zlacker

>>Jerry2+(OP)
There will be a non-zero number of people who will have purchased those games precisely due to there being a linux client available for them.

Pulling support for a client of a competitive online game like Rocket League is fundamentally closing the game to those players - as they will be unable to compete online with other players (be it on PC or on the other platforms).

I really don't like Epic's change in behaviour here - It's quite disheartening since when they used to release first party Linux builds of their products ('Unreal Tournament 2004', and the recently cancelled upcoming 'Unreal Tournament' had Linux client releases), and they were one of the few big name game dev houses to actively support Linux clients.

>>Tsiklo+Xc
UE4 itself can build to Linux, so this move just baffles me. If anything, I thought Epic was going to push harder on Linux.

>>Mirior+Qg
Valve is pushing linux hard because they have to compete with microsoft, and although steam is much bigger than the windows store, windows store comes with the platform and linux has nothing comparable. Epic store does want to compete with steam, but they also care about the eastern market—hence the tencent investment—where internet cafes are much more popular than PCs; they can make deals with the internet cafe owners to make epic the installed store, and artificially capture market share that way.

>>earenn+NP
I don't see the link between interest in the Eastern market and not supporting Linux.

>>baud14+gA1
Windows penetration on those regardless of official licenses installed on machine? A good few years ago, MSFT came out saying they didn't care if over 80% of the machine were running unlicensed version of Windows as long as the market share in East Asia for Windows OS was so dominant that no-one would be familiar with anything else.

>>touris+wD1
Why would that matter, though? Even with better support, people gaming on Linux is still a tiny fraction worldwide, Asia is no different there.

I can only think of 2 possible reasons-- (1) the support costs are too high for the number of players (online competitive game, I'm sure there's quite a bit of dev time involved in securing the clients & preventing cheating that is Linux-specific) (2) Valve is supporting Linux, epic is busy feuding with valve, and this is similar to a petty toddler breaking their toy so they don't have to share.

Could be either, but I don't see how market penetration of windows in Asia could explain it