GTA Online is broken on Steam Deck following anti-cheat update

Valve says Rockstar could fix the issue quickly, if it wants to.

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[Celery Man]

GTA Online is their cash cow. Can’t imagine they’d leave any money on the table.

 

[Sajuuk]

As always, two things can be true.

Rockstar has no obligation to support a device outside their claimed support, no matter how easy it would be to do.

Rockstar is also a shitty, no good, terrible company that treats both its users and workers like trash and this move is almost certainly just laziness.

 

[Sajuuk]

GTA5 has never supported Linux.

It's unfortunate and anti-consumer! ...but changing their anti-cheat implementation to one that definitely doesn't work under Linux hasn't changed the product as sold.

(Fans will passionately downvote this comment because instead of accepting reality they're blinded by having the Big Mad.)

BattleEye can work in a Linux environment. If Rockstar chooses not to implement it that way, that's entirely their prerogative, but to say it's categorically unsupported by the anti-cheat software/vendor is literally incorrect.

FTFA:

There's a chance Rockstar might just not be interested in letting Steam Deck players into their (newly locked down) online ecosystem, though. That's because BattlEye on Linux operates in a "user-space" mode that's much easier to bypass than the "kernel-level" protections it offers on Windows. And even stronger kernel-level anti-cheat might not work as well in a Linux environment.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

GTA5 has never supported Linux.

It's unfortunate and anti-consumer! ...but changing their anti-cheat implementation to one that definitely doesn't work under Linux hasn't changed the product as sold.

(Fans will passionately downvote this comment because instead of accepting reality they're blinded by having the Big Mad.)

That's not the point. The entire point of Proton is developers don't have to support Linux. The hard work is done for them.

 

[imchillyb]

GTA5 has never supported Linux.

It's unfortunate and anti-consumer! ...but changing their anti-cheat implementation to one that definitely doesn't work under Linux hasn't changed the product as sold.

(Fans will passionately downvote this comment because instead of accepting reality they're blinded by having the Big Mad.)

Adding a 3rd party product to a prior purchase ABSOLUTELY changes the terms and conditions that end users agreed to at time of purchase.

This is a draconian measure and I hope Epic is immediately buffeted by class action suits that mention this change.

Epic is not the Empire. They don't get to randomly change the terms and conditions AFTER PURCHASE!

I hope players sue the fuck out of Epic, and win.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

The funniest part of this is that they even give a shit about cheaters now. The game has been out for years and cheaters have been a huge part of the game this whole time. Sometimes it's just someone dropping free cash on everyone and everyone gets to have a good time. Other times it's someone with God mode dropping airstrikes on players over and over so they can't play.

Why care now? Trying to clean up GTA:O's reputation ahead of GTA6?

 

[hillspuck]

Well, you can't say it's not stopping anyone from cheating on Steam Deck...

 

[sword_9mm]

The funniest part of this is that they even give a shit about cheaters now. The game has been out for years and cheaters have been a huge part of the game this whole time. Sometimes it's just someone dropping free cash on everyone and everyone gets to have a good time. Other times it's someone with God mode dropping airstrikes on players over and over so they can't play.

Why care now? Trying to clean up GTA:O's reputation ahead of GTA6?

Yeah.

GTA:O has always been a hive of scum, villany, clowns, hilarity, etc. Seems a bit like trying to put them horses back in that barn.

 

[heartburnkid]

As always, two things can be true.

Rockstar has no obligation to support a device outside their claimed support, no matter how easy it would be to do.

Rockstar is also a shitty, no good, terrible company that treats both its users and workers like trash and this move is almost certainly just laziness.

While Rockstar is under no obligation to support a device outside their claimed support, deliberately making a change that breaks compatibility post-sale is still dirty pool and they should be called out on that.

Frankly, they should offer refunds to anyone who primarily plays the game on Steam Deck or under Linux.

 

[Invid]

How silly. There's already a mod on Github that bypasses the anticheat. Rockstar is just getting bad press for nothing.

Edit: Link. I don't know how or even if it works as I don't play the game.

 

[Fred Duck]

Rockstar is also a shitty, no good, terrible company that treats both its users and workers like trash and this move is almost certainly just laziness.

It sounds that someone is still angry about the Social Club and launcher.

Me, too.

Adding a 3rd party product to a prior purchase ABSOLUTELY changes the terms and conditions that end users agreed to at time of purchase.

This is a draconian measure and I hope Epic is immediately buffeted by class action suits that mention this change.

Epic is not the Empire. They don't get to randomly change the terms and conditions AFTER PURCHASE!

What would the suit say? "Rockstar have altered the deal and we expect Epic to do something about the matter!"

...

 

[RuralNinja]

I think the real issue is how normalized the laziness of game publishers and the ridiculous overreach of kernel level anti cheat software is. If anything other than a game required this, it would (rightfully) be considered malware.

 

[Victor Bitu]

Rockstar just does not care about Steam Deck users .

 

[druid318]

I'm not a Steam Deck user currently, but I'm definitely not happy that they've added kernel level malware into a game I purchased a long time ago.

 

[Thegs]

I think the real issue is how normalized the laziness of game publishers and the ridiculous overreach of kernel level anti cheat software is. If anything other than a game required this, it would (rightfully) be considered malware.

Hell VRChat implemented kernel-level anti-cheat years after release. VRChat.

 

[Midnitte]

I'm surprised that Valve doesn't merely disable sales of a game when a game goes from verified to unplayable due to an update.

It would seem like false marketing if I go to buy a game and then it turns out it doesn't actually work when I go to play it.

(Plus, Valve sort of has the strong arm here to enforce this, no?)

 

[Daros]

Wait, I thought there was something else going on with the anti-cheat than an email. All this time Destiny could just play on the damn thing if they'd communicate?

Come oooooonnnnnnnnnnn.

 

[siliconaddict]

This is the number one reason I stopped doing any online gaming. Number 2 was the growing shit...see what I did there? Behavior of people who can't just have fun....its gotta be EXTREME COMPETITION!! Up to and including cheating and shit talking. And if you think BattlEye is going to stop cheaters....lol. OK. Sure.

 

[tumblrfan69]

Adding a 3rd party product to a prior purchase ABSOLUTELY changes the terms and conditions that end users agreed to at time of purchase.

This is a draconian measure and I hope Epic is immediately buffeted by class action suits that mention this change.

Epic is not the Empire. They don't get to randomly change the terms and conditions AFTER PURCHASE!

I hope players sue the fuck out of Epic, and win.

EA did the same with WRC. 8 months after launch and now it doesn't work on Deck because they deployed their anti cheat. It worked perfectly fine on Deck and then suddenly broken and no recourse or ability to refund it.

Makes it hard to ever want to buy any games these days. Just play my library of working games. Lord knows I got enough in my Steam account to be kept busy until I die.

 

[TROPtastic]

They would get dragged into court for anti-competitive behavior.

For refusing to sell a game to a group of customers who would have a less-than-functional experience? That would be a stretch.

 

[stormbeta]

GTA5 has never supported Linux.

It's unfortunate and anti-consumer! ...but changing their anti-cheat implementation to one that definitely doesn't work under Linux hasn't changed the product as sold.

(Fans will passionately downvote this comment because instead of accepting reality they're blinded by having the Big Mad.)

No legal obligation, no. But Linux gaming is a lot more common than it used to be thanks to the Steam Deck, and that's a fairly vocal/passionate part of the audience.

There's also non-trivial security concerns with the growing use of kernel-level anti-cheat. There's already been malware targeting anti-cheat drivers in games because of it, and with the Crowdstrike incident Microsoft is likely to start cracking down on abuse of kernel mode.

 

[mmiller7]

Adding a 3rd party product to a prior purchase ABSOLUTELY changes the terms and conditions that end users agreed to at time of purchase.

This is a draconian measure and I hope Epic is immediately buffeted by class action suits that mention this change.

Epic is not the Empire. They don't get to randomly change the terms and conditions AFTER PURCHASE!

I hope players sue the fuck out of Epic, and win.

Most terms and conditions I have bothered to read seem to also have (wording varies) some "we reserve the right to change these terms with or without notice, and by using the product you agree to the terms" or some similar thing.

I suspect it'd have to go to court to find out how robust that kind of line is...but no doubt if such a line is included the company will point to it to claim you knew and agreed.

 

[torp]

That's because BattlEye on Linux operates in a "user-space" mode that's much easier to bypass than the "kernel-level" protections it offers on Windows.

... I view that as a plus though. Games don't belong in the kernel.

Although this is about the GTA iteration that weaned me off Rockstar titles. With all that spam about 'there are new events in gta online' when you're turning on your console, no matter if you run GTA or not.

Is the PC version spamming you all the time too? I imagine they could have inserted system wide notifications in that launcher thingy.

 

[heartburnkid]

Point me to anywhere that Rockstar has said that GTA supported the steam deck, used it in marketing, etc and I would agree with you.

But otherwise, Rockstar never chose to be on the Steam Deck. Valve made that choice for them. Seriously go look at the validation information for the steam deck, it says that not only will valve automatically review some games but if you don't respond within about a week it automatically gets put on your game's page.

It sucks that it broke, but unless Rockstar had previously said that they officially supported running on the Steam Deck, this entire time you were running in a way that they never intended. And they were under no obligation to test that configuration or to keep it working.

So much of this is getting lost in the fact that battleeye works on steamOS but that isn't the root of the problem here. Other games have also broke with updates since it is not an officially supported platform by the developer

If Valve were the ones who made the claims of the game being playable on the Deck, then perhaps they should be offering refunds. The fact of the matter is, this isn't the fault of the customers who bought the game after being told it would work on their device.

 

[tumblrfan69]

I agree with you, maybe I should have been more clear in my post.

Valve is the problem here. They are not properly educating their customers about what "compatibility" means.

But of course that raises a question, Valve should offer a refund but should they be able to take the money away from Rockstar when it isn't rockstar's fault that Valve did this. The money has to come from somewhere for the refund.

(And before anyone says that Rockstar has plenty of money, replace any indie developer that could be in the same situation)

It was never clearly established who is liable when a game no longer works on the Steam Deck if the developer did not say they supported it. Valve put something on the game page to encourage a purchase without informing the user of the risks. Putting aside any feelings on Rockstar as a developer and just thinking generally, the developer is not the one that should be responsible here.

Rockstar added the anticheat. They're responsible.

They're also lying about who needs to do the work to make it work.

 

[Auxint]

It's weird to hear about a game publisher adding draconian anticheat now, to a game I played at launch.

On the PS3, over a decade ago.

 

[chickenboo]

Point me to anywhere that Rockstar has said that GTA supported the steam deck, used it in marketing, etc and I would agree with you.

Their GTA V store page on Steam has a banner on it which says to the effect "This game is a top played game on Steam Deck! Play this game anywhere!" Given Rockstar controls their game's page, my money is that they put that banner there, or that Valve offered it to them and they placed it. Either way, part of their game marketing to Steam Deck users was that GTA V was a top-paid Deck title, and that includes (until last week) GTA Online.

edit to add links: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/...cheat-breaks-online-play-on-steam-deck-linux/

 

[Quark]

Adding a 3rd party product to a prior purchase ABSOLUTELY changes the terms and conditions that end users agreed to at time of purchase.

This is a draconian measure and I hope Epic is immediately buffeted by class action suits that mention this change.

Epic is not the Empire. They don't get to randomly change the terms and conditions AFTER PURCHASE!

I hope players sue the fuck out of Epic, and win.

Why is a post yelling at Epic - not the developer Rockstar - getting so many upvotes?

 

[ninjonxb]

Their GTA V store page on Steam has a banner on it which says to the effect "This game is a top played game on Steam Deck! Play this game anywhere!" Given Rockstar controls their game's page, my money is that they put that banner there, or that Valve offered it to them and they placed it. Either way, part of their game marketing to Steam Deck users was that GTA V was a top-paid Deck title, and that includes (until last week) GTA Online.

edit to add links: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/...cheat-breaks-online-play-on-steam-deck-linux/

Not fully sure if I would take that as a message from Rockstar, that banner is on every game (I did not go through every game but it was on every one I checked) that is on this marketing page: https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck

I would not be surprised if they did not have control over this since they don't have control over removing the verified banner. At least it seems that way looking at the documentation on how verified works.

It is possible though, but ideally I would hope to see a twitter post or some marketing page that clearly states this support.

It is also possible that like the verified badge Valve will put I there anyways if they don't hear back from the developer.

 

[firondraak]

Hell VRChat implemented kernel-level anti-cheat years after release. VRChat.

But VRChat enabled Linux support ASAP. They even officially support the Steam Deck!

 

[adespoton]

BattlEye on Linux operates in a "user-space" mode that's much easier to bypass than the "kernel-level" protections it offers on Windows.

...for now.

After this summer's CrowdStrike debacle, I'm suspecting that Microsoft will, like Apple and the Linux community before it, be working hard to migrate as much as possible, including anti-cheat, out of the kernel space and into userland.

 

[Coolman13355]

I called out the changes to Skullgirls made years later and am calling this change out too. Though I will admit different kinds of changes between the two.

 

[parasyte]

While Rockstar is under no obligation to support a device outside their claimed support, deliberately making a change that breaks compatibility post-sale is still dirty pool and they should be called out on that.

Frankly, they should offer refunds to anyone who primarily plays the game on Steam Deck or under Linux.

at least i've heard people asking for refunds on steam over this have been getting them, so valve is helping people out.