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PlayStation (Games) Linux Games

'Rocket League' To Drop Linux and Mac Support (steamcommunity.com) 100

Posted by EditorDavid from the burning-out-his-fuse-up-here-alone dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader Motor writes: Rocket League — a very popular multiplayer game — will no longer "be patched" for Linux and the Mac after March — say the publisher, Psyonix...

The publishers say it's motivated by the need to support unspecified "new technologies".

Thanks Psyonix.
The announcement says their final patch "will disable online functionality (such as in-game purchases) for players on macOS and Linux, but offline features including Local Matches, and splitscreen play will still be accessible."

"Players on Mac can try running Rocket League on Windows with Apple's Boot Camp tool," explains a support page, while adding in the next sentence that "Boot Camp is not something Psyonix officially supports." And if you play Rocket League on Linux, "you can try Steam's Proton app or Wine. These tools are not officially supported by Psyonix."

The support page also includes instructions on how to request a refund.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

'Rocket League' To Drop Linux and Mac Support More

'Rocket League' To Drop Linux and Mac Support

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  • .... came and went about 2003 or so. And no one noticed. Or gave a shit.

    • Yeah and now you are being monitored 24x7 by megacorporations by your computers. All because morons like you didnâ(TM)t give a shit.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Tough Love ( 215404 )

        now you are being monitored 24x7 by megacorporations by your computers. All because morons like you didn't give a shit.

        I don't give a shit about him being monitored and pissing away unrecoverable life hours waiting for Windows to reboot. I do give a shit that the year of Linux on the desktop came twenty years ago for me and I never looked back. The memory that I once loved Microsoft operating systems physically makes me shudder. What the fuck was I thinking.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AC-x ( 735297 )

          I had no idea anyone actually loved Windows, I thought everyone just begrudgingly tolerated it at most?

          • I said "Microsoft operating system", not "Windows" ;-)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AC-x ( 735297 )

              Ok, who ever loved the actual OS part of MS DOS? ... or do you count OS/2 as Microsoft?

              • I loved that you could do whatever you wanted with crappy MSDOS. For example, launch a real OS from it. I was stupid, there was actually nothing good about MSDOS compared to a real OS. Then Windows arrived and it went downhill from there. I finally ran away in disgust round about the time Microsoft started using RULEGIT as the tech support phone number, and I did have an urgent problem: I wiped the boot sector of my Dos/Windows disk. When I learned that Microsoft assumed I was a criminal I said goodbye Micr

                • It's usually the vices you have that bring you down to the bog, like the main subject of this article, videogames. I know there's other specialist software that's unavailable in the other OS options but that is penuts compared to what PC games are doing to tie in people to MS. Just like the main issue in this article.

                  • With Steam Proton, video gaming on Linux is a solved problem from where I sit. Even before it there were way more excellent games natively on Linux than I possibly have time to play, now nearly the whole Windows library is available. Sure, there are a few games with for example bizarre anti cheat systems that explicitly prevent Linux from running them, and I just don't care. Too many other great games that work fine. So... if games are still keeping somebody in Microsoft's torture chamber of their own free

                    • I get what your saying and I don't disagree. I'll fully admit that I'm a console gamer. The biggest reason I never got into PC gaming is because I've been a Linux user since 96 myself. These days, while I have the option to game on PC, I just don't want to. Id rather game in my recliner on my 60 inch TV and surround sound system. Which I know would be possible on a PC if I wanted also. Keep in mind though, that Rocket League was a native game. For which they are removing support going forward. Even

            • Xenix?

          • I had no idea anyone actually loved Windows, I thought everyone just begrudgingly tolerated it at most?

            Careful, the Microsoft police are out tonight and they have mod points.

          • Re: The Year of the Linux Desktop... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday January 27, 2020 @08:23AM (#59660042) Homepage Journal

            I _like_ a lot of things about windows. one of them is running 20 year old software when I want to.

            also all the politics and bullshit and all of that which came into linux on desktop around 2000. then advertising words became more important than facts. then personalities started ruling which got used and which not.. like the whole rise of ubuntu with basically just saying that it's easier to use than other distros (while having half the time broken some subsystem or another in 00's while debian didn't have a broken subsystem for whatever it was during the period - and yes I'm adamant that the way ubuntu made themselves "easier" than debian was just making branding and saying that they were easier).

            before 2000 linux had great hw support too. better than windows in fact.

            but anyhow, the main reason to use windows on desktop is to run windows programs and it does that amicably compared to all of the competition and their approach to running legacy software. which with linux of all things is usually just plain: "you don't want to do that"(to running legacy linux software on linux).

            I wouldn't recommend it for any server use. you need to be a bit daft or getting paid by someone a lot of money to say that..

            so the year of linux on desktop was probably around 1999. if you had a machine with a bit less ram it was the way to go back then - you had many advantages from running linux on the desktop and basically no drawbacks (also back then even properiaty software like flash, realplayer etc had real support on linux. hell 3dfx even had linux drivers).

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by kalpol ( 714519 )
              So I really don't agree with this. I've tried to move to Linux from Windows a few times over the years, and was stopped by various things, but these days you can install OpenSuse or Linux Mint and get a really nice usable desktop that a very large number of people can use with no difficulties. The desktops suffered in the past from gadgetry or non-MS Windows like behavior (KDE/Gnome respectively) but that has calmed down quite a lot and the default settings are nice. LibreOffice is nice and usable for the c
            • I've seen it mentioned a couple of times that Linux supposedly has problems running old software, but in my experience, userland is stable and solid. Could you give an example of an old program that doesn't run anymore?
              • Not the OP, but I can try to shed some light on it. In general, he is very much right that it can be hard to run old versions of software on Linux. The reason being is that when you try to install something from a repo in Linux it pulls in all of it's dependencies as well. Software (traditionally speaking) isn't self contained and intact. So if you try to install the current version of ProgramA, it'll pull in the current version of Library1, Library2, etc etc that it needs in order to run properly. Thi
                • Okay, makes sense. But then, that can only be the case for open source stuff, closed source stuff like some games I have is compiled to binary and as such complete by itself, it will hardly rely on shared system libraries. For open source stuff, why not take the current version? Granted, it may not be practical or even possible, like for something obsolete. But then, it can hardly be some important business package, can it? And, you can always install the old Linux version in a virtual machine, then run you
        • Perhaps you used MacOS? That made me appreciate Windows a lot more.
      • People still don't give a shit. You can scream at them about privacy and security, but morons still buy surveillance doorbells, home assistant wiretaps and internet connected lightbulbs.
    • No; most of us [with a fucking clue] just use it, with no need to talk about it (like an Camry, it's becoming more and more boring as it evolves towards perfection).

      Another reason it's not on your radar is because those with a clue have it locked down; your pathetic ass has no idea how many of us are running it... and we hardly mind it that way.

      *I myself run Linux on my desktop for the simple reason that I have ~30yrs experience with Windows and wouldn't dream of running it any other way than air-gapped; i

    • Still shit for everyone on Linux n Mac that play it and poof now can't. It's a game that you invest time and money into to get skill and cosmetics as far as I understand. I never played it.
    • Am I the only one who thinks that the flame war in every Linux thread is the reason why it never happened?
  • After all, Windows is about 87% of the market [netmarketshare.com] in the first place. MacOS already supports Windows via BootCamp, so you're looking at maybe 2% market share (Linux) for a lot of work. The return most likely isn't there.
    • And even on Linux, Wine works fine for a lot of games, and the graphics in Rocket League are not particularly advanced.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      It's much worse than that for gaming. Steam is probably a pretty good proxy for the whole gaming market and it's now 96.86% [steampowered.com] Windows, 2.47% Mac and 0.67% Linux. They went saber rattling a little bit when it looked like Windows might try to replace them with an app store, but now there's really no effort given to maintain an alternative.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Steam is probably a pretty good proxy for the whole gaming market

        PC gaming market, yes. Video gaming market in general, not necessarily. The overall market includes users who are equipped to play either the Linux edition of a particular game or the PlayStation 4 edition and purchase the latter because the former does not exist.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dkman ( 863999 )

        The problem here is that the Linux Steam client uses a fair amount of CPU, so I tend to keep it closed unless I'm running a Steam game.

        On Windows I would just leave it open all the time.

        But I have actively decided to not throw money at a game unless it has Linux support, because that's what I choose to use. I always hated having to boot over to Windows to play a game.

    • Don't be. Mac and Linux gaming has some big proponents, and not every publish is a some cash grabbing douche that only targets the single most popular platforms. I mean Epic just bought the game so the douchery is no surprise there, but there are other less douchey publishers.

      The return most likely isn't there.

      If you wrote your game properly it doesn't cost your 2% of your development costs to provide a Linux port.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        "If you wrote your game properly it doesn't cost your 2% of your development costs to provide a Linux port."

        And we have a winner.

        Sadly there are too few with the ability or resources to write any software properly - commercially-speaking, that is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ranbot ( 2648297 )

      After all, Windows is about 87% of the market [netmarketshare.com] in the first place. MacOS already supports Windows via BootCamp, so you're looking at maybe 2% market share (Linux) for a lot of work. The return most likely isn't there.

      In addition, many Linux users who are gamers will opt to dual-boot for gaming for obvious reasons. So, of the tiny percentage of Linux users not all are even fully committed to Linux.

  • Refunds? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by logicnazi ( 169418 ) <gerdesNO@SPAMinvariant.org> on Sunday January 26, 2020 @08:26PM (#59658778) Homepage

    If I'd bought the game I'd be making a stink to steam for a refund. It's one thing to not fix bugs but to disable existing functionality (either via patch or implicitly by requiring latest patched version for online play) seems to me to violate the implied purchase agreement.

  • Breaking news (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Tux Racer has dropped Windows support, striking a blow for Linux gamers everywhere.

  • Wine works well on macOS (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @08:40PM (#59658828)

    Codeweavers seems to have built a viable business based on paid-support-and-development of Wine enhancements to run various games and other commercial software (such as MS Office) for both Mac and Linux.

    Incidentally, Rocket League is offically rated "runs well" on Wine/Crossover. [codeweavers.com]

    • macOS Catalina (10.15) drops support for 32-bit user programs, including 32-bit Windows games and 64-bit Windows games with a 32-bit installer. This has caused some critics to nickname it "Catalina Wine Killer."

      • Re:Catalina Wine Killer (Score:5, Informative)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday January 26, 2020 @11:52PM (#59659290)

        Actually - it took several months, but CodeWeavers figured out how to get Wine to execute 32-bit Windows apps on Catalina.

        https://www.codeweavers.com/ab... [codeweavers.com]

        • Thatâ(TM)s very interesting!

          I wonder if that implies a way to develop an environment to run at least most 32 bit macOS Applications on a Catalina-equipped Mac?

          • I was wondering that myself! One of the reasons I've stayed on High Sierra for now is some old 32-bit applications (yeah, mostly games) which I still like to use occasionally. The developers (e.g. PopCap, Freeverse) are long gone, so it's not as if these things will ever get updated.

            What I found especially interesting about the blog post linked above was - it sounds like Apple gave them some guidance.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Yeah it's not like the ability to run 32bit code is totally gone, just the userland libraries for it have been removed... You can still run a hypervisor and install a 32bit os inside of it etc.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          Will the technique devised by CodeWeavers reach the Free version of Wine any time soon, or will it remain exclusive to the $60 per year proprietary version? I ask in order to inform my estimate of total cost of ownership of a Mac.

    • Yeah sounds like a good way to get banned for cheating due to overly aggressive anti cheat detection.

      We shouldn't need to rely on hacks simply because a cash hungry publisher wanted to milk another product to death.

  • Sounds like some anti cheat software that doesn't run properly outside of Windows.

    • Or more likely the market for linux/mac isn't there to waste the $ in working on it.

      • If you're wasting dollars then you have a bunch of crap programmers who write non-portable code.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hjf ( 703092 )

          Crap programmers costing 1/4 of "good" programmers, and still targeting 95% of your client base? Yes.

          Grow up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      Was Rocket League already a 64 bit Mac OS X application? If it wasn't, that might explain why they dropped Mac support. Mac OS X 10.15 or higher only work with 64 bit apps now.

      That pretty much wiped out most of the my Steam game collection for the Mac, since most of them were never updated.

    • Re:Is this because of some anti cheat software? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki&gmail,com> on Sunday January 26, 2020 @09:54PM (#59658978) Homepage

      No, it's being done because they were bought by Epic and in typical Epic fashion, they simply started flipping off people. A few months ago the support team started becoming aggressive with users over issues with the game always blaming the end-user, then stopped responding to gameplay, stability, and playability issues. Now there's little to no communication on various problems. Remember guys, Epic is the good guys vs Steam...

      Keep in mind too that this was after the following announcement:

      Today is a big day for us here at Psyonix because, just as the headline says, weâ(TM)re officially joining the Epic Games family.

      Your first question to news like this might be, "What does this mean for Rocket League and its community?" Weâ(TM)re happy to say that the answers are only positive. Rocket League always has been and always will be a community-driven game, and now that we have joined forces with Epic, we will be able to serve our community in even bigger and better ways!

      In the long-term, we expect to bring Rocket League to the Epic Games store and to leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldnâ(TM)t do on our own before. We believe that bringing Rocket League to new audiences with more support is a win for everybody.

      "What happens to the Psyonix team?"

      We are the same team that weâ(TM)ve always been, only now, we have the power and experience of Epic Games behind us!original link [rocketleague.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dadoo ( 899435 )

        Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you. I bought a game last year, which uses the Unreal Engine, and they just announced about a month ago, they were canceling their Linux and Mac ports.

    • Nope, it's because Epic games bought it, and they are a cash hungry group of shitbags who are only interested in milking the most profitable part of anything they touch.

      See:
      - Copying PUBG.
      - Lootboxes piled on Lootboxes.
      - Buying exclusives to make their incredibly pathetic game launcher that lacks even the most basic features popular.

      It stands to reason that they would buy something popular and then drop cut support for anything but the most profitable area.

  • before berating me, just understand that I'm speaking to the efforts the community has brought forth to fully support DirectX for example on Linux.

    Look no further than the progress Lutris has toward DX12 and bridging to vulkan...

    I say bring it, let game designers come to us, and let's just let it happen...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hjf ( 703092 )

      the efforts the community has brought

      bullshit.

      the "community" contributes very little, except for some patch or whatnot.

      "real" development is done by paid for employees, working for companies interested in linux support (Intel, AMD, and others that mostly contribute drivers), and by distros (RedHat, SUSE, etc).

      Few projects are 100% "free"

  • I switched my Steam install over to use Proton and all my stuff made the jump with me.

    Other than having a native binary, it is working fine so far. (Don't know if the new technology will break it though. Probably not.)

    Now, if I could only get rid of the error 71 disconnects during goal replays.

    IMarv

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sad_ ( 7868 )

      even though they recommend running it using proton they also mention in the same breath they will not support this.
      the thinking is some anti-cheat will be added, and most anti-cheats don't work in proton/wine either.

  • ... am happy. Let the gamers have Windows. I'd like a useful O/S and user interface to get work done. Without some little autists crying over how many machine cycles booting or a network capable display eat up.

  • It was probably one or two people doing all the non-Windows support. Testing and development.

    I could understand dropping MacOS when Vulkan support isn't there (and you don't want to play with MoltenVK). For Windows and Linux they both support one of the big "new technologies", Vulkan.

    For the demographic that spends a lot of money on games, you need to look no further than markets that have app stores. Mobile of course, but Windows as well with Steam, Microsoft, Epic, and EA being basically equivalent routes

    • Unlikely. If anything someone was probably let go. The day EPIC bought the game I said to everyone that Linux and Mac support (and I also said Switch support but that's not announced), will end and they will milk another cash cow until it dies.

      Epic is run by an evil accountant, the kind of person who thinks the only person who is important to any PC game is the publisher, and the players can go **** themselves.

      • quit, lay-off, and fired are all kind of hard to tell apart in the tech industry. I was laid off, without severance, by having some weak bologna excuse constructed as the reason for my termination, then adjusted to "terminated without cause". Me and 30 others (5% of staff) in the same 3 week period. Funny.

        Some people are fired for quitting. Some people are offered the option of resignation instead of being fired. I really don't have a lot of faith in HR departments giving a straight story these days.

        The day EPIC bought the game I said to everyone that Linux and Mac support (and I also said Switch support but that's not announced), will end and they will milk another cash cow until it dies.

        Good pr

  • First they came for the Linux gamers, and I did not speak outâ"
    Because I was not a Linux0r.

    Then they came for the MacOS gamers, and I did not speak outâ"
    Because I was not a cult memeber.

    Then they came for the console gamers, and I did not speak out-
    Because I was not a peasant.

    Then they came for Windows gamersâ"and there was no one left to speak for me.

  • I called it; **** Epic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday January 27, 2020 @01:53AM (#59659554)

    When Epic bought Psyonix this was only a matter of time. Epic is a company that cares only about milking cash cows and buying their way into profitability. They bribe developers, firstly with discounts if they use their engine, secondly with exclusive offers when major games are pre-ordering on Steam. They don't invest a dime in anything other than their engine, and are on the record saying that users and customers are irrelevant in the market.

    When they bought Psyonix it was hinted that the game would be withdrawn from Steam. At that point why keep a Linux client? It's not a supported platform for Epic's grand plan to force every user to use their shitshow of a launcher.

  • Well, Thats epic.

  • Bootcamp (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    "Players on Mac can try running Rocket League on Windows with Apple's Boot Camp tool,"

    Not really, no. I've done that in the past, don't do it anymore. Bootcamp requires you to reboot into Windows. Not only does that take time, interrupt your workflow and shuts down your running applications, it also means you need to maintain two OSes, with patches, config and troubleshooting, and get everything you need during gaming twice.

    Negative on that. I no longer buy games that don't run native on my Mac. There's enough choice out there.

    • FWIW WINE works on mac too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        Wine is a fine effort that is completely useless for gaming. Unless it's SimCity 2000 you're into.

        Ok, that's a bit much, but while I've given Wine, Parallels, VMWare etc. a try in the past, I never found that they really solve it.

    • Bootcamp requires you to reboot into Windows. Not only does that take time, interrupt your workflow and [...]

      Unless you're getting paid to play soccer with rocket powered cars, starting a game of Rocket League is going to to interrupt your workflow no matter what platform you are using it on.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        It'll interrupt your work, but you can pick it up again right where you left it. Of course, most of my work is a bit more complicated than a single Word window, so having all the stuff open and where it's needed takes a minute or two.

  • I mean how many companies want to expend resources to pander to a sub 1% of their user base?

    There just aren't enough players on those OSes to make continued development economically feasible.
  • Can they legally do this? This sounds like 'Bait and Switch' to me. People purchased this game on the advertisement of Linux support and the game had it. Then in the 11th hour, after many people have purchased and played this game, they are stopping support AND actively removing functionality. This has precedent too. Remember the PS3 Linux support?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rldp ( 6381096 )

      Yes they are absolultely legally required to provide new content to a free game on a shit platform nobody uses.

  • Red Hat, Canonoical and others have gone about marketing Linux the wrong way. The major target should have not been end users. End users do not want to install their own OS, many have no idea what an OS is, much less how to install one. You have to go after computer manufacturers and target marketing at them and get them to sign on. The only way to get linux on desktops is PRE-INSTALLS.

    What Red Hat should have done is organized a consortium of companies, including computer manufacturers, hardware device man

  • This is not the first time I've seen this moronic argument from a developer. Is Windows somehow free now?
    Or do they provide me with a license for installing this fecal matter legally?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      This is not the first time I've seen this moronic argument from a developer. Is Windows somehow free now? Or do they provide me with a license for installing this fecal matter legally?

      **Mac users**. They spend money on things, so its likely not a problem. ;-)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by antdah ( 1057288 )

        Well, true, the actual cost involved in a Windows license may not be the prohibiting factor.
        But I use Mac because I specifically despise Windows, and I don't want to spend all my time setting tinkering with BSD/GNU/SystemD just to get it working after the last update.

        So why in the name of all that is holy do they think that running Windows is something that we need to have pointed out to us as an option?
        They are idiots.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )
          I worked in the gaming industry back in the day. I've been part of these discussions. With respect to Linux the simple cold truth is that Linux gamers typically dual boot. Preferring Linux doesn't mean much when you will buy the Windows version of the game as your backup plan.

          There might be a little of that going on here. Mac gamers might prefer macOS but they typically dual boot because of the sheer volume of games that are Windows only. This is a little speculative, my game industry days were pre-Intel

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