Comment on Steam Survey for July 2025 shows Linux approaching 3%

simple@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• exu@feditown.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye work on Linux thanks to Valve’s efforts. Unfortunately many devs explicitly deny Linux or only allow the Steam Deck.

  areweanticheatyet.com

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• NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  To be clear:

  The anticheat software CAN work on Linux about as well as it does on Windows. Most of the more invasive syscalls don’t exist but said tools are also backing away from those on the Windows side as diminishing returns and fear of pulling a Crowdstrike. Alternative calls are used and most of the major anti-cheat solutions actually already do that and already support Wine/Proton in ways that most game devs never will.

  The issue is that the devs (so their publishers) actively disable support for that. They have EAC et al check if it is running in Proton and quit if it is. There are reasons for that (much smaller testing surface) but it is also hard to believe that companies like EA actively updating all their old Battlefields to block Proton isn’t intentional and political.

  Err, and then you have stuff like DBZ Xenoverse 2 which just will never have their EAC updated because it is more effort than adding a few new skins to go with the latest movie.

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  • ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    There are also rumors that Microsoft will remove third-party apps like antivirus apps and anticheats from Windows kernel. If that happens, it will pretty much solve the anticheat problem for Linux as well.

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    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yes. That is the aforementioned “pulling a Crowdstrike”

      But, as I said, stuff like EA actively going through basically every Battiefield since 3 and actively disabling Proton “support” indicates a political aspect to things. And there will still be the same testing surface issues that make live games hesitant to support “Valve and some company say this is fine” for games that make more money than many small nations.

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• somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Just avoid the games that use them. Games and the software they install should NEVER EVER run kernel-level. Also the games that use those ac’s are bad anyways.

  If you must play those games, passthrough your GPU and hide the fact that the VM is a VM.

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  • BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Just avoid the games that use them.

    Agreed. I have no desire to give EA root access to my system, full access to everything I do on it … just to play a game.

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    • somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Well…microsoft was allowing kernel-level apps (in general). Now they’re shooing every app from the kernel.

      Good: ACs won’t run as root anymore :D

      Bad: It includes AVs (anti-viruses) D:

      Of course, it’s rolling out slowly.

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  • chortle_tortle@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    passthrough your GPU and hide the fact that the VM is a VM.

    Careful with that, I’ve heard of folks getting banned because it can still look fishy.

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    • somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Idc if it looks fishy because i’m discouraging this anyways.

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• ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  There’s definitely some selection bias for me that made it easy to not even be interested in buying the types of games that won’t work on Linux, and that made my switch easier. I hope the solution that we eventually arrive at isn’t, “Here’s a custom kernel compatible with our anti-cheat,” but instead, “Here’s a way to play our game without kernel level anti-cheat.”

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  • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The only way to do that is to use Linux anyway, ditch Windows, and give them the middle finger until they make their game available. No amount of asking politely or screaming obnoxiously will make them care if people just continue using Windows because they feel like they “have to” play this game and keep paying them money, because all they care about is money. Only when they can clearly see their position is losing them money (3% is probably not clear enough for many of them but time will tell) are they going to change their behavior. There’s nothing else that motivates them more than seeing money slipping through their fingers.

    Depending on white knights like Valve and CDPR to ride to our rescue is good but they can’t do this on their own either, and in fact they’ve already done very close to as much as they reasonably can. They need our help, we consumers are the ones who are statistically not doing our part. We need to recognize that we have the bulk of the agency here and we need to start to use it.

    We have to choose what matters more to us, the future of playing video games on our own terms or letting the developer dictate how much we need to spend and what rights we need to give up to able to play a popular video game right now. We’re not talking about something we need to live. This is a choice we can make. Will enough people choose the future instead of immediate gratification? I don’t know, available evidence doesn’t paint a particularly reassuring picture, but I never am willing to give up on hope.

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    • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      A little dramatic, but yes, I’m already not playing those games.

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      • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Is “Stop Killing Games” also dramatic? Maybe we need to be dramatic to accomplish actual change. Thanks for the backhanded compliment though, I guess.

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    • overload@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I wonder what the percent market share is that desktop Linux needs in order to be enough for devs to a Linux-friendly anti-cheat

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• Nico_198X@europe.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  depends on the game. i play Dead by Daylight and Marvel Rivals just fine.

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