2mo ago

Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

www.gamingonlinux.com Steam games will now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

Valve announced a change for Steam today that will make things a lot clearer for everyone, as developers will now need to clearly list the kernel-level anti-cheat used on Steam store pages.

Now if only they could more clearly communicate when games are playable offline.

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169 comments

That’s awesome! GTA V just screwed everyone on Linux! What a rug pull.
- Adding kernel malware after the fact should entitle every single owner who requests one to a full refund no matter how long has passed.
  
  Full agree. I do want some kind of policy for games that introduce anti-cheat both during early access and after release. Bricking a game you paid for should offer some sort of recourse.
  
  I'd really like Valve to take an official policy on post-release changes that break games, but for what it's worth they have not given me any hassle with refunds in these scenarios.
  
  Yup. If it's important enough that devs now have to add a disclaimer on the store page, surely devs shouldn't be allowed to circumvent that by adding it later. Since SteamDeck customers are affected by this the most, it's weird that this isn't already a rule, particularly for games that are SteamDeck verified.
  
  That's a bit much... It's just not possible to guarantee that as a developer
  Software is a living thing, and anything useful is made up of layer after layer of ever shifting sand. We do our best, but we are all at the mercy of our dependencies. There are trade-offs, there are bugs we can do nothing about, and sometimes moving forward means dropping support for platforms that are no longer "cheap" enough to afford while also working on the game
  I love this though. I also like the idea of requiring access to earlier builds.
  These mitigate anti consumer practices - dropping support for a platform is more likely to be a technical trade-off or unintentional consequence though
  
  I do agree with the part where software moves, dependencies yada, yada... I'm a developer myself.
  But.. this is different. They eliminated a perfectly working game, where they didn't have to invest a minute of labor to get it working on Linux. The only thing they had to provide was the .so-file (for EAC) when publishing to Steam.... Valve did all the work to make EAC compatible on Linux, yes, on user-level... but still... it fucking worked.
  Punishing an entire userbase, because other assholes (assumably) used Linux for cheating is discrimination. Even if there were no cheaters at all... it's still discrimination... because it used to fucking work.
  
  Oh no, I totally agree with you that this is gross behavior - I just think your rule is too broad.
  So we need more focused rules and mechanisms. I think disclosing anti-cheat on the store is a good mechanism, I think forcing them to provide previous releases is a good rule. That obviously doesn't cover nearly enough, but in the current gaming environment I think it's a good start
  
  That’s exactly what Valve did. The automated refund system wasn’t available, but you could request a manual review and cite the added anti cheat; Valve was refunding those who did so.
  
  That should be any update if you can’t play the previous one
  
  Valve was giving refund when riot added the anticheat
  
  Are there Riot games on Steam?
  
  They publish their single player games to steam. Don't know about any of their multiplayer ones though.
  
  I believe those are games made by other studios with the League IP and published by Riot. AFAIK there's no reason for them to have anticheat.
  
  I don't think that's fair. I "own" GTA5 and don't really care for the last... 8 years? what they add. I had the full content of my purchase. Why should I be able to gain money for this?
  
  Don't be pieces of shit and you won't owe refunds.
  In a just world people would be going to prison for it.

169 comments