cheat dev here, kinda want to explain why this is happening on a tiny bit more technical level, basically: windows anticheats love checking signatures. digital signatures are great, because people who have them cant do anything bad. if their signature is spotted in a cheat then you just blacklist the signature, buying a new signature from microsoft can cost around 5 digits so not the most reusable thing. On linux we don't have signatures, since if you want to recompile your entire system from scratch, lfs or gentoo style, you can do that. EAC has a massive skill issue here because it cant actually differentiate cheats from, lets say, anti viruses. thats basically it, there is nothing inherently different about linux and windows (i mean wine is a good example). and no there were still plently of checks that EAC could've used but didnt, linux just isnt that big of a threat considering the player numbers. cheating on linux is still a minority of a minority. now if you want to hate me because i make cheats, go for it, but just remember that in the end im just giving you the message. also how do you manage to mistake a windows system for a linux one? do you launch the game in wsl or what?
@@sumandora Im a gamedev and I already saw the lost battle for the anticheats. All I hear now is Visual Cheats that dont even touch the RAM, and maybe even run on another machine. With image recognision betting cheaper to process... There are fucking undetectable cheats for consoles that wrap a controller or a assistive device... Wtf a client anticheat will do? Basically nothing...
@@arturpaivads you can encrypt memory. dma devices have horrible speeds. tencent has an anticheat that uses trap pages, which when loaded will expose your memory reads. neither of these tricks will require kernel mode
Didn't know you had to sign cheats on Windows ..? Could you maybe point me to some sources? I'm not really interested in making cheats, just wanna learn something new.
@@kvdrr yeah reading it again, i might have misinterpreted that, but i fail to see what any anticheat would do against that? is a kernel, server or whatever anticheat help here? faceit can bust down your door according to their tos, so i guess that works. not really sure what the point is because these methods work on windows just like on linux
@@Wkaelx If you spend money on micro transactions you're ruining gaming for everyone, you don't deserve to get refunded for the game or your micro transactions.
Please god no. Client side anti-cheat is cheap but a fool's errand. The future is server side cheat detection. Do not even try to do it client side. Get the f out of my computer!
You can't do it only server side and I say that as someone involved with a custom server side anticheat. It only catches things that are beyond a reasonable doubt, if people are hacking with very limited settings for a marginal improvement you have no idea which is bad for ranked stuff.
Tell me you know nothing about software without telling me you no nothing about software Why do you think it hasn't been done at this scale yet? It's just not feasible with our current technology. It's *doable* , sure, but there is a lot of compromise that would either be prohibitively costly or severely limit the gameplay experience.
already happened with genshin impact, their rootkit caused a bunch of people to get ransomware installed on their systems. No one really cared because genshin players deserve far worse, but it does show how dangerous this system is.
@@Todd_Coward Genshin impact runs on linux, I'm playing it with everything maxed with stable 60 fps. For those who wander how I'm playing it through Lutris.
I'm honestly begging for a moment like this to happen. I know that it's not gonna be pretty, and I'm already sorry for all my friends who use Windows, but the thing is, if it happens, people will start realizing that it can affect them too, and with a bit of (good?) luck that it can also affect their privacy. The backlash that would ensue would maybe, finally, push those companies to start exploring other less invasive methods, such as server-side detection. Or push Microsoft to do something about it and reduce or even ban kernel-level anti cheat.
This! A thousand times. As short as it is I never got around to finishing the BF1 campaign. I never cared about multiplayer. Yet they robbed me of the game I paid for (at sale price but still).
Kernel level anti cheat software should absolutely be illegal. It's insanely dangerous to have running on your system and it even causes stability issues when you're not playing the game. I genuinely believe companies have been able to get away with this because of the lack of knowledge from the average PC user. If more people understood the security/privacy implications of this invasive software, they would definitely feel uncomfortable giving it unlimited access to their systems.
@@TheBicPen yeah, kernel drivers that spy on your data are not in line with european GDPR. They are actually illegal in europe because they are stealing your personal information. As being closed source nobody can audit which data is being collected. So, yes... is illegal in europe to read your passwords and credit cards numbers. EDIT: remember that windows kernel and linux kernel are monolithics and every driver can access to every piece of RAM.
I think it's perfectly fine. Brodie said it's really really easy to get around user space anticheat. If you don't want kernel level anti-cheat, don't play those games, or play them on dedicated hardware.
Good old Anti cheat Out of 1000 players : 1 player cheat but 999 of the players need to have dangerous "protection" malwares on their machines And the cheaters bypass the "protection" anyway, only the innocent get punished. *same with DRM
TLDR; No crossplay between anticheat on, anticheat off. My advice to that tech companies: do matchmaking for non verified users and hackers. and split the user base between anticheat on and anticheat off. In that way, of course linux users would not enjoy the full experience but.. ... you can still play with friends or in lan multiplayer.
@@RogueRen Counter-Strike somewhat has this with its "trust factor". Afaik suspecting cheats (not proven) doesn't affect it but the opposite - playing legit and fair - seems to help to not find cheaters as often. I pretty rarely suspect anyone of cheating in my matches while others seem to regularly. I think trust factor plays a role there (yes, tbf I'm also not playing on a top level). Ofc as it is is not perfect because when starting out you'd need to gain trust factor first in matches against more cheaters to finally get less of them in your matches.
This isn't a sad state of anticheats on linux, but a sad state of anticheats as a whole. Kernel level anticheats aren't going to stop someone determined to cheat. We are far beyond ideas like custom EFI loaders or spoofing a 2nd mouse. At the same time any kernel level component is a liability; it takes a single bug in a kernel level component to either bring down the entire system or achieve elevated permissions. Exploiting an anticheat for infecting a system isn't even fiction, it already happened in the past (no clue what game was affected). Dropping linux support without providing the percentage of cheater who used linux to cheat infuriates me.
Kernel and client anti-cheats in general suffer from what I call the layer up effect. Essentially, even if an anti-cheat is flawless, a cheat that goes a layer up will still work. If a anti-cheat is running in user mode, a cheat running kernel level can still run. Once an anti-cheat goes kernel level, assuming it's flawless (They're not), a cheat can simply become hardware. Sure, as hardware, reading values of a game becomes difficult but not entirely impossible. Depending on how a game works, you could theoretically intercept packets and have aimbot by simulating mouse movements.
@@endermaster08 After I researched about visual cheats, I don't believe you even need to go at the hardware level or anything like that. Of course, visual cheats don't work for everything, but they are stupidly easy to make, can be run entirely on software and run 100% on userspace and are basically undetectable except for manual flagging. You can run them hardware assisted but that's not required and it's not expensive. That's how most cheaters are bypassing Vanguard for what I can tell.
@@endermaster08 I couldn't find the video I'd link here, but anticheats like Vanguard have been bypassed by recording a small portion of screen around the crosshair, processing the recording in real-time and sending adjustments back to a device pretending to be a mouse.
Microsoft will be forced into tightening kernel-level access. Whether it comes from internal decision-making or from external pressure from regulators (EU or FCC), it is coming. Once that decision is made, kernel-level anti-cheat will be abandoned in short order for server-side telemetry and monitoring. Server-side anti-cheat is almost certainly more effective, so that will be good for gamers. The reason it has not been implemented yet is because it costs publishers slightly more compute power to run and will require an upfront cost for development and implementation. Since game publishers are all massive publicly traded companies now, the shareholders would *never* sign off on paying extra for a service they’ve outsourced to consumers and their machines for decades. I don’t expect this willy nilly kernel access era on Windows to continue on much longer.
Microsoft was forced to open it by the eu over antivirus monopoly concerns. They will not tighten it lol. Caffeine was one of the companies asking for it.
I think Valve should do something, like refunding people who bought Apex on Linux or temporary remove the game from Steam until a better solution is found.
I think the best solution is to just let people host their own servers, so they can implement their own server-side anti-cheats or player tracking. Then small communities could form, where actual human admins would be employed and they would react to player reports. Something like Rust. They also use Easy Anti Cheat, yet the official servers are full of cheaters. However you can also just join unofficial servers, where real admins work and oversee the game. How is an Anticheat going to know that the Cheater is using ESP for example? And admin can detect it by seeing the cheater track people behind walls and rocks.
@@Pandacier expensive: yes, harder to make: depends, not as accurate: absolutely not true. Server side is much more accurate, because you cannot trust anything running on other people's machines, but you can trust things you run on your machine.
Easier to blanket ban than actually spend time understanding how to curb cheating. I'm only going point to Destiny being in a decline ever since they made decisions that also included not allowing linux users to play. Unhealthy decisions that lead to a stigma around it
@@KoopstaKlicca the OP and following comments are sarcastic. Nobody thinks this is good for anyone except the devs themselves who don't have to pay engineers to care about anything other than Windows. Almost all game dev happens on Windows in Windows shops because historically the game drivers have only been workable on that platform. Because of that there's few Linux enthusiasts in the game dev industry because the industry standard has been set and isn't changing quickly.
Kernel level ANYTHING is dangerous. Just look at the recent Cloudstrike fiasco. Faulty, conflicting, malicious, or even possibly missing required kernel modules can destroy an installed operating system.
Honestly, I don't like the "it's so small, there are bigger problems" approach. That's like me saying "the ganges river is a much bigger problem than my badly sorted trash, but let's not focus on my trash and rather, talk about the ganges river instead!". One of those things, my trash, is relatively easy to fix while the ganges is not. So if a game can knock out, say, 5% of cheaters by just "banning linux", that's a 10 minute implementation to fix 5% of cheating. I don't think "kernel anti cheat" is a good or elegant solution and personally, I'd much rather see other solutions - but trying to minimize the problem of linux cheaters by saying "well yea, they disproportionally cheat but they are also rather low in numbers so ..." is not the way to go.
Stop making client-side anticheat. Seriously. The idea that you trust the client is clearly not the case, yet you try to run the anticheat on their device? Industry is full of people that are never going to solve this because there is no incentive for them to.
I had 850+ hours in Apex and only 20 of those was on Windows. I switched to Linux as fast as I could when they announced Deck/Linux support. I was planning to stream everyday for about an hour cause I was playing so might as well stream and promote a little bit of Linux gaming on the side; was practicing so I at least looked good when I streamed. A couple of hours after the Respawn announcement I uninstalled and I don't think I'll ever touch Apex again. I'll stick to CS2/Deep Rock Galactic whatever nice game that runs on Linux, even though CS2 has a hyper competitive/toxic community.
I would rather have an honest statement like: "hey guys, we know you want to play your game, but we really don't want to put in extra effort to solve the problem, so we'll just ban you altogether." I'll take that over calling Linux users cheaters
It really does feel different when your favourite game you've been playing for so long suddenly blocks you because you use Linux. Even bad games are being played by Linux users.
@@sprinklednights Yeah the quality is a second order issue for games when it comes to linux. The fact is it's not good that some of the most popular multiplayer first person shooters and games in general are not available on linux.
Linux desktop is toxic by itself from it's nature for every developer let it be game or software and doomed to ever really taken seriously. It's really a platform that totally unappealing to any developer who looking at it economically let it be revenue source or effort that needs to adopted and optimized to many distro desktop env or any quirk and situation that comes from building with and around the kernel. Only the distro creators and the kernel owners are responsible to let it fester and fragment into 1000 pieces, yeah I picked a number because it's irrelevant the point does not change. It's a total mess. No standard, no defaults as far as Linux os goes that developer can lean on and account for. Only when the kernel owners will force distro owners that their half effort needs to be put into a centralized standardized os with clear defaults you will see attraction from developers and users who can take seriously Linux as desktop until then its just a server os. The numbers do not lie, Linux could not reach even 10 percent market share since its born that was more than 20 years ago... Let that sink in. All those that whine that their loved os have been abandoned must pull their head out of their butt and look at the picture as it is and look it at distain because you can't look it with any positive attitude the result and goals that have been achieved never was appealing by large they working against them self. If you want the industry to take you, you must be appealing to the industry.
If you're really interested, I have zero interest in multiplayer games. I'm kind of a "single task"-person: If I play I game or watch a movie, I don't want to get distracted. So I couldn't care less for anti cheat. that being said, for Linux as a whole, using it as a scapegoat because the devs and/or publishers are just lazy is something I can't support. Oh, and my favourite games of the past few months/years: Horizon Zero Dawn / Horizon Forbidden West / Hellblade II. And I'm anxiously awaiting Silk Song, completely different genre, but I've been a huge Hollow Knight fan for years.
The trouble with cheats is as long as there is a way to read the game process memory, there's practically nothing a game dev can do. The `mseal` syscall for Linux (and hopefully similar syscalls for Windows) does help prevent external processes to modify memory directly. At least if I understood it correctly. However, that doesn't help against overlays and aimbots that synthesize input events. So unless somebody invents something _really_ novel, there's ultimately nothing game devs can do to fix the root of the problem.
First: I am NOT a layer. Now, with this out of the way: It's different. They did support Linux (as they were handheld certified). THIS is why I think the lawsuit has merit: they removed a functionality that was sold with the game. Now, if they made a game that just happened to run on Proton, but wasn't certified to run on Linux, THEN the gamers wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Incidentally: Recently we had a game (don't remember which) that Sony removed from Steam. And they did refund the gamers that had already bought it. The argument was the same: it's a bait and switch. People bought an officially supported game (Steamdeck certified, remember?) and now it isn't supported anymore.
I doubt any lawsuit would succeed. When running the game you agreed to their EULA, which definitely would cover this situation and absolve them from any responsibility.
No, as apex isn't the one who makes it verified only steam does that. Valve is the one which states which stuff is supported even if it isn't what the Devs think. Verified does not mean that games will continue to work on it.
I don't know what people get out of cheating.....Also as I heard EA blocked BF 1 totally, that you csn't even play the single player campaing anymore.....
There is only one reason I'd install malware (Windows) on my own hardware ever again, and that would be if I absolutely cannot play certain games on Linux period anymore. That being said, you'd better believe I'd be kicking and screaming the whole way, making the devs suffer for their choice, and VLANing that Windows box away from the rest of my network with it ONLY being used for gaming and NOTHING else so it can't come near my personal data or the rest of my network with firewall restrictions as tight as I can physically make them to that thing. Thankfully, Apex doesn't effect me, but if it was something like SWTOR... well, I'd be in for a "fun" time doing the above.
Totally disagree WRT legal action, If you've paid for a game/skins/whatever for a game that has clearly stated that they support linux then said support is dropped IMHO (and stating IANAL) you should ethically (at the very least) be entitled to (at least a partial) refund, esp given the lack of notice. ON a side note, Cheating is a cultural problem that I cannot see a software solution to (all measures so far used even the ring 0 malware kits they call anticheat these days have been overcome) and the arms race will continue, but EVERY competitive game is full of cheaters, we need to fix the culture not the software.
Most problems are cultural or societal problems. I wish more people understood this so we didn't have so many short-sighted, knee-jerk, reactionary 'solutions' that don't actually solve the problem.
I dont want to install windows, all for some crappy game. I'm also not going to sacrifice privacy and security over some stupid developer's decision. Im staying on Linux and it feels better on my hardware than windows 10/11.
By the way Respawn is great with level design, weapon design, etc. But horrendously bad when it comes to competitive multiplayer tech. Their company blog is an absolute joke. I would say Respawn's company blog is top 3 most embarrassing company blogs I have seen in my whole life. I wouldn't take any technical advice from them.
"The openness of the Linux operating system" seems to be the fundamental issue with game companies more than any practical reason. Unfortunately client side anti-cheat is very likely going to get a whole lot worse when these kind of "easy" pr points have been achieved. Consoles already transitioned from blacklisting to whitelisting of controller devices and same kind of movement is to be expected on PC side near future as well. Device manufacturers would drool about the idea of "certified" keyboard, mice and displays which you would need in order to play the future games with client side anti-cheating.
Steam survey shows 2% of Steam users are Linux users. I guarantee it's lower on EA launcher, since it requires much more hoops than just using Steam. But let's assume the worst case scenario. So let me get this straight - a small percentage of 2% of their players is cheating... so they just instaban these 2%. Nice...
@@Leniwcowaty-xh5cj those numbers are misleading. I use Linux for nearly everything except multiplayer gaming due to anti cheat compatibility issues. I'm counted as a windows user even though I'm a staunch Linux enjoyer. Those numbers do not indicate the number of people that would choose to use Linux over Windows if given the choice. They've created a chicken and egg issue.
And it is only a small number of those 2%, so it might be less than 0.5% of their players, the 1.5% rest are normal users that just do not get to play anymore.
a small percentage of 2% is cheating in a game that they estimate has a 33% cheating rate. But yeah, it's those 2% that's the problem, I'm sure cheating has gone away now that they've banned linux.
At this point, I'm playing around with the idea of dual booting again. I have a spare throwaway SSD for Windows that I can use for that. However, I don't care enough about it just yet, and I can always just boot up my VM with GPU passthrough for that. I do need to consider re-configuring the partition on that SSD since I have a virtual disk for that.
It would be interesting to know, because the Apex makers have only listed the Linux machines, how many cheaters there are on the other OS's side. - Or should the figures be considered in general, i.e. for all OS's?
Games should have a single-player-only, offline mode... And we should be able to buy them on physical media and actually own them forever. When your server goes offline, I still want to continue playing your game.
One of the games I like to play is Factorio. Which not only works on Linux, the Linux version has at least one feature that isn't on the Windows version. It can fork to create an auto-save.
@@BrodieRobertson All solid choices, especially in Wilds & World. I'm a greatsworder, could never get used to the more delicate weapons. Happy hunting!
If they really believe that all cheaters are on Linux, why not make Linux only servers. This way Linux users will play against other Linux users, and Windows users will play against other Windows users. If what they are saying is true, then this would solve the cheating problem on Windows while still allowing Linux users to play the game.
@@nezu_cc Solution is simple, if you join as a group, then you join the lowest common denominator. One person is on Linux, entire group joins linux server.
My plan was to add an intel celeron sbc to my Linux box so I can run low performance demanding software and games that do not run directly on Linux. My plans are foiled, as until now I had no luck streaming the game to Linux. If I do get into the game, the mouse won’t work.
Its like like they are saying the people with no legs run the hardest, they just wanted a excuse to enable kernel level anti cheat and linux was in the way of that
On a very very personal level, I'm fine with ANC in competitive games not supporting Linux if the devs really think it's necessary since I don't play competitive games anyway. However, it's so annoying for me that many PvE or single player focused games are using aggressive ANC or simply banning players based on the OS.
@fairphoneuser9009 Yeah it is just that games like this are the only ones that I keep it for... I don't even enjoy these games that much. I mostly keep them for the social part with friends. Otherwise I could just use a vm...
@@roccociccone597 It is not the game itself, it is the friend group. Besides, I still use Linux, I dual boot (seperate drives/efi partitions) and love it. It just sucks that I was thinking on wiping the partition a second time (had done that before when I first tried linux). I hate that I have to keep some bullshit game so I can have something to play with my friends...
There's still sadly a lot of stupid stereotypes around Linux. I've been using it for around 10 years now. My teen sees all the stuff I do on it whether that's emails, browser, graphics design, occasional website coding, and gaming. Most of what I do is either using a browser or gaming. And yet when I offered to install Linux on his new PC, he at first declined saying, "I'm not a coder". Like dude, when have you ever seen me use my PC primarily for coding??? Even though he SAW it first hand, with his own eyeballs, he still fell prey to erroneous stereotypes.
14:15 Also not a lawyer but if people pursue a legal route, I wonder if it's possible that they broaden it to go after companies who go out of their way to exclude other platforms like Linux rather than just punishing ones who previously had support for Linux but later dropped it. Maybe there's some sort of anti-competition/monopoly type arguments to be made if other desktop operating systems aside from Windows are proactively prevented from running the game?
It's obviously just another attack vector at the kernel. Like DRM, the recent power-grab of US-government of maintainers, anti-cheat is just preparing the public opinion in favour of a hardware locked down Linux kernel. At least an locked down supervisor in the kernel or firmware for anti-cheat and 'law enforcement' purposes.
@@JanSoltan-wj1hs I have to disagree here. Maybe the local police station struggles to get access, but the three letter agencies have access to all necessary keys to sign drivers, UEFI code, microcode updates for your CPU, and virtually all of your network devices. SSL connections for example are decrypted massively.
@@reinhardscherer2860 Well, clearly they don't since they have to resort to things like Pegasus. If they really had the keys that would completely eliminate the point of paying millions of dollars for these exploits. Also, most of the examples you listed don't even apply to mobile phone OSes (UEFI, microcode and kernel drivers)
I mean, maybe studios should start developing more secure protocols and stuff for their games. A surprising amount of developers in general have very poor understanding of networking, and even fewer have a good understanding of security. These anticheat solutions themselves are a bandaid solution as it is, one that requires kernel level accesss to only somewhat mitigate the process of bad code or bad design...
Removing a support for a platform after players that were using that platform already made various purchase decisions of devices and games based on this platform and invested into the specific game time-wise and finantial-wise, and forcing them to buy and install another device/operating system just to be able to continue access and enjoy the game with their account which they already paid and invested heavily into, while their original device and OS is still in a perfectly working and generally supported state, is actually a problem. Also, not all users are tech-savvy enough to install another OS on their Steam Deck. Companies really has to stop with this kernel-level anti cheat nonsense, and start to implement server checks.
Saying game devs should migrate to server side anticheat is counter productive to growing the market share of Linux. Game devs have shown they would rather lose millions of potential players than take on the cost of validating player inputs server side. Right now that cost is outsourced to players with client anticheat which only hashes things like windows DLLs to make sure they are genuine
Computer gaming is single-player only for me. I feel a pressure to perform that I dislike in multi-player games. I don't know why the same doesn't apply to board gaming for me...
I've been watching my FPS games getting killed, one by one... I daily drive Arch, so really don't want to build another PC to play a handful of games. Gaming on Linux has nothing to do with hacking... it's just sooo dumb. Most hackers are on Windows, because most people are on Windows ¬_¬
@@AdamDaviesSussex Because it could very well be the case that linux users or people spoofing linux overrepresent cases for cheating. It doesn't necessarily follow just because most people are on windows, that hackers must be on windows at the same proportionate rate.
@@KoopstaKlicca People spoof controller aim assist and DMA, not a Linux distro. Linus != cheating. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. You must not code much, huh.
Nothing of value (to me) is lost. However, it sucks for the state of Linux gaming certainly because when you look outside the bubble you notice how many people really consider to stick with Windows for that very reason, even if they are brutally annoyed by Microsoft's actions. No, this isn't a Win11 bashing post but rather the cry for Valve and others to come up with something that can run inside an isolated environment that isn't invading a distro's kernel or other important files, while also verifying we are actual good guys. In the end, I still hope for Server Side Anticheat but that's rarely ever used.
They accepted DLC being commonplace, and now we have to pay a $20 subscription to use heated seats in cars. Gamers aren't discriminated against enough.
@@polinskitom2277 Subscriptions for heated seats proves it works on normies just as well as it does gamers, most people will simp for big corps without question though so it's hardly surprising.
Isn't Microsoft redesigning how applications access the Kernel so they don't have to run at kernel level? If that's the case we should give our thanks to CloudStrike. This should take a long time to happen, but when it does I think multiplayers games will be more available for Linux
I have a question. For the games that were initially supported on Linux then remove that support like in this case. If people have spent real money either to buy the game or in game purchases. Do they get their money refunded? and if not should the game companies be made to refund the players?. I do not know if Apex itself is paid or has in game purchases. Are there other games that have removed Linux support that this has happened?
One thing people do not realise is that support for windows itself is forced by the player base, Devs would rather if everyone was on a console so they do not have to deal with cheating and offload that responsibility to the platform.
Honestly, Kernel AC a lot of the times is used as a band aid rather than actual solutions. Plus it's also give a huge attack vector into players computer if something went wrong with the AC, case in point CoD AC and Genshin old AC. Other times it makes using your computer more annoying *cough cough Vanguard
The best solution to cheating in online PvP is distributing the dedicated server software. Let communities form around their own servers and police themselves on a case by case basis. Then games get to be fun again. Wouldn't that be nice?
What this shows is that all those Linux people clutching their pearls in outrage when game anti-cheat doesn't support Linux are full of it. There are no anti-cheat solutions on Linux that actually work, so not supporting Linux in multiplayer game is just common sense.
Companies are loving doing to that situation as a quick fix, but never a permanent fix, which will definitely bite them in the butt as windows gets overthrown by Linux when it comes to gaming.
Mostly play single player games now. Once in a while I'll delve into some fighting games online, but usually leave that to play in person with friends. The only other multiplayer games I tend to play are Monster Hunter (mostly solo), PoE (mostly solo), and FFXIV. Been moving away from FFXIV since the raids don't do much for me anymore, and I don't want to sink time into farming gear to do new Ultimates.
I don’t understand why people want to play AAA games in the first place they’re all repetitive. Nothing has changed in 15 years. They are still pretty much trash. Best part the back end will still run on Linux lol. I say support the developers that make single player games that do work on Linux. Even square has all of their games that don’t use the Internet support Linux. As for the EU thing, I think the best thing they could hope for which is an extreme long shot is that they get it so that them removing support is anti-competitive and not making for the platform is also anti-competitive. Putting them in a position where they don’t have a choice. But then again, this is an extreme longshot and extremely unlikely.
Usually anticheats on linux run at user level but if the anticheat devs care about linux they could create and maintain a DKMS module to make the anticheat run at kernel level.
If at least the publishers distinguished between multiplayer mode and singleplayer campaign. Having SP treated as collateral damage is infuriating. I never cared about multiplayer, yet I'm impacted by anticheats.
The future of gaming: 70 different kernel level anti-cheat programs running on your PC that are constantly checking every file and running processes for any cheat programs. I can't wait for the future.
FC 25 is a good example of how kernel anticheat is bad for the industry in general. You can't play singleplayer career mode on linux, the game just won't boot (ironically there are cheat trainers that get around this).
Gamer here. 99.9% of the time I play any game, it's singleplayer. On the rare occasion I actually do play multiplayer, I usually prefer to play with my friends in non-competitive games in which it can be just us. This is why this whole anti-cheat problem doesn't really affect me personally pretty much at all. I still think it sucks, though, because it does limit Linux adoption a fair bit, and also hurts Valve's credibility when it comes to pushing Linux for gaming. Nevermind my opinion on what anti-cheat software is like (I think kernel-level anti-cheat sucks just in general), but still.
What's most disturbing about this is the amount of cheaters, because cheating in a multiplayer video game is a form of active self delusion. It basically means you're trying very hard to pretend you're not a loser. To the point where that delusion has final say in your brain. That is a reality disconnect. I'm convinced that there's something seriously psychologically wrong with each and every person who cheats like this.
those using a linux based bypass will just switch to a windows based bypass. its simply a case that these companies dont want to do the work to secure linux like they do with windows. its not like windows based exploits are exactly rare or harder for those making cheats. besides most will be selling windows cheats because they are easier for end users to use.
cheat dev here, kinda want to explain why this is happening on a tiny bit more technical level, basically: windows anticheats love checking signatures. digital signatures are great, because people who have them cant do anything bad. if their signature is spotted in a cheat then you just blacklist the signature, buying a new signature from microsoft can cost around 5 digits so not the most reusable thing. On linux we don't have signatures, since if you want to recompile your entire system from scratch, lfs or gentoo style, you can do that. EAC has a massive skill issue here because it cant actually differentiate cheats from, lets say, anti viruses. thats basically it, there is nothing inherently different about linux and windows (i mean wine is a good example). and no there were still plently of checks that EAC could've used but didnt, linux just isnt that big of a threat considering the player numbers. cheating on linux is still a minority of a minority.
now if you want to hate me because i make cheats, go for it, but just remember that in the end im just giving you the message.
also how do you manage to mistake a windows system for a linux one? do you launch the game in wsl or what?
@@sumandora Im a gamedev and I already saw the lost battle for the anticheats. All I hear now is Visual Cheats that dont even touch the RAM, and maybe even run on another machine. With image recognision betting cheaper to process... There are fucking undetectable cheats for consoles that wrap a controller or a assistive device...
Wtf a client anticheat will do? Basically nothing...
@@arturpaivads you can encrypt memory. dma devices have horrible speeds. tencent has an anticheat that uses trap pages, which when loaded will expose your memory reads. neither of these tricks will require kernel mode
@@sumandora he's clearly talking about capturing raw screen data straight from gpu here, no need to touch memory at all, no R no W no X
Didn't know you had to sign cheats on Windows ..? Could you maybe point me to some sources? I'm not really interested in making cheats, just wanna learn something new.
@@kvdrr yeah reading it again, i might have misinterpreted that, but i fail to see what any anticheat would do against that? is a kernel, server or whatever anticheat help here? faceit can bust down your door according to their tos, so i guess that works. not really sure what the point is because these methods work on windows just like on linux
Steam just needs a policy that if any game adds or change anti cheat, they can be refunded and it'll help the situation significantly.
Yes, but the money spent in micro-transactions wouldn't be refunded, only the game price on Steam.
@@Wkaelx🤔
Apex is free, it does have microtransactions though
@@BrodieRobertsoni’ve tried 3 times to get a refund of GTA V on steam, failed all times
@@Wkaelx If you spend money on micro transactions you're ruining gaming for everyone, you don't deserve to get refunded for the game or your micro transactions.
Please god no. Client side anti-cheat is cheap but a fool's errand.
The future is server side cheat detection. Do not even try to do it client side. Get the f out of my computer!
Server side state of the game, and no cheats will work.
I am amazed that amazon is not pushing this
Amen
You can't do it only server side and I say that as someone involved with a custom server side anticheat.
It only catches things that are beyond a reasonable doubt, if people are hacking with very limited settings for a marginal improvement you have no idea which is bad for ranked stuff.
@@Henk717 sure, but a kernel level spyware is also not a good fix :D
Tell me you know nothing about software without telling me you no nothing about software
Why do you think it hasn't been done at this scale yet? It's just not feasible with our current technology. It's *doable* , sure, but there is a lot of compromise that would either be prohibitively costly or severely limit the gameplay experience.
Wondering when kernel level anti-cheat gets its Crowdstrike moment.
Nothing will happen like Crowdstrike, company still in business and people still using it's software. Wake up man.
I want to see the wannacry moment. Crowdstrike was just a temporary setback.
already happened with genshin impact, their rootkit caused a bunch of people to get ransomware installed on their systems. No one really cared because genshin players deserve far worse, but it does show how dangerous this system is.
@@Todd_Coward Genshin impact runs on linux, I'm playing it with everything maxed with stable 60 fps.
For those who wander how I'm playing it through Lutris.
I'm honestly begging for a moment like this to happen. I know that it's not gonna be pretty, and I'm already sorry for all my friends who use Windows, but the thing is, if it happens, people will start realizing that it can affect them too, and with a bit of (good?) luck that it can also affect their privacy. The backlash that would ensue would maybe, finally, push those companies to start exploring other less invasive methods, such as server-side detection. Or push Microsoft to do something about it and reduce or even ban kernel-level anti cheat.
I got angry as EA blocked Battlefield singleplayer, thats the real message.
This! A thousand times.
As short as it is I never got around to finishing the BF1 campaign. I never cared about multiplayer. Yet they robbed me of the game I paid for (at sale price but still).
I Play Thru Wine...non Steam BS
Kernel level anti cheat software should absolutely be illegal. It's insanely dangerous to have running on your system and it even causes stability issues when you're not playing the game. I genuinely believe companies have been able to get away with this because of the lack of knowledge from the average PC user. If more people understood the security/privacy implications of this invasive software, they would definitely feel uncomfortable giving it unlimited access to their systems.
@@TheBicPen anti cheat software is not free though...what principles would apply to it?
@@roborob347 I mean... Put it in Linux kernel, I don't mind at all. It's yet another gpl code on my PC.
@@TheBicPen yeah, kernel drivers that spy on your data are not in line with european GDPR.
They are actually illegal in europe because they are stealing your personal information.
As being closed source nobody can audit which data is being collected.
So, yes... is illegal in europe to read your passwords and credit cards numbers.
EDIT: remember that windows kernel and linux kernel are monolithics and every driver can access to every piece of RAM.
@@roborob347 the only thing is awareness i belive. Maybe people will avoid it. Thankfully valve are adding the mark for the anti-cheat thing
I think it's perfectly fine. Brodie said it's really really easy to get around user space anticheat. If you don't want kernel level anti-cheat, don't play those games, or play them on dedicated hardware.
Good old Anti cheat
Out of 1000 players : 1 player cheat but 999 of the players need to have dangerous "protection" malwares on their machines
And the cheaters bypass the "protection" anyway, only the innocent get punished.
*same with DRM
TLDR; No crossplay between anticheat on, anticheat off.
My advice to that tech companies:
do matchmaking for non verified users and hackers.
and split the user base between anticheat on and anticheat off.
In that way, of course linux users would not enjoy the full experience but..
... you can still play with friends or in lan multiplayer.
Like what FaceIT does.
@@Wkaelx This is a 100% fair compromise
I've heard a similar idea before as don't go and ban the cheaters just flag them for a cheaters only lobby
@@BrodieRobertsonI like this idea much more. Also don't tell the user they're flagged, make it a hidden flag so they aren't aware of it
@@RogueRen Counter-Strike somewhat has this with its "trust factor". Afaik suspecting cheats (not proven) doesn't affect it but the opposite - playing legit and fair - seems to help to not find cheaters as often. I pretty rarely suspect anyone of cheating in my matches while others seem to regularly. I think trust factor plays a role there (yes, tbf I'm also not playing on a top level).
Ofc as it is is not perfect because when starting out you'd need to gain trust factor first in matches against more cheaters to finally get less of them in your matches.
This isn't a sad state of anticheats on linux, but a sad state of anticheats as a whole. Kernel level anticheats aren't going to stop someone determined to cheat. We are far beyond ideas like custom EFI loaders or spoofing a 2nd mouse. At the same time any kernel level component is a liability; it takes a single bug in a kernel level component to either bring down the entire system or achieve elevated permissions. Exploiting an anticheat for infecting a system isn't even fiction, it already happened in the past (no clue what game was affected). Dropping linux support without providing the percentage of cheater who used linux to cheat infuriates me.
Kernel and client anti-cheats in general suffer from what I call the layer up effect. Essentially, even if an anti-cheat is flawless, a cheat that goes a layer up will still work. If a anti-cheat is running in user mode, a cheat running kernel level can still run. Once an anti-cheat goes kernel level, assuming it's flawless (They're not), a cheat can simply become hardware. Sure, as hardware, reading values of a game becomes difficult but not entirely impossible. Depending on how a game works, you could theoretically intercept packets and have aimbot by simulating mouse movements.
@@endermaster08 After I researched about visual cheats, I don't believe you even need to go at the hardware level or anything like that.
Of course, visual cheats don't work for everything, but they are stupidly easy to make, can be run entirely on software and run 100% on userspace and are basically undetectable except for manual flagging. You can run them hardware assisted but that's not required and it's not expensive.
That's how most cheaters are bypassing Vanguard for what I can tell.
@@endermaster08 I couldn't find the video I'd link here, but anticheats like Vanguard have been bypassed by recording a small portion of screen around the crosshair, processing the recording in real-time and sending adjustments back to a device pretending to be a mouse.
I Not Infuriates,i Suggest a 100% FOSS paid Gaming Platform...pay the devs
linux just makes a good scapegoat for cheating issues i guess :/
apex should remove windows support from their game since, statistically, they make up the majority of their cheating population now.
yeap. Because how dare you actually be knowledgable about what your PC does.
the 4chan/kf stigma, spooky hacker deepweb os for criminals
How long until EAAC has an even dumber exploit than Activision's seeing "nice aimbot bro" and banning the player who received a DM with that string
That shit was fucking funny :D Not for the banned player but how stupid it was of Activision
I know what to send to the game staff and esports pros. That would be some fun news articles.
Microsoft will be forced into tightening kernel-level access. Whether it comes from internal decision-making or from external pressure from regulators (EU or FCC), it is coming.
Once that decision is made, kernel-level anti-cheat will be abandoned in short order for server-side telemetry and monitoring. Server-side anti-cheat is almost certainly more effective, so that will be good for gamers.
The reason it has not been implemented yet is because it costs publishers slightly more compute power to run and will require an upfront cost for development and implementation. Since game publishers are all massive publicly traded companies now, the shareholders would *never* sign off on paying extra for a service they’ve outsourced to consumers and their machines for decades.
I don’t expect this willy nilly kernel access era on Windows to continue on much longer.
Microsoft was forced to open it by the eu over antivirus monopoly concerns. They will not tighten it lol. Caffeine was one of the companies asking for it.
Microsoft build viruses and Malware
Couldn't agree more. Most game companies suck.
I'm glad I don't really play multi-player games.
I think Valve should do something, like refunding people who bought Apex on Linux or temporary remove the game from Steam until a better solution is found.
I think the best solution is to just let people host their own servers, so they can implement their own server-side anti-cheats or player tracking.
Then small communities could form, where actual human admins would be employed and they would react to player reports.
Something like Rust. They also use Easy Anti Cheat, yet the official servers are full of cheaters. However you can also just join unofficial servers, where real admins work and oversee the game.
How is an Anticheat going to know that the Cheater is using ESP for example? And admin can detect it by seeing the cheater track people behind walls and rocks.
agreeed and i have an idea make it decentralized and conncted
Why are they trusting the client in the first place?
Why not use server-side anti cheat?
Server-side is more expensive to run, harder to make, and not as accurate
@@Pandacier the client can lie, the server cannot
server-side only catches things that are beyond a reasonable doubt
@@Pandacier expensive: yes, harder to make: depends, not as accurate: absolutely not true.
Server side is much more accurate, because you cannot trust anything running on other people's machines, but you can trust things you run on your machine.
Somme cheats like wall hacks are almost undetectable on the server beside behavioral analysis which are really unreliable
Easier to blanket ban than actually spend time understanding how to curb cheating. I'm only going point to Destiny being in a decline ever since they made decisions that also included not allowing linux users to play. Unhealthy decisions that lead to a stigma around it
"Microsoft told us to ban linux because their market share dipped slightly"-apex
Is this a surprise given that EA earned The Golden Poo Award two years in a row?
So windows players get another rootkit similar to Vanguard? I am happy to hear it 😂
"So linux players lose another game? I am happy to hear it"
@@KoopstaKliccaL game don't play
@@darukutsu If you think this is anything positive for linux gaming or the desktop community, you lost the plot
@@KoopstaKlicca the OP and following comments are sarcastic. Nobody thinks this is good for anyone except the devs themselves who don't have to pay engineers to care about anything other than Windows.
Almost all game dev happens on Windows in Windows shops because historically the game drivers have only been workable on that platform. Because of that there's few Linux enthusiasts in the game dev industry because the industry standard has been set and isn't changing quickly.
@@KoopstaKlicca stop coping start protesting then
having your access in the hands of a big games studio is scary.
Kernel level ANYTHING is dangerous. Just look at the recent Cloudstrike fiasco. Faulty, conflicting, malicious, or even possibly missing required kernel modules can destroy an installed operating system.
Honestly, I don't like the "it's so small, there are bigger problems" approach.
That's like me saying "the ganges river is a much bigger problem than my badly sorted trash, but let's not focus on my trash and rather, talk about the ganges river instead!". One of those things, my trash, is relatively easy to fix while the ganges is not. So if a game can knock out, say, 5% of cheaters by just "banning linux", that's a 10 minute implementation to fix 5% of cheating. I don't think "kernel anti cheat" is a good or elegant solution and personally, I'd much rather see other solutions - but trying to minimize the problem of linux cheaters by saying "well yea, they disproportionally cheat but they are also rather low in numbers so ..." is not the way to go.
Stop making client-side anticheat. Seriously. The idea that you trust the client is clearly not the case, yet you try to run the anticheat on their device? Industry is full of people that are never going to solve this because there is no incentive for them to.
why would they stop making client side anti cheat? then they cant farm your data anymore.
@@turtlefrog369Telemetry doesn’t require a kernel module.
@@xanderplayz3446 it does if you want telemetry at ring 0.
I had 850+ hours in Apex and only 20 of those was on Windows. I switched to Linux as fast as I could when they announced Deck/Linux support. I was planning to stream everyday for about an hour cause I was playing so might as well stream and promote a little bit of Linux gaming on the side; was practicing so I at least looked good when I streamed. A couple of hours after the Respawn announcement I uninstalled and I don't think I'll ever touch Apex again.
I'll stick to CS2/Deep Rock Galactic whatever nice game that runs on Linux, even though CS2 has a hyper competitive/toxic community.
Rock and stone forever!
@Gadtkaz rock and stone miner!
I would rather have an honest statement like: "hey guys, we know you want to play your game, but we really don't want to put in extra effort to solve the problem, so we'll just ban you altogether." I'll take that over calling Linux users cheaters
Everyone who says "Who cares" or "Apex Legends is bad" are missing the plot, and it's toxic to the linux desktop space
It really does feel different when your favourite game you've been playing for so long suddenly blocks you because you use Linux. Even bad games are being played by Linux users.
@@sprinklednights Yeah the quality is a second order issue for games when it comes to linux. The fact is it's not good that some of the most popular multiplayer first person shooters and games in general are not available on linux.
Linux desktop is toxic by itself from it's nature for every developer let it be game or software and doomed to ever really taken seriously. It's really a platform that totally unappealing to any developer who looking at it economically let it be revenue source or effort that needs to adopted and optimized to many distro desktop env or any quirk and situation that comes from building with and around the kernel. Only the distro creators and the kernel owners are responsible to let it fester and fragment into 1000 pieces, yeah I picked a number because it's irrelevant the point does not change. It's a total mess. No standard, no defaults as far as Linux os goes that developer can lean on and account for. Only when the kernel owners will force distro owners that their half effort needs to be put into a centralized standardized os with clear defaults you will see attraction from developers and users who can take seriously Linux as desktop until then its just a server os. The numbers do not lie, Linux could not reach even 10 percent market share since its born that was more than 20 years ago... Let that sink in. All those that whine that their loved os have been abandoned must pull their head out of their butt and look at the picture as it is and look it at distain because you can't look it with any positive attitude the result and goals that have been achieved never was appealing by large they working against them self. If you want the industry to take you, you must be appealing to the industry.
@@Krushx0 i ain't reading allat because it's going to be a rant and non-solutions. good luck or sorry that happened bro
@@Krushx0bro forgot to apply his "appealing to users" ideology to his own comment
If you're really interested, I have zero interest in multiplayer games. I'm kind of a "single task"-person: If I play I game or watch a movie, I don't want to get distracted. So I couldn't care less for anti cheat. that being said, for Linux as a whole, using it as a scapegoat because the devs and/or publishers are just lazy is something I can't support.
Oh, and my favourite games of the past few months/years: Horizon Zero Dawn / Horizon Forbidden West / Hellblade II. And I'm anxiously awaiting Silk Song, completely different genre, but I've been a huge Hollow Knight fan for years.
The trouble with cheats is as long as there is a way to read the game process memory, there's practically nothing a game dev can do. The `mseal` syscall for Linux (and hopefully similar syscalls for Windows) does help prevent external processes to modify memory directly. At least if I understood it correctly. However, that doesn't help against overlays and aimbots that synthesize input events. So unless somebody invents something _really_ novel, there's ultimately nothing game devs can do to fix the root of the problem.
@@disieh Who told you that a cheat needs to read and modify the memory?Thats the real problem that made kernel level AC loose.
First: I am NOT a layer. Now, with this out of the way:
It's different. They did support Linux (as they were handheld certified). THIS is why I think the lawsuit has merit: they removed a functionality that was sold with the game. Now, if they made a game that just happened to run on Proton, but wasn't certified to run on Linux, THEN the gamers wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Incidentally: Recently we had a game (don't remember which) that Sony removed from Steam. And they did refund the gamers that had already bought it. The argument was the same: it's a bait and switch. People bought an officially supported game (Steamdeck certified, remember?) and now it isn't supported anymore.
I doubt any lawsuit would succeed. When running the game you agreed to their EULA, which definitely would cover this situation and absolve them from any responsibility.
I am not a layer either
No, as apex isn't the one who makes it verified only steam does that. Valve is the one which states which stuff is supported even if it isn't what the Devs think. Verified does not mean that games will continue to work on it.
I don't know what people get out of cheating.....Also as I heard EA blocked BF 1 totally, that you csn't even play the single player campaing anymore.....
There is only one reason I'd install malware (Windows) on my own hardware ever again, and that would be if I absolutely cannot play certain games on Linux period anymore. That being said, you'd better believe I'd be kicking and screaming the whole way, making the devs suffer for their choice, and VLANing that Windows box away from the rest of my network with it ONLY being used for gaming and NOTHING else so it can't come near my personal data or the rest of my network with firewall restrictions as tight as I can physically make them to that thing. Thankfully, Apex doesn't effect me, but if it was something like SWTOR... well, I'd be in for a "fun" time doing the above.
swtor in 2024? i'm sorry.
Totally disagree WRT legal action, If you've paid for a game/skins/whatever for a game that has clearly stated that they support linux then said support is dropped IMHO (and stating IANAL) you should ethically (at the very least) be entitled to (at least a partial) refund, esp given the lack of notice.
ON a side note, Cheating is a cultural problem that I cannot see a software solution to (all measures so far used even the ring 0 malware kits they call anticheat these days have been overcome) and the arms race will continue, but EVERY competitive game is full of cheaters, we need to fix the culture not the software.
Most problems are cultural or societal problems. I wish more people understood this so we didn't have so many short-sighted, knee-jerk, reactionary 'solutions' that don't actually solve the problem.
Cheating is fundamentally not a technological problem it's a social one. Abandon all anti-cheat and move to player run and moderated servers.
I dont want to install windows, all for some crappy game. I'm also not going to sacrifice privacy and security over some stupid developer's decision. Im staying on Linux and it feels better on my hardware than windows 10/11.
By the way Respawn is great with level design, weapon design, etc. But horrendously bad when it comes to competitive multiplayer tech. Their company blog is an absolute joke. I would say Respawn's company blog is top 3 most embarrassing company blogs I have seen in my whole life. I wouldn't take any technical advice from them.
"The openness of the Linux operating system" seems to be the fundamental issue with game companies more than any practical reason.
Unfortunately client side anti-cheat is very likely going to get a whole lot worse when these kind of "easy" pr points have been achieved. Consoles already transitioned from blacklisting to whitelisting of controller devices and same kind of movement is to be expected on PC side near future as well.
Device manufacturers would drool about the idea of "certified" keyboard, mice and displays which you would need in order to play the future games with client side anti-cheating.
Hi Brodie. I like playing MMORPGs and survival games like Soul Mask, Aska, Belwright, Enshrouded and Minecraft. I'm 98% of the time on Linux now.
Steam survey shows 2% of Steam users are Linux users. I guarantee it's lower on EA launcher, since it requires much more hoops than just using Steam. But let's assume the worst case scenario.
So let me get this straight - a small percentage of 2% of their players is cheating... so they just instaban these 2%. Nice...
@@Leniwcowaty-xh5cj those numbers are misleading. I use Linux for nearly everything except multiplayer gaming due to anti cheat compatibility issues. I'm counted as a windows user even though I'm a staunch Linux enjoyer. Those numbers do not indicate the number of people that would choose to use Linux over Windows if given the choice. They've created a chicken and egg issue.
And it is only a small number of those 2%, so it might be less than 0.5% of their players, the 1.5% rest are normal users that just do not get to play anymore.
a small percentage of 2% is cheating in a game that they estimate has a 33% cheating rate. But yeah, it's those 2% that's the problem, I'm sure cheating has gone away now that they've banned linux.
@@Person01234 So you're saying let them cheat because it's a small group of ppl?
@@Yakoaxxi I'm saying it will do nothing to fix the problem and not "let them cheat" but is your solution to cheating on windows to ban windows?
At this point, I'm playing around with the idea of dual booting again. I have a spare throwaway SSD for Windows that I can use for that.
However, I don't care enough about it just yet, and I can always just boot up my VM with GPU passthrough for that. I do need to consider re-configuring the partition on that SSD since I have a virtual disk for that.
I can’t help but think of how much easier all this would be if people actually had some decency and didn’t cheat in online games
just boycott ea.
When you are a small user base within a small user base it's bound to happen.
It would be interesting to know, because the Apex makers have only listed the Linux machines, how many cheaters there are on the other OS's side. - Or should the figures be considered in general, i.e. for all OS's?
Not the grapes!!
Games should have a single-player-only, offline mode... And we should be able to buy them on physical media and actually own them forever.
When your server goes offline, I still want to continue playing your game.
And a devconsole with a ‘connect’ command, or (preferably) custom server support.
Multiplayer games wont have that
@@deibos8546 F multiplayer games.
One of the games I like to play is Factorio. Which not only works on Linux, the Linux version has at least one feature that isn't on the Windows version. It can fork to create an auto-save.
can we get percental numbers? im curious what the percentage of cheaters are on linux vs on windows
@@alexlexo59 Nope. Its as vague as you think. And I think its on purpose.
You won't ever get a definitive number because if they did release that stat, it would show they're spouting lies and just making excuses.
Numbers dont matter when the OS is flawed to begin with
@@Thorned_Rose Numbers dont matter when the OS is flawed to begin with
@@arturpaivads Numbers dont matter when the OS is flawed to begin with
The last great hurdle
0:10 What's your hunting weapon of choice?
Started with Longsword before switching to Insect Glaive now I'm giving Dual Blades a shot
@@BrodieRobertson All solid choices, especially in Wilds & World. I'm a greatsworder, could never get used to the more delicate weapons. Happy hunting!
If they really believe that all cheaters are on Linux, why not make Linux only servers.
This way Linux users will play against other Linux users, and Windows users will play against other Windows users.
If what they are saying is true, then this would solve the cheating problem on Windows while still allowing Linux users to play the game.
Imagine not being able to play with 90% of your friends
@@nezu_cc Solution is simple, if you join as a group, then you join the lowest common denominator. One person is on Linux, entire group joins linux server.
@@nezu_cc Imagine having that much of friends so that becomes an issue to be adressed.
Band-aid for a broken leg
3:15 when game companies try to sound like they care but they don't know what they're doing and don't care at all
My plan was to add an intel celeron sbc to my Linux box so I can run low performance demanding software and games that do not run directly on Linux. My plans are foiled, as until now I had no luck streaming the game to Linux. If I do get into the game, the mouse won’t work.
Its like like they are saying the people with no legs run the hardest, they just wanted a excuse to enable kernel level anti cheat and linux was in the way of that
On a very very personal level, I'm fine with ANC in competitive games not supporting Linux if the devs really think it's necessary since I don't play competitive games anyway. However, it's so annoying for me that many PvE or single player focused games are using aggressive ANC or simply banning players based on the OS.
With Windows 10 end-of-life right around the corner, this is certainly going to be a more important topic in the near future.
Man I was debating on deleting my windows partition for a second time... This sucks...
Why would you do that? Keep it for the few use cases.
@fairphoneuser9009
Yeah it is just that games like this are the only ones that I keep it for... I don't even enjoy these games that much. I mostly keep them for the social part with friends. Otherwise I could just use a vm...
@@fairphoneuser9009why would you keep it when you can run it in a VM and reclaim all that space
How can a game be the reason for keeping you on windows. It's a game. Find something else to play.
@@roccociccone597
It is not the game itself, it is the friend group. Besides, I still use Linux, I dual boot (seperate drives/efi partitions) and love it. It just sucks that I was thinking on wiping the partition a second time (had done that before when I first tried linux). I hate that I have to keep some bullshit game so I can have something to play with my friends...
Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜
Banning linux because its the home of cheating is like saying that anyone using a terminal is hacking
There's still sadly a lot of stupid stereotypes around Linux. I've been using it for around 10 years now. My teen sees all the stuff I do on it whether that's emails, browser, graphics design, occasional website coding, and gaming. Most of what I do is either using a browser or gaming. And yet when I offered to install Linux on his new PC, he at first declined saying, "I'm not a coder". Like dude, when have you ever seen me use my PC primarily for coding??? Even though he SAW it first hand, with his own eyeballs, he still fell prey to erroneous stereotypes.
In their heads they are probably thinking like this: If you are a Linux user, you are obviously a hacker, a cheater or a malicious person.
14:15 Also not a lawyer but if people pursue a legal route, I wonder if it's possible that they broaden it to go after companies who go out of their way to exclude other platforms like Linux rather than just punishing ones who previously had support for Linux but later dropped it. Maybe there's some sort of anti-competition/monopoly type arguments to be made if other desktop operating systems aside from Windows are proactively prevented from running the game?
FYI valve puts the steam deck verified logo on the game page, while the developer has no saying whatsoever.
It's obviously just another attack vector at the kernel. Like DRM, the recent power-grab of US-government of maintainers, anti-cheat is just preparing the public opinion in favour of a hardware locked down Linux kernel. At least an locked down supervisor in the kernel or firmware for anti-cheat and 'law enforcement' purposes.
@@reinhardscherer2860 Hardware-locked down OSes have proven to be way more difficult for law enforcement to penetrate (see: Android and iOS)
@@JanSoltan-wj1hs I have to disagree here. Maybe the local police station struggles to get access, but the three letter agencies have access to all necessary keys to sign drivers, UEFI code, microcode updates for your CPU, and virtually all of your network devices. SSL connections for example are decrypted massively.
@@reinhardscherer2860 Well, clearly they don't since they have to resort to things like Pegasus. If they really had the keys that would completely eliminate the point of paying millions of dollars for these exploits. Also, most of the examples you listed don't even apply to mobile phone OSes (UEFI, microcode and kernel drivers)
SHHHHHHHHHH!! THE SPY DRONES ("Birds") ARE LISTENING TO WHAT YOU TYPE!!!
I mean, maybe studios should start developing more secure protocols and stuff for their games.
A surprising amount of developers in general have very poor understanding of networking, and even fewer have a good understanding of security.
These anticheat solutions themselves are a bandaid solution as it is, one that requires kernel level accesss to only somewhat mitigate the process of bad code or bad design...
Removing a support for a platform after players that were using that platform already made various purchase decisions of devices and games based on this platform and invested into the specific game time-wise and finantial-wise, and forcing them to buy and install another device/operating system just to be able to continue access and enjoy the game with their account which they already paid and invested heavily into, while their original device and OS is still in a perfectly working and generally supported state, is actually a problem. Also, not all users are tech-savvy enough to install another OS on their Steam Deck.
Companies really has to stop with this kernel-level anti cheat nonsense, and start to implement server checks.
* Looks at my Overwatch install *
"Don't even think about it"
Saying game devs should migrate to server side anticheat is counter productive to growing the market share of Linux. Game devs have shown they would rather lose millions of potential players than take on the cost of validating player inputs server side. Right now that cost is outsourced to players with client anticheat which only hashes things like windows DLLs to make sure they are genuine
Computer gaming is single-player only for me. I feel a pressure to perform that I dislike in multi-player games. I don't know why the same doesn't apply to board gaming for me...
I've been watching my FPS games getting killed, one by one... I daily drive Arch, so really don't want to build another PC to play a handful of games. Gaming on Linux has nothing to do with hacking... it's just sooo dumb. Most hackers are on Windows, because most people are on Windows ¬_¬
You need to take a stats class bro
@@KoopstaKlicca How so? Please, educate me.
"Gaming on Linux has nothing to do with hacking"
Unfortunately it has
@@AdamDaviesSussex Because it could very well be the case that linux users or people spoofing linux overrepresent cases for cheating. It doesn't necessarily follow just because most people are on windows, that hackers must be on windows at the same proportionate rate.
@@KoopstaKlicca People spoof controller aim assist and DMA, not a Linux distro. Linus != cheating. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. You must not code much, huh.
Nothing of value (to me) is lost.
However, it sucks for the state of Linux gaming certainly because when you look outside the bubble you notice how many people really consider to stick with Windows for that very reason, even if they are brutally annoyed by Microsoft's actions.
No, this isn't a Win11 bashing post but rather the cry for Valve and others to come up with something that can run inside an isolated environment that isn't invading a distro's kernel or other important files, while also verifying we are actual good guys.
In the end, I still hope for Server Side Anticheat but that's rarely ever used.
Good, I don't want that dangerous software on my system. What is wrong with gamers? They accept all manner of BS just to feed their deadly addiction.
They accepted DLC being commonplace, and now we have to pay a $20 subscription to use heated seats in cars. Gamers aren't discriminated against enough.
@@polinskitom2277 Subscriptions for heated seats proves it works on normies just as well as it does gamers, most people will simp for big corps without question though so it's hardly surprising.
Isn't Microsoft redesigning how applications access the Kernel so they don't have to run at kernel level? If that's the case we should give our thanks to CloudStrike. This should take a long time to happen, but when it does I think multiplayers games will be more available for Linux
I have a question. For the games that were initially supported on Linux then remove that support like in this case. If people have spent real money either to buy the game or in game purchases. Do they get their money refunded? and if not should the game companies be made to refund the players?. I do not know if Apex itself is paid or has in game purchases. Are there other games that have removed Linux support that this has happened?
Nope, no refund. (I asked for a title that I had only bought for its singleplayer campaign. It's so infuriating.)
"will affect a small number of players" and "will significantly reduce instances of cheating" in the same line wow
One thing people do not realise is that support for windows itself is forced by the player base, Devs would rather if everyone was on a console so they do not have to deal with cheating and offload that responsibility to the platform.
Honestly, Kernel AC a lot of the times is used as a band aid rather than actual solutions. Plus it's also give a huge attack vector into players computer if something went wrong with the AC, case in point CoD AC and Genshin old AC. Other times it makes using your computer more annoying *cough cough Vanguard
It's like someone trying to get a cheap shot at Linux OSes, and lately it's happening a lot more than before...
The best solution to cheating in online PvP is distributing the dedicated server software. Let communities form around their own servers and police themselves on a case by case basis. Then games get to be fun again. Wouldn't that be nice?
i hope they made a baseline to see if this actually makes a difference
For more Linuxgamecons,non Steam Monoply, no more private Software BS,we need a FOSS game platform that we Can Pay the indie Game Devs.
What this shows is that all those Linux people clutching their pearls in outrage when game anti-cheat doesn't support Linux are full of it. There are no anti-cheat solutions on Linux that actually work, so not supporting Linux in multiplayer game is just common sense.
Why nobody says anything about macos? Does Riot Games for example, have any anti-cheat there?
6:02 pick a what now?
a game
Companies are loving doing to that situation as a quick fix, but never a permanent fix, which will definitely bite them in the butt as windows gets overthrown by Linux when it comes to gaming.
The beauty of single player games is (1) it doesn't matter if people cheat, and (2) there's no reason for it even to connect to the Internet.
Mostly play single player games now. Once in a while I'll delve into some fighting games online, but usually leave that to play in person with friends. The only other multiplayer games I tend to play are Monster Hunter (mostly solo), PoE (mostly solo), and FFXIV. Been moving away from FFXIV since the raids don't do much for me anymore, and I don't want to sink time into farming gear to do new Ultimates.
But even singleplayer campaigns are sometimes (often?) impacted. That's the most infuriating part.
I don’t understand why people want to play AAA games in the first place they’re all repetitive. Nothing has changed in 15 years. They are still pretty much trash.
Best part the back end will still run on Linux lol.
I say support the developers that make single player games that do work on Linux. Even square has all of their games that don’t use the Internet support Linux.
As for the EU thing, I think the best thing they could hope for which is an extreme long shot is that they get it so that them removing support is anti-competitive and not making for the platform is also anti-competitive. Putting them in a position where they don’t have a choice. But then again, this is an extreme longshot and extremely unlikely.
I think if they see the majority of cheaters being on linux, the better claim to make is that the majority of *detected* cheaters are on linux
Usually anticheats on linux run at user level but if the anticheat devs care about linux they could create and maintain a DKMS module to make the anticheat run at kernel level.
If at least the publishers distinguished between multiplayer mode and singleplayer campaign. Having SP treated as collateral damage is infuriating. I never cared about multiplayer, yet I'm impacted by anticheats.
You are missing one point windows user are getting same cheat windows client is emulated as linux to by pass eac
The future of gaming: 70 different kernel level anti-cheat programs running on your PC that are constantly checking every file and running processes for any cheat programs.
I can't wait for the future.
FC 25 is a good example of how kernel anticheat is bad for the industry in general. You can't play singleplayer career mode on linux, the game just won't boot (ironically there are cheat trainers that get around this).
Gamer here. 99.9% of the time I play any game, it's singleplayer. On the rare occasion I actually do play multiplayer, I usually prefer to play with my friends in non-competitive games in which it can be just us. This is why this whole anti-cheat problem doesn't really affect me personally pretty much at all. I still think it sucks, though, because it does limit Linux adoption a fair bit, and also hurts Valve's credibility when it comes to pushing Linux for gaming. Nevermind my opinion on what anti-cheat software is like (I think kernel-level anti-cheat sucks just in general), but still.
tbh I don't get why they don't just fork the kernel and force you to use their version of it to be able to play on linux.
Apex legends have like no players left, so in their last dying breath, they talk down Linux.
What's most disturbing about this is the amount of cheaters, because cheating in a multiplayer video game is a form of active self delusion. It basically means you're trying very hard to pretend you're not a loser. To the point where that delusion has final say in your brain. That is a reality disconnect. I'm convinced that there's something seriously psychologically wrong with each and every person who cheats like this.
those using a linux based bypass will just switch to a windows based bypass. its simply a case that these companies dont want to do the work to secure linux like they do with windows. its not like windows based exploits are exactly rare or harder for those making cheats. besides most will be selling windows cheats because they are easier for end users to use.
@@Altirix_ Linux cheats are way easier to make, but most cheaters still use Windows cheats... Beacause they (the cheaters) are on Windows lol
Maybe someone will make a program for easy VFIO with user-friendly GUI?