what’s fortnite’s anticheat like? my understanding is that a lot of games that would normally have no problem running on some flavor of linux or another but their anticheat software requires some ridiculous level of privilege that linux won’t (and shouldn’t) give it
Fortnite uses Easy Anti Cheat, which is made by Epic (that is, Fortnite’s own developer). EAC works fine on Linux; it just needs the developer to enable it.
It could be that, or they just really know their community. If the cost of getting it working on steam deck and maintaining it is not substantially less than the income brought from the platform It doesn’t make any sense to utilize the platform.
Exactly, Sweeney isn’t a complicated man, he’s just a greedy one. If choice a is less profitable than choice b, he’ll pick choice b. In this case, it’s Linux support vs other dev efforts, and the other dev efforts are apparently more profitable than Linux support.
And that’s my favorite quality about him, and it makes it really easy to avoid his products. It’s why I mostly play indies and use lemmy, I’m fine with lower production value if the quality of the overall experience is better.
That’s a side effect, not the goal. The goal is to make a ton of money on microtransactions, that’s why they have a revenue sharing licensing model, not a per seat model. They don’t lose much by being friendly to smaller devs, because they’re banking on raking in profits from the few that go viral.
I argue that until the recent change, Unity was the best engine for indie devs. You pay per seat and that’s it, you keep the rest. And you don’t pay until you make more than $100k, just like Unreal (Unreal is 5% after your first $1M). So if you earn $2M, you’ll pay $50k to Epic or $2k/seat for Unity (assuming pro plan). If you expect to make >$1M, Unity will probably be cheaper for smaller studios. If you want support, Unreal charges $1500/seat/year for the Enterprise option, and you still need to pay for royalties.
So here’s how I’d decide which to use:
Godot - most indie games
Unity - indie games with high revenue expectation (if it takes off), and studios with infrequent releases (you only pay if you’re making >$100k)
Unreal - big 3D games with latest tech, or indie studios with lots of smaller games with lower average revenue targets
Most studios don’t need the features of Unreal, so it’s an odd choice for your random indie studio.
My understanding is that it uses EAC and Battleye, but in an “either/or” arrangement. That is, both are installed but which one is activated when you boot the game is essentially random (or driven by some logic that is not readily apparent).
Battleye also claims to have native Linux support.
But even if it didn’t, it would be trivial to have a Linux version which only used (the Linux version of) EAC. Presumably Epic have enough faith in their own anticheat product to rely on it for their flagship game for a small minority of users.
what’s fortnite’s anticheat like? my understanding is that a lot of games that would normally have no problem running on some flavor of linux or another but their anticheat software requires some ridiculous level of privilege that linux won’t (and shouldn’t) give it
Fortnite uses Easy Anti Cheat, which is made by Epic (that is, Fortnite’s own developer). EAC works fine on Linux; it just needs the developer to enable it.
Note
Epic bought Easy and made the Linux version for it. It’s there because of them
The issues are likely development related not anti-cheat
It could be that, or they just really know their community. If the cost of getting it working on steam deck and maintaining it is not substantially less than the income brought from the platform It doesn’t make any sense to utilize the platform.
It’s the same thing basically, you could have unlimited devs if cost wasn’t an issue
But they have 9 platforms already that all have to work together and every feature has to work on before release so it’s a lot of work.
Like the last line says, they want the user base to be big enough for them to support it
Exactly, Sweeney isn’t a complicated man, he’s just a greedy one. If choice a is less profitable than choice b, he’ll pick choice b. In this case, it’s Linux support vs other dev efforts, and the other dev efforts are apparently more profitable than Linux support.
And that’s my favorite quality about him, and it makes it really easy to avoid his products. It’s why I mostly play indies and use lemmy, I’m fine with lower production value if the quality of the overall experience is better.
I wouldn’t call Epic greedy
They have one of the more indie friendly Engines
That’s a side effect, not the goal. The goal is to make a ton of money on microtransactions, that’s why they have a revenue sharing licensing model, not a per seat model. They don’t lose much by being friendly to smaller devs, because they’re banking on raking in profits from the few that go viral.
I argue that until the recent change, Unity was the best engine for indie devs. You pay per seat and that’s it, you keep the rest. And you don’t pay until you make more than $100k, just like Unreal (Unreal is 5% after your first $1M). So if you earn $2M, you’ll pay $50k to Epic or $2k/seat for Unity (assuming pro plan). If you expect to make >$1M, Unity will probably be cheaper for smaller studios. If you want support, Unreal charges $1500/seat/year for the Enterprise option, and you still need to pay for royalties.
So here’s how I’d decide which to use:
Most studios don’t need the features of Unreal, so it’s an odd choice for your random indie studio.
This is most people
Also gamemaker/construct/stencyl fit in the worse space
Excuse me? EAC is Exact Audio Copy. There can be no other.
Out of all the hills that are out there, this is the one you’re going for?
Interesting choice
Wooooosh
Wiiiiiiiiish
Whoa.
…What?
I thought it had a combination, eac and something else.
My understanding is that it uses EAC and Battleye, but in an “either/or” arrangement. That is, both are installed but which one is activated when you boot the game is essentially random (or driven by some logic that is not readily apparent).
Battleye also claims to have native Linux support.
But even if it didn’t, it would be trivial to have a Linux version which only used (the Linux version of) EAC. Presumably Epic have enough faith in their own anticheat product to rely on it for their flagship game for a small minority of users.