Rockstar Games’ servers have been under heavy fire from massive DDoS attacks in recent days, causing widespread login and connectivity issues for players of GTA Online. These attacks come in the wake of Rockstar’s recent implementation of BattlEye, a new anti-cheat system designed to crack down on in-game cheating, sparking backlash from a segment of the player base. Protesters, unhappy with the new system, have resorted to using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt the servers, escalating tensions between the gaming giant and its community.

    • ElmarsonTheThird@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      Since they shut out Linux players last week. Taking away access to things someone bought, used and can’t use anymore because of something the supplier did could be interpreted as theft.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Nobody likes cheating.

      However, a lot of people don’t like anti-cheat mechanisms that are essentially rootkits, and especially nobody likes when a product is changed long after it’s release in a way that makes it unusable (as the new anti-cheat forbids Linux).

    • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      When it stopped people from being able to even play a game they paid for. In case it wasn’t clear, this breaks the game completely for non-cheating Linux users.

    • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      No one decided cheating in multiplayer games is fine. But invasive anti-cheat software is significantly worse, and frankly doesn’t actually work. Automated detection tools can help, but ultimately you need mods / admins to properly stay on top of cheating. Trying to replace those jobs with incredibly invasive software installed on every user’s device is just a sign of a trash developer or publisher.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    According to Mutahar:

    1. The Anti Cheat has already been bypassed by a free cheat menu on Windows.

    2. He’s fairly sure he has figured out some kind of way to temporarily bypass (as in, it’ll probably get caught in a few weeks) the linux block by some kind of custom virtualization method (requiring only one GPU) that he says he may explain in detail at some point.

    In general, he’s done with playing GTO.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eMSagozpKPs&pp=ygUSbXV0YWhhciBndGEgb25saW5l

    But yeah, obligatory reminder for BattleEye and EasyAntiCheat games that refuse to allow linux play:

    All these game devs have to do is flip a switch, click a few options in their developer portals, to allow BattleEye or EAC to work on linux, through Proton.

    And its been that way for 3 years, since 2021.

    There is literally no reason for games that use these services to not work on linux, the devs just don’t fucking care.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        I’ve heard devs say that Linux users come up with something like 90% of the bug reports. They’re often bugs that only affect Linux,so you’ve got, say 10% to the player base reporting 90% of the issues, and about 85% of those issues only affect the 10% of the player base.

        Simply from an economics standpoint it doesn’t make sense to spend that much resources on such a small percentage of the player population. Additionally about half of those Linux users do have Windows computers, that they are prepared to buy your game on, if that’s the only option. So again it makes no financial sense to actually support Linux.

        As far as the studios see it they are taking a 5% cut in profits, in order to reduce workload by 85% - seems like a good deal.

        I can’t even really argue with that, because they make a good point. Indie devs have it even more difficult because they often have much smaller teams, and really can’t handle the workloads that Linux users would give them.

        • nous@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          The devs from ΔV: Rings of Saturn give a completely different story. Yeah, most bug reports come from Linux - but platform specific ones a vanishingly rare: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38_of_bug/

          Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way. This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone. Just like having your own 700-person strong QA team. That was not 38% extra work for me, that was just free QA!

          Not to mention the quality of the reports from the Linux users was vastly more details and useful to them.

        • Womble@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Thats was a. From years before proton, b. from a dev renowned for being linux hostile, c. ignores the fact that linux users are far more likely to be technical and likely to submit a proper bug report rather than shrugging and moving on.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            3 months ago

            I’m not sure who you’re referring to but I got this off a developer forum about 3 years ago. I don’t know which dev came from just a number of developers chimed in to say they agree

            • rivalary@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              I don’t want to discount what you saw, but I don’t think Linux gamers are even asking for official support. If they don’t want bug reports from Linux gamers because the reports would be “tainted” by an unsupported operating system, then they could have a banner on the submission page. I would argue, however, that they would be missing out on a lot of free bug testing where all of these companies are far too cheap to pay for proper bug testing these days.

              At this point, Linux gamers would just appreciate the bare minimum being put forth with developers not breaking the games for them.

      • doctortran@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        It feels like it’s part and parcel with an overall, growing trend in software to be openly hostile to any system wherein the user has proper admin rights.

        Because the potential for someone to use those rights to fuck with the software merits refusing to support systems where they can.

        Further entrenching the notion that, to participate in a “modern” consumer software environment, the user must agree to be handcuffed on their own hardware.

    • scaramobo@lemmynsfw.com
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      3 months ago

      Dont blame developers. It’s never developers that make decisions. It’s the management, the shareholders, the project manager, the product owner, the whatever-mba-dipshit on top. But never the developers. They just execute and comply and if they refuse, they’re let go. A developer is a fleshy code printer. A resource. They don’t have real power. They’re a factory worker. Remember that. Don’t blame the worker, blame the boss.

      Source: i’m a professional software developer.

      • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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        3 months ago

        This.

        I follow code of ethics and raise concerns where applicable. But even if you refuse, they’ll just pick another development team out of their hats to implement anyway.

        So many are afraid to lose their jobs now they will keep their heads down and do it anyway.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I had been wondering why everybody was so angry at them for implementing anti-cheat software. I didn’t realize that they were locking out Linux users. That’s a bunch of bullshit.

      • Crismus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Especially a big problem for people who play on Steam Deck. Which most game companies don’t consider it a Console, which is stupid.

  • polle@feddit.org
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    3 months ago

    Iam out of the loop. What kind of cheats are available in gta online?

    • jetsetdorito@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      They didn’t enable linux support on the anticheat, so the game no longer runs on Linux/steam deck

    • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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      3 months ago

      The most common cheat is probably gaining money or experience, but there have always been pretty extensive mod menus for GTA Online with tools from invincibility to making your vehicles rainbow, to randomly causing other players to explode or setting hundreds of muggers on them.

      In 2015ish, I used to cheat, other than getting rich, all I was interested in doing was making an indestructible chrome bus with smoke trails that I’d drive around picking up players in, to teleport us all to North Yankton and back like a tour guide.

      • tweeks@feddit.nl
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        3 months ago

        Aren’t there like cheat servers and non-cheat servers? Or is that a “gentleman’s agreement” that not everyone is playing fair with if you can’t fully block it because of mods etc?

      • polle@feddit.org
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        3 months ago

        Thanks for the insight! Random chromebus with smoketrails sounds fun, thought.

    • Marcbmann@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Hackers like to glitch other users. Randomly turn into a toilet, have all of your ammunition disappear, suddenly fly into the air and die on impact. It made public servers unplayable. Friends only sessions were necessary

  • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    I really hope they don’t find a way to blame the linux community for this. Even if we hate kernel level anti cheat, I think most of us were happy with the refund from Valve lol

  • SpicyLizards@reddthat.com
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    3 months ago

    Can’t release a sequel or single player update in a decade - can impose cheat engines. Something about a surprised pikachu when they get flak

  • Cyberflunk@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I don’t play these games or really any game that needs anti cheat. What’s the controversy? I assume the anti cheat is awful?

    • Xatolos@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      What’s happened is GTA Online suddenly switched to using BattlEye for it’s anti-cheating. And this broke Steam Deck compatibility suddenly. Now, this is bad enough but reports state that BattlEye will work with the Steam Deck, and all Rockstar needs to do is just send a message to BattlEye and it’ll just work. But Rockstar doesn’t seem to be interested in sending that email.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      While I haven’t looked into this particular anti-cheat; they frequently prevent Linux users from playing altogether, ban users due to false positives, and sometimes even gain/require access to data entirely unrelated to gaming, such as your personal documents or even browser data (cookies, history, passwords/tokens, etc) as many of them contain Rootkits

      • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        Seriously, personal documents? What in the ever loving fuck. Jeez, no I don’t want to play your game so bad I need to prove it with a passport.

        • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          To be fair, they aren’t specifically targeting this data.

          Rootkits give the software unrestricted access to all the data on the computer. You then trust that they don’t use that access for anything nefarious… Aswell as trusting there’s no bugs/vulnerabilities in that software that give a third party access to that data.

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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            3 months ago

            Ah, my misunderstanding - kernel level anti-cheat is also a bit bizarre tbh, like people really really don’t understand the level of control they’re handing over to random games companies.

      • Nindelofocho@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        On top of that they dont really seem to actually stop cheating. Im sure they reduce it but games with anti cheat still deal with a ton of cheaters

  • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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    3 months ago

    Imagine being such a butthurt little pussy that you DDoS a video game because you’re not allowed to cheat it.

    Outside of the political spectrum, I cannot imagine a more pathetic type of person.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Just to explain the completely warranted deluge of downvotes to you: Using Linux doesn’t mean that you’re cheating and the anti-cheat solution they’re using has Linux support, they simply opted to not enable it. I’m not in the loop when it comes to GTAV but usually cheating software isn’t even available for Linux.

      • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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        3 months ago

        The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone. If it can’t be used using Linux, deal with it like a grown up and find something else to do.

        But you’re not going to justify DDoS attacking a company because you don’t like that you’re excluded from their product.

        These people need to grow the fuck up. The real world doesn’t give a shit about what they think they’re owed- which is nothing by the way.

        This shit just makes me hate the arrogance of Linux users that much more.

        Oh, and that you all think that downvotes are relevant to a discussion shows your immaturity on the topic. My opinion isn’t popular because it’s nuanced. And everyone within and outside of lemmy know damn well that this platform hates anything that doesn’t paint in the colors of black or white. So… it’s expected to be downvoted. If I posted this anywhere else- it’s be a mature discussion.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone.

          Gazillions of people have been playing on Linux, in particular on the Steam Deck, for ages. Those are paying customers. They pulled the plug on that without warning and without need, technical or otherwise, people are pissed. Depending on jurisdiction, Rockstar might be in for at least refunds.

          I don’t condone ddos’ing either and what I also don’t condone is you saying “oh the only reason people are pissed is because they can’t cheat”. Now that is, if I’m charitable, ignorant, and allthewhile you have the gall to accuse others of arrogance. Nuanced my ass to be that you’d first have to acknowledge basic contextual facts about the matter. Getting downvoted is also not “the ignorant sheeple not understanding your brilliance”. Get your head out of your arse and look in the mirror.

          • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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            3 months ago

            I don’t give a fuck what their reason is. Whether it’s cheating or the plug was pulled on them.

            There’s no reason to act like fucking spoiled little entitled children. No one involved in this childish shit is a victim.

            Stop excusing this bullshit.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Is there, in your mind, any situation in which any consumer can ever legitimately complain about the practices of any business, or is it all whining?

              • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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                See? There is a huge failure of comprehension here as you have mistaken a DDoS attack with a “legitimate complaint.”

                They are NOT the same thing. And I won’t entertain a discussion where I have to suspend belief to assume they are.

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone. If it can’t be used using Linux, deal with it like a grown up and find something else to do.

                  You went far beyond “ddos’ers are silly boogers”, which I agreed with, but delegitimised critique of Rockstar in general: You told Linux gamers to stop playing: “Find something else to do”. Don’t motte and bailey now.

                  Your words, they get interpreted. In specific contexts. Failing to acknowledge that those contexts can differ from whatever the context is in the privacy of your own mind is a failure of both theory of mind and communication on your part and, going out on half a limb here, probably the reason why everyone around you seems so hostile. Read the room. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you are right because what you say is met with hostility, rather, work towards having what you think is right accepted with gratitude. For starters, don’t go on tirades – which starting an argument with “butthurt little pussy” definitely is no matter how correct your assessment of the situation may or may not be. Develop tact.

  • Zexks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Stop making every fucking game and open world mmo wanna be. Bring back single player with couch co op or make private lobby setups so we don’t have to fuck with every douche who wants to make everyone else’s life as sad as their own. I’m a big GYA fan but have refused to buy for this specific reason. Have almost given in repeatedly but just go watch some YouTube’s on it and it reminds me not to contribute to this shit every time.

    • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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      3 months ago

      Yes!

      90% of the games I buy now are couch coop. Was sad about Halo abandoning it.

      Couch coop defined my view of what video games are.

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Around the time gta 5 came out, i lived with two guys and had 3 neighbours and we would often play video games together, but we never really found a game that we all liked. Gtao was just around the corner and the trailers looked so fun. People doing silly shit, skydiving together, play some golf, race around the city. When it actually came out and worked, oh boy. Leave the house, get shot, drive around, get shot, try to do something with friends, get blown up by a fighter jet. The answer is always: it’s GTA, of course you get shot, play mario part, or shot like that. Yeah, i get that, but i always felt like it’s just people who enjoy to make other people’s experience worse, and it’s not about pvp. Gta draws such a weird crowd.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I played WoW right when it came out, on a PvP server.

        There was already a subset of the crowd just like there back then - some people rushed game progression to have higher levels as soon as possible only to then hang out in beginner areas and “pwn” significantly lower level players.

        That’s around the time when the term “griefer” was coined.

        In these things the real difference is how the servers are structured rather than the human beings: if the architecture is designed so that there is some way to filter players (smaller servers with moderation or some kind of kick voting system that bans repeat offenders), griefers end up in their own griefer instances griefing each other and the rest can actually play the game, otherwise you get a deeply beginner (or people with less time, such as working adults) unfriendly environment.

        As somebody else pointed out environments were people run their own servers tend create those conditions at least for some cases (basically if there’s some kind of moderation) whilst massive world centralized server environments tend to give free right to people whose pleasure in a multiplayer games derives mostly from making it unpleasent for others (in game-making, griefing is actually recognized as one of the 4 core types of enjoyment - along with achiving, exploring and socializing - people can derived from multiplayer games)

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          It’s amazing to me that Blizzard spent 15 years with the PvP realms in such a broken state. It was only when they introduced “war mode” and the option to turn it off that people finally had some relief.

          What finally made them address the problem was that many PvP realms had become 95% one faction and 5% the other faction. That meant that any PvP encounters were very one-sided, and they were also very rare, because the outnumbered faction just avoided any areas where they might be attacked.

          Even if you lived for griefing, being on the dominant side in a 95% your-side realm sucked because there weren’t enough victims to pick on.

          I guess they wanted to make griefers happy because making the game fair for people who enjoyed PvP but didn’t want to grief others would have been relatively easy.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        3 months ago

        Every online game is like that now. I avoid all of them for that reason. It doesn’t matter the game, if it starts to get popular the massive group of trolls shows up and goes out of there way to figure out the methodology to ruin the gameplay for others.

        It sucks because there have been a few fun games that a lot of people won’t touch due to the online nature of garbage humans. Helldivers 2, SM2, and Deep Rock Galactic (sorry, your community is also filled with shitters) are all ruined because in order to really advance in the game you HAVE to play with others. It’s piss poor game design.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        Course you can. I never even touched the multiplayer.

        I attempted to load it back on the PS3, sat in a queue for about ten minutes and gave up. Probably for the best.

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Couch co-op gta san andreas was the best, so sad it’s not more common in present games.

    • cmhe@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If a game offers multiplayer, they should also offer a dedicated server that people can setup for themselves.

      For MMOs, they can make the servers optionally federated.

  • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The fact that it’s a top 10 seller on steam deck for years and they just fucked over everyone on Linux, they deserve it. We all paid them and they completely screwed all of us. I feel so cheated. I only run Linux and I have a steam deck. I left a bad review on steam and I contacted their support from all my rockstar accounts, but it’s not enough. Battleye is compatible with Linux, they just had to send an email, but rockstar keeps lying that it’s not compatible.

      • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I still blame valve a lot for this. Their TOS offer us no protection. Publishers should not be able to retroactively lock down a game. Diminishing the game performance or adding unwanted DRM after purchase should be a refundable offense. People choose whether or not to buy games based on properties like these.

        • Dae@pawb.social
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          3 months ago

          Valve has consistently offered refunds in these scenarios. They’re offering them for GTA V, and they also offered refunds for Monster Hunter when Capcom decided to switch their DRM bullshit and broke it on the Steam Deck. I think Valve has done their part.

          • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            What is the basis of consistently here. Take2 broke Linux support for bioshock infinite a couple years back and valve refused my refund request. IME they have not done so. If they are for GTAV that’s great. Maybe they only started doing this after the steamdeck came out but really they should have protections in the TOS to safeguard consumer purchases.

            • Dae@pawb.social
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              3 months ago

              I’m unsure if GTA V was ever Steamdeck Certified, but I imagine it might have to do with that. They may only offer this for games they said were certified and the devs broke it after the fact. I know Monster Hunter was.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        You can request a refund. An earlier post last week said they are offering refunds for rug-pulled players.

        • mastazi@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          One important thing to add is that the refund is offered by Valve, not by Rockstar.

          • hempster@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I guess Valve being the escrow, they may hold future revenue payout from sale of other R* games

            • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              But I don’t believe at the scale of thousands of players for >1 year.
              Remember, they are (supposedly) offering it even if you played a 100 hundred hours. I don’t think that comes only from Valve. They’d burn bridges with publishers should they deduct it from their pay as a “You rugpulled our user base. We are now offering refunds if requested and will take it from your cut as compensation”.

        • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I was thinking this, because that’s what Facepunch did when they stopped Linux support. If you had played Rust at all on Linux, regardless of hours, you were eligible for a refund.

  • Vespair@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Don’t buy games with invasive user-side anti-cheats that hamper performance, and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

    I don’t understand why this is so hard for people. If everyone gave a shit, we could end this. But instead, people would rather just complain while still forking over the money to these companies.

    There are so many good indie games without this kind of bullshit. We have better choices.

    • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      It didn’t have “invasive user side anti-cheat” on day one you doughnut

      That’s why Linux users bought it. This was added YEARS after release

        • thejoker954@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          “Don’t buy games with invasive user-side anti-cheats that hamper performance, and demand refunds on any game…”

          1st point: AC Wasn’t there at purchase

          2nd point: AC was added decades later so how can one return the game?

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

            This, which is in my original fucking message, applies here. If you think the effort is futile, fine, whatever, don’t try. But my statement was made with full understanding of the timeline, and I stand by it. Feel free to read the rest of the comments in the thread for further discussion of the timeline, or feel free to fuck off, I guess; I’m not in the mood to indulge a pedant clearly just looking for an argument.

            • thejoker954@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              No it doesn’t, at least not everwhere.

              If you wanna be an idoitic asshat, and get all pissy because someone points out a flaw in your argument, thats not my problem.

    • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I legitimately avoided rockstar for years because they force you to use their store even when you buy on steam. I still haven’t played rdr2, despite critical acclaim. I finally caved and got GTAV on sale cause I realised none of this shit works. Consumers using purchasing power to enforce standards is a losing battle. The storefronts or legislators need to enforce this shit. I think it should be valve. They have the market position and userbase to actually succeed or at the very least convince publishers to not break shit that was already working fine.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They implemented this 10 years after the game’s release. It’s harder to vote with your wallet at that point.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          And that’s the one we can refuse to buy.

          But let’s be honest - people won’t. They’ll buy it in record numbers - just not on Linux.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

        The way I see it, adding it, even this late, is changing the terms of the agreement and thus justification for a refund. Steam will often see it that way too if you word it as such. And if not, hell, you can still badger the publisher for a refund incessantly so at least it still costs them the equivalent in man hours even if you don’t get the refund. The point is not to be passive, even if we don’t get to win every single battle.

        • FahrenheitGhost@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Companies like Rockstar certainly would meet any requests for refunds outside of very recently purchased with “Go kick rocks.”. For sure they changed the rules/ experience after the fact, but you can bet it’s covered in the small print of the EULA. Even if they received (and denied) 100,000 requests, they would care a bit unless they saw a significant slump in their overall sales. Sadly, a lot of their customers will be pissed about this but will be first in line buying other Rockstar games.

          • dan@upvote.au
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            3 months ago

            Depends on your country/jurisdiction. Consumer protection is weak in the USA, but much stronger in some other countries. It’d depend on how much it changes the experience. For example, if you buy a product because it advertises a particular feature, but then the manufacturer removes the feature in the future, that can be a reason to get a refund, at least in Australia and some European countries.

          • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            I won’t be buying other Rockstar games if they do this with other Rockstar games, since it means I won’t be able to play them since I use Linux and they don’t want to use the checkmark to enable BattlEye on Linux/Proton.

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Sadly, a lot of their customers will be pissed about this but will be first in line buying other Rockstar games.

            Then they aren’t pissed enough. But yes, talking the talk is completely meaningless if you don’t also walk the walk, I agree.

            Companies like Rockstar certainly would meet any requests for refunds outside of very recently purchased with “Go kick rocks.”

            If you let them, sure. The reason we use phrases like “fight for a refund” is because these things are hard and they take effort. Like yes it sucks to have to do that and yes I understand our time is valuable, but as I see it there is value in both having your voice heard and punitively costing an offending company manhours in having to deal with you - even if you ultimately do not win the fight.

            Again, the point isn’t about winning or getting your money back, it’s about not being passive and just accepting the things that happen to you as if you do not have autonomy.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              What rights?

              You’re buying a license to play a game. Rockstar is not obligated to ensure it’s available to you indefinitely.

              • tabular@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                “What!? You don’t like the erosion of ownership rights? You’re an asshole!” - you.

                • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  They’re trying to argue that an EULA isn’t binding because they can’t sign away their rights, and thats legally incorrect in this case.

                  Recognizing reality is different than endorsing it.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Is “get rid of all anti-cheat” a popular position outside of Lemmy? I don’t really play these sorts of games but was under the impression that most competitive multiplayer would be unplayable without anti-cheat measures.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        There are plenty of anti-cheat measure that doesn’t require invasive access to your system or performance hits. The objection is not to fighting cheating, it is with the specific overreaching methodology chosen to do so.

        Also I personally rarely play multiplayer so it’s even more frustrating to have bullshit installed on my system for a feature that doesn’t even apply to me.

      • Blaster M@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Anti-cheat measures should be baked into the server side. 99 percent of the multiplayer cheating problem is not adhering to the golden rule of server security: Never Trust the Client

      • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It is perfectly possible to run anti-cheat that are roughly as good (or as bad, as it often turns out) without full admin privilege and running as kernel-level drivers. Coupled with server-side validation, which seems to be a dying breed, you’d also weed out a ton of cheaters while missing the most motivated of them.

        As someone who lurks around in different communities (to some extent; Steam forums, reddit, lemmy, mastodon, and a few game-centered discord servers), the issue is not much against anti-cheat for online play. It’s the nature of these piece of software that is the issue. It would not be the same if the anti-cheat was also forced on solo gameplay, but it is not the case here.

        (bonus points for systems that allow playing on non-protected servers, but that’s asking a bit too much from some publishers I suppose)

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s not even popular on Lemmy. People are fine with the anti-cheat. They draw the line at enforced third-party accounts, though, which is commendable.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    This is actually really effective as a form of protest. From a business perspective, Rockstar probably won’t roll anticheat back, but future companies will assess it as part of the risk when looking to add AC

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    They’re kinda proving rockstar’s point, I am fairly sure the venn diagram of “protesters” and cheaters is more or less a circle

    • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Without hard data it’s difficult to tell to what extent this is accurate, but there seems to be a substantial portion of Linux gamers (including Steam Deck users) who are pissed off that due to the anti-cheat they can’t play the game on their platform of choice anymore. Some of them may have joined the DDoS campaign, so there is a genuine venn diagram.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I think people misunderstood my comment, I meant I think the ddosers and the cheaters are more or less the same group. Don’t imagine the majority of people in the Linux community would think that’s a good way to get rockstar to listen

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        That’s what I mean, I imagine most of the people ddosing are cheaters, hence the quotations around protesters

    • deadcade@lemmy.deadca.de
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      3 months ago

      The actual cheaters completely bypassed the new anti-cheat in about 6 hours. They had to update their cheats a bit, but are otherwise essentially unaffected. Linux users, Steam Deck users, and people who don’t want to give a single game full hardware access, are all affected. None of those can play GTA:Online anymore, unless they mod the game to bypass the anti-cheat, which can be seen as cheating in itself, and could result in a ban.

      The ddos attacks are likely being orchestrated by a small group of people or even an individual, it probably does not represent the vast majority of affected users.

    • tabular@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If you were to treat cheaters as you may treat pirates, a service problem, then the overlap of Linux users and cheaters is a circle of unsatisfied users.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Cheating is absolutely not the same issue as piracy though, one is people wanting an unearned power trip over others and one is the service issue piracy is

        You’re not gonna convince cheaters to stop cheating by offering them a better experience

        • tabular@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          As a player I agree but as a software user and maker I don’t. Users should be in control of their own computing, therefore client-side anti-cheat is the unjust power over the user (edit, this applies to every other proprietary proprietary too).

          Has anyone tried? As far as I know the most that has been done is to shadowban cheaters to their own servers for matchmaking. No one has tried having built-in multiplayer cheats to compete with 3rd party cheats.

          • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I don’t think clientside anticheat is a good solution by any means.

            Built in multiplayer cheats? Isn’t that just pay to win?