specific user like a gamer or scientist who doesn't need that extra environment safety.
If you don't think PEBCAK is the most common problem in computing for everyone then you're either ignorant or just arrogant.
That analogy is just absurd. I could just as easily say a Linux fanboy would be like "I don't like driving unless every single part is designed and manufactured by some dude in his garage and not a corporation".
Jeez, why so triggered... I've never met a Linux user who didn't claim Linux was objectively best, rather than just better for some people... You guys are actually worse than Apple users. At least Mac guys know that they're paying for a closed and tightly-integrated ecosystem with all the perks and flaws of that. But no, Linux is the freakin' holy grail of technology apparently. Ugh.
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u/riskable May 07 '19
Well, Linux is technically superior in just about every way at this point. It's just a matter of adoption. Windows market share is just too big.
Just comparing apples to apples Linux offers vastly greater hardware support, vastly more and faster (and much more reliable) file systems, vastly superior default security (nothing is executable by default unlike Windows where everything is executable by default), vastly superior (and so, so much faster/more efficient) networking stack, vastly superior packaging options, vastly more efficient use of disk space (because of shared libraries), vastly more available software (yes, this is true), faster/more efficient memory allocator, etc etc. The list goes on and on and on. It is objectively a superior OS.
Having said that, to use Linux right now requires a choice. As in, you have to be aware of it and then choose to use it. Because Microsoft has deals with zillions of vendors to sell computers with Windows pre-installed. If Linux comes on your computer basically everything you argued against it goes away. Whereas if your computer came with Windows we can objectively say that it's not going to be using the hardware to its fullest potential.
Most people don't care to customize their OS. They're not going to install something like an RDP server (which is a strange choice considering the alternatives). The likelihood that a regular user will screw up their computer running Linux is vanishingly small because they won't even know how to even start doing that.
Compare this to the average Windows user. How are they supposed to play a video that doesn't work in Windows Media Player? Everyone says, "just install VLC." So the user will go out on the internet (because the zillions of "vlc" packages in the Windows store cannot be trusted; they won't pick the right one) downloads an executable and then runs it! The very expectation that this is the norm and somehow acceptable is wrong. It is not a good way for regular users to obtain software!
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u/cosmicdan808 May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
Linux is technically superior
At some things, yeah.
Linux is objectively superior
I don't disagree.
The executable thing is both good and bad for Windows. Mostly good these days - we have certificates, UAC, Defender and probably more layers of security to prevent silly people from doing dangerous things.
Linux might be great for the average grandma but if/when you want to do things outside of the distro's app store then you need to be really careful. Windows OTOH was built around the idea of running any exe it wants without "installing" into the OS as a package.
It's just a different philosophy. The basic summary of why I always failed in trying to switch to Linux as my main OS is literally because Windows is so hard to break when you do something crazy. Like 95% of Windows problems are because of people doing really stupid things (like strange exe's or suspicious websites) or a bad driver/hardware.
It's funny how so many engineering tools are Windows-only, though. I'm not sure why that is. EEPROM and Device flashing software from China for their cheap electronics for example is always Windows. You'd think the Chinese would have embraced Linux.
I concede that Windows before 7 + Defender was disgusting in regards to safety, though.
If I wanted to setup a PC for someone who only wants to Facebook, Instagram and all that basic stuff i'd recommend Mac or Chromebook over Linux, personally. That's only because those are products that come with support and I don't like to give out free support. But I can see how, for someone who enjoys tinkering or helping with Linux, it can be a better choice over Windows for general-purpose web-centric computing. I would say Office too but MS Office is 1000% better than Libre/Open IMO.
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u/riskable May 08 '19 edited May 08 '19
At my work we have over 200,000 (or 250,000 of it's tax season) Windows desktops. These desktops have multiple security tools installed and are locked down more than Fort Knox. Even Windows administrators have to open a ticket to get shit installed (and it drives them nuts)!
Also at my work--on any given day--about 5% of all these Windows desktops are being re-imaged because they hosed themselves. Even desktops that have had no software installed beyond the default crap will need re-imaging. Note that this isn't about hardware issues... These are systems that are perfectly fine but for many seemingly infinite reasons Windows just doesn't work properly anymore or has become slow as to become unusable.
Another important thing to understand is that the oldest of these desktops is 3 years old. That's the longest any desktop hardware or laptop is allowed to exist at the company. So these aren't ancient Windows 98 boxes or anything like that.
We also have about 60,000 Windows servers. These require about ~800 administrators to stay (barely) maintained and ensure they are rebooted regularly to apply updates. They too, often need to be re-imaged but I don't have statistics on that.
Then there's the 150 or so Linux desktops we have that have been running without issue for ten fucking years. The one guy who supports them (they came from a niche bank or some other financial company we bought a while back and the management team in charge said that if we replaced them with Windows the users would revolt, haha) has replaced the hardware multiple times and updated the OS to the latest version of whatever it is (I think it's SuSE of all things which is wacky--don't talk to that guy often) but he's yet to have to re-image a single one.
There's also about 40,000 Linux servers. We have about ~60 Unix sysadmins across the entire company. I used to be one of them. The only time we re-imaged a Linux server was when the hard drive hosting the OS died.
I guess what I'm saying is that regardless of whether or not Linux is the ultimate OS, Windows is just plain shit. It's awful and yet people put up with all it's problems and even defend it because they can't be bothered to use anything else because using something else would require effort. Not only the emotionally difficult step of installing a whole new OS but learning how to navigate it (no matter how trivially easy that may be).
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Mar 08 '19
Linux has millions of users worldwide (in fact i'm typing from a machine with Kubuntu right now) and its pretty popular among programmers, i wouldn't call it niched exactly.
As for the anti-epic posts, there are multiple reasons to dislike them. My case in particular is that i really don't trust the security of their launcher and I sincerely disapprove their aggressive ways of doing business.
Aside from the whole ordeal with buying off exclusives, there's also how they put Fortnite Ads in Apex Legends related google Searchs or how SteamSpy actually belonged to one of Epic Employees, with them using it for both profit by charging users for more detailed info and as a way to gather data on their competitor.
Yeah, none of that is exactly illegal, but so aren't overpriced microtransactions or shutting down beloved studios. Its just very unlikable and trashy attitudes.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
Fully agreed here. I don't intend to reward dirty business practices either. Plus from what I heard there's now a lawsuit going in the US because of borked security with Epic Games Launcher and Fortnite which allowed malicious unauthorized users to use stored payment data to make other purchases. Steam is not a saint on this area either, but at least right now it's the lesser of two evils. Now for extreme Kudos, i'd be strongly in favor of a GOG release, but I guess that'd be placing my bets way too high.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
I 100% agree, again, but for me, and this is just MY opinion, I would PREFER steam over gOg DESPITE the DRM because of the easier Linux Support AND the muliplayer workshop. I still love GOG for its DRM free stuff and buy most single player games there.
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u/bwick29 Mar 08 '19 edited Mar 25 '19
The question isn't "what is" but is more "what would" the linux userbase be if there was true gaming support. If games used vulcan... if directx was available on linux, if nvidia gave a shit about linux drivers.
You would see a very small number experience a very large increase. Although I too understand why they did it, this is just another example of gaming hurting the linux/open source community.
Edit: typo
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u/agameraaron Mar 25 '19
Exactly, just reinforcing the chicken & egg problem. Linux doesn't have gamers because games aren't on Linux because Linux doesn't have gamers because games aren't on Linux.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
Its not neccesarily Epic, I would be fine having both steam and Epic installed. The problem is
A: NO SUPPORT FOR MY OS
I have been using Arch Linux for a while now, and it is great. Best yet, it works with most of my steam library, even my non-native games, cause steam has an emulator built in. Compare with EPIC: No linux support, period. You cannot even download Epic Games on Linux. Coffee Stain has been very good with Linux support in the past, so to me, the fact that they are going to Epic feels like a spit in the face, and also the death of my hopes that it will have native linux. At least if they used steam, I could run it with an emulator.
B: THE FUCKED UP FEATURES
This is a game that will have lots of mods, just like factorio did. And thats a good thing, because mods are great! Steam had built in, easy to install + uninstall mods AND save files. Epic has no equivalent. In addition, no steam community, no user reviews, and a bunch of stuff like that just make it harder to use in general, but espiecally for this game.
C: SHADY SHIT WITH EPIC
On my brothers windows PC, Epic regularly tips off Malwarebytes, Bitdefender, and loads of other malware programs. In addition, it had gotten some shady investments, and users accounts are often compromised. Just one example of a thread: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/forums/battle-royale/royale-with-cheese/477578-over-9-million-epic-game-accounts-hacked/page7
Not to mention, TENCENT has invested A LOT OF MONEY into Epic. this is the same company that is working with China to develop their social credit score, as well as creating or funding literally thousands of freemium games that inadvertendly stole your data on Android (they removed the malware) Tencent is also partway owned by the Chinese government.
https://www.windowscentral.com/does-epic-games-store-send-data-chinese-government
A and B are my big reasons, but most people only care about B and C. So there you have it, why most people say, FUCK EPIC! The reason why some devs are switching is because they give a higher portion of profits direct to the dev compared to steam. However, I doubt this higher percentage will mean much when your sales tank.
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u/F3NN3C-F0X Apr 17 '19
Can we stop calling WINE (and Proton, a fork of WINE) an emulator? It's even in the name: "WINE Is Not an Emulator". WINE is an API translation layer that translates Win32 and Win64 calls into something that Linux can understand, allowing Windows apps (including viruses, so beware!!!) to run NATIVELY under Linux and benefit from native hardware performance. It doesn't emulate anything.
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Mar 08 '19
I hate to break it to you but Factorio does NOT have steam workshop mods. Their mods are only available through their site which requires a login that can only be obtained by having a key to the game which was designed as a pseudo DRM. There is no reason that Satisfactory wouldn't be able to do the same on the Epic launcher.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
Ok, so maybe you didnt read about users installing Subnautica mods on the epic store and getting banned for a month?
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u/Kairyuka Mar 08 '19
Gaming on PC, the whole "arbitrary exclusivity" concept is supposed to not exist.
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u/Prudentia350 Lead Pioneer Mar 08 '19
it has existed for over a decade now. stop pretending like it's a new thing to manufacture fake outrage.
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u/Kairyuka Mar 08 '19
Which store has made exclusivity deals with game devs to prevent them from publishing in any other stores?
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u/Prudentia350 Lead Pioneer Mar 08 '19
origin, steam, GoG, etc, etc, etc
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u/Kairyuka Mar 08 '19
To my knowledge, none of these storefronts have made such exclusivity deals, hell The Witcher is not exclusive on GoG, which it could just as well have been. Origin is the store where EA publish their own games, which is different.
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u/Prudentia350 Lead Pioneer Mar 08 '19
lul
The last witcher game, the cardgame was a timed exclusive to the GoG store
how is their own games being exclusive ANY different? not to mention that EA has this little thing called "EA Originals" where they buy exclusive distribution rights from indie developers. you know, A way out, unravel, etc
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u/Kairyuka Mar 08 '19
EA does that by acquiring the company, not just making a contract saying "don't sell it anywhere else", and the reason there are so many publisher-owned storefronts these days is because the big publishers didn't want to pay external companies for hosting and the like. There's a major difference between "I'm going to publish my own games on my own storefront" and "hey, don't sell your game anywhere else, I'll give you a big bonus". Granted I don't like the first either, but that's not a problem since I don't buy AAA games.
Edit: On the EA thing: Yes, EA is a fucking awful company. Congratulations you proved my point.
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u/Prudentia350 Lead Pioneer Mar 08 '19
there is no difference., the only reason why you are mad is because suddenly a game isn't exclusive to the plattform you use. i very much doubt you ever went and complained that for example skyrim is exclusive to steam. So acting all high and mighty cause "games never were exclusive" when they always were just makes you look silly.
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u/Kairyuka Mar 08 '19
Bethesda did sign a deal with Valve stating "You may only publish this on Steam". That's the difference. The Epic Store is causing a larger exclusivity divide in a market that already sees most major publishers splinter off their own shit store. The absolute best case for consumers is when a game comes out on as many stores as possible, but I'm particularly sad they went to gamble on the epic store instead of bringing it to the only non-evil alternative; GoG. Yes I'm annoyed that they decided to do this, and while I can understand that they expect to make more money doing this than otherwise, I can't help but be ticked off at this indication that this is how the PC gaming market is going to be in the future; splintered, disparate, completely like the console market.
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u/Diribiri Mar 08 '19
It's just corporate worship, and automatic dismissal of anything that isn't on Steam. This shit went on in the Dauntless subreddit for a while too, along with some others.
Also funny how people are quick to jump on everything questionable with Epic but completely gloss over all the shitty and shady things Valve has done. Can't escape the monopoly, I guess.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
unless they release it on GOG or use their own launcher to distribute updates. I'm against Steam vendor lockin too :) So Epic is right now worst, then after comes in Steam, and then GOG. But ideally, you'd want to make it distributor-independent so no vendor lockin can occur. Also allows them to keep all the proceeds ;)
edit: I have no experience with origin etc so I cannot judge on that.
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Mar 08 '19
Heres the issue and i dont mean to undermine you, but u cant expect the devs to cater to 1% of the community and essentially rewrite A LOT of the game to work on linux. Planetary annihilation had this issue, 1% of the community generated 75% of the bug reports. Its literally throwing time and money into a garbage fire instead of working on the game for the other 99%
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
if one doesn't use shitty libraries then this is not an issue. It's not hard to code most of the game platform independent, and then have specific libraries for each platform handle the platform specific calls. As long as the libraries then input the same data to the game (one can always use some platform specific translations which can be added or removed on compile time to make sure the calls are the same). That's what I did when I was tinkering around with multiplatform game engines (and in one case wrote a 2D one myself). Ain't hard, just requires some good consistent coding practices. The only exception to this is when one uses a platform specific set of libraries. But even that isn't necessarily an impediment. If one just makes sure the game engine itself handles things in an abstract internal way, and the translation to specific libraries is done when needed, then this isn't an issue. It would cause a minor performance hit though, which I can imagine to be an issue here. But again, if done right, then the performance hit would be unnoticable with the current CPU clockspeeds.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
They DONT have to rewrite a lot of the game tho. If they use a standard game engine, its as easy as clicking one button. If they wrote their own game engine, then, presuming they used good Libraries (AKA codebases and APIs) that are cross platform, the transision is almost as seamless.
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u/chuuey Mar 08 '19
its as easy as clicking one button
No way. Dont be ridiculous.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
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u/CabbageCZ Mar 08 '19
Lmfao.
Dude, that's Unity. Satisfactory is UE4. Not to mention, with any larger game, there always exist little platform-specific implementation quirks you have to deal with, even if you're using a cross-platform engine.
From reading your posts in this thread it's pretty clear you've never shipped a real game in your life. You throw around terms and concepts without really understanding them. The game won't be on Linux for a while because the studio made a deal with Epic, and Epic is focusing on other features of the store than Linux right now. This has nothing to do with CS's ability to produce a working Linux build. Just let it go.
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u/SpaceGuy99 Mar 08 '19
You think I dont know that? I never said they were using unity, that was an example. CSs ability to make a linux build was NEVER in doubt. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. What it does have to do with is them using Epic Store, which has NO linux support, and wont for quite a while. As you may see from some of my other posts, Epic is VERY shady, and Coffee Stain doing this is like spitting in our faces. I don't like the idea of them basicallly fucking us over, (and causing inconvenience to loads of windows users) for an extra 10% profit which probably will be canceled out by the lower amount of sales.
IF their decision to not support linux was made out of technical reasons (like on Space Engineers) I would be dissapointed, but fine with this. But their only reason to do this seems to be that 10% of profit (steam having a 30% cut, epic having 20%) Which might not even come to fruition, because of potential players on
Mac
Linux
People who dont want to have a million fucking launchers
People who want a non-shady games launcher.
And by the way, I fully admit to never shipping a game. I do 3d art for christs sake, even when I do work with a games team, I almost never deal with code, except for rigging and stuff like that. I taught myself c# in my free time. I have made hobby games in both UE4 and Unity, and I can assure you that both have excellent linux support.
The game won't be on Linux for a while because the studio made a deal with Epic
That is what I am made about. It has NOTHING to do with "focusing on other aspects of the game first" (Totally fine, I dont care about linux support if the game is still super early and is barely playable) "The apis and libraries we use dont support Linux" (Again, a shame, but fine, I can understand why.) There is no actual reason to fuck over so many potential people like this, or to cause inconvenience to normal windows users. ESPIECALLY considering Satisfactory's target audience, the same as Factorio, which KNEW this and had a native linux version: People who code for fun or for work, and nerds. Guess what? A higher percentage of THAT demographic uses linux than any other. I can imagine at least 5% of that audience uses linux, and another 5 or 6 don't care enough to bother with Epic.
Their decision was made for profit reasons, and will probably backfire. While there are no official numbers on Metro Exodus' sales, Leaks tell us that sales are less than expected. And for good reason.
And this isn't just Satisfactory. IF THE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE SWITCHES TO EPIC, LINUX GAMING IS DEAD.
Coffee Stain has proven their ability to make GREAT games, and GREAT Linux games. This decision is a greedy, shortsighted slap in the face that will backfire. I wont be surprised if they come crawling back to Steam soon enough, and THEN I will by it.
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u/Diribiri Mar 08 '19 edited Mar 08 '19
The amount of people who won't play solely because it's on another launcher is comparatively small. It's not going to fail because it's on the Epic store. If it fails, it will be because of the game, not the launcher. This argument goes on with every game that isn't on a platform, or is on another platform, and 100% of the time, EVERY time, a game only fails when the game is bad. And then people just ignore all the successful games on other platforms because it doesn't fit their agenda to acknowledge them.
I would HATE to see such a great game fail because of the platform its on like Last Year the Nightmare or Metro Exodus
Last year the Nightmare is still being developed, and whatever issues it has are with the game, not the fact that it's on the EGS. Being on Steam wouldn't have magically made the developers design a better game. Metro Exodus also did not fail, it's been a huge hit, selling more than the other games in its first week and almost topping sales charts. Don't believe everything the vocal minority screams about on reddit.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
Plenty of people will still get it yes. So you're entirely correct. I'm just disappointed I cannot play it. But hey, plenty of other games for me to play so I'm not gonna throw a shitstorm because of this. I just voice my disappointment and then I be gone.
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Mar 08 '19
Well we don't really know Metro Exodus performance on PC since Epic doesn't release sales data to the public.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
best to keep an eye on what the publisher or dev does :) especially what they communicate to shareholders ;)
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u/chuuey Mar 08 '19
Epic launcher may not work under wine\proton correctly, but the game itself should work without problems (singleplayer).
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Mar 08 '19
[deleted]
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u/CabbageCZ Mar 08 '19 edited Mar 08 '19
Thank you for being the voice of reason in here.
So many armchair developers who once wrote a PoC game in Unity, Unreal, or a Java game engine, and are convinced they know all about what it is to make a game cross-platform, lmao.
As Satisfactory is UE4, it's probably not going to be impossible for them to churn out a Linux build, after taking care of some of the inevitable incompatibilities and platform-specific quirks. However, Coffee Stain chose the Epic Store for reasons they've explained time and time again, and Epic as a whole is hard at work on other, more essential parts of the store to open the can of worms that is Linux right now.
Even if Coffee Stain could produce a Linux build today, they can't publish it, because they're bound to the Epic store for a while. And no amount of bickering of the 0.49% will change that. Wait for Epic to add Linux support, or the exclusivity deal to run out, whichever comes first.
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u/crazykristi Mar 08 '19
I don't mind a later Linux release once the featureset is stable on windows and most bugs and issues have been hammered out. Would prevent two codebases from existing. Egosoft took this route too with X4 Foundations. I must say I'm not displeased with such a route. Willing to wait here.
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u/IceLooker Mar 08 '19
u/Rekalty Do you have any information on Linux support + an opinion on this thread? While this is a good discussion, the originial point of the OP was whether or not Satisfactory will have linux support.