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.
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.
Even if it’s not compatible, “ok then where’s my damn refund?”
Basically theft, really.
You can request a refund. An earlier post last week said they are offering refunds for rug-pulled players.
One important thing to add is that the refund is offered by Valve, not by Rockstar.
I guess Valve being the escrow, they may hold future revenue payout from sale of other R* games
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”.
Well at least that’s good tbf.
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.
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.
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.
Valve is going beyond any point in comparison to any other software company I know.
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.
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.
Articles a joke since it doesn’t mention that the people pissed off are the linux players. Not the cheaters but the linux users.
That’s why one never pisses off a Linux user.
There’s a patch for proton for Battleye. My understanding is that it’s really easy for developers to support Linux with it, but I think they’re using their own engine, so things may be harder. Regardless, that’s bullshit if they added something without considering Linux users.
time for refunds.
Steam has refunded games that added anti-cheat that broke linux playability in the past iirc
They have also denied refunds if a game is running in the background and you have 100 hours while editing a spreadsheet, so tread lightly
I’ve been denied a refund for a game I played for 2 minutes and realized was trash. When I quit it went back to a popped-under splash screen instead of quitting to desktop. I turned off the monitor for the night and the next day when I requested the refund, Steam said I played it for too long and denied my refund.
It was a game under $10 so I didn’t lose much but it was still bullshit.
Not related to the refund at all, but: Why would you turn off the monitor and not the computer? Even when idling it eats way more power than a monitor in standby.
I’d always leave my computer on but turn off the monitor. Usually it would go to sleep or hibernate, but certain programs would keep it awake. Keep in mind this was during the Win 7 era so it wasn’t foolproof and it would just stay on.
Didnt hear about that one, but I do recall some stories of people playing hundreds of hours, dev making a major catastrophic change, and steam still giving the refund.
After having talked to some on the GTA V SCUD, so many think we are in support of the cheaters and are framing our frustration around us just wanting the cheaters back.
Couldn’t we avoid all this by giving players the option to host and moderate their own servers?
Ownership of purchased goods?
Are you crazy???
That would lose a ton of profits!
Tons of the problems of modern day matchmaking could be solved by this, but if players are running their own servers then they can just have their server give them the items they want, which means no more premium currency purchases for R$.
Things like FiveM exist, which is exactly that. I’m not sure if that is at all affected by the anticheat though, I didn’t read the article.
I sure hope not cause GTA Online is trash if you want to do anything other than Free Mode. I got so sick and tired of all the loading screens, disconnects, and empty lobbies.
Even when they apparently “fixed” the loading issue, all it did was speed up the connection to Free Mode. Hosting/joining a mission still takes ages and nobody ever joins any of my games anymore so I gave up and went to FiveM full-time. If that gets shut down by anti-cheat then I’m going back to GTA IV. Cops N’ Crooks is more fun than anything GTA Online has to offer, anyway.
Rockstar has apparently bought FiveM.
I’ve heard rockstar recruited fivem developers
Most of them got kicked from the project
And owns everything now
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
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.
They implemented this 10 years after the game’s release. It’s harder to vote with your wallet at that point.
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.
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.
EULAs are not legally binding documents that allow one to sign away their rights.
What rights?
You’re buying a license to play a game. Rockstar is not obligated to ensure it’s available to you indefinitely.
“What!? You don’t like the erosion of ownership rights? You’re an asshole!” - you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Probably testing it for gta6.
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.
Right, I bought that shit in 2014 I think. Haven’t played it in several years.
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
Where did I even remotely imply otherwise?
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
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.
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.
Name one war which was ever fought on a single battlefield.
Yes, we should be pushing for both regulatory changes and changes on platforms like Steam, but we should also being doing our part.
If there is anything I’ve learned over time it is that nobody is coming to save you. Ever. If you are holding out for someone to swoop in and make things better, you will be waiting forever. Either we do it ourselves, or it doesn’t get done.
The most confusing part about this is that people are still playing GTA Online. Why…?
People enjoy video game, more news at 11
Because it keeps getting updates?
I’m still playing old school RuneScape.
Nobody ever stops playing osrs, we just take breaks
something that perplexes me to this day
Hardcore normies.
Cash cow
That’s disgusting! Where do those criminals gather, so I could go an express my utter disappointment to them directly?
Their mom’s basement, most likely.
I’m not going to condone this, but also… haha.
Sounds like it’s working
Good.
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
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?
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Iam out of the loop. What kind of cheats are available in gta online? Edit: or what was available.
They didn’t enable linux support on the anticheat, so the game no longer runs on Linux/steam deck
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.
Thanks for the insight! Random chromebus with smoketrails sounds fun, thought.
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?
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
None, now.
I’m conflicted here
On one hand, I play GTA Online, and the amount of hackers is getting out of hand. Most are chill, some are extremely annoying and blow up everyone in the lobby with 800 million explosions a second. In this case, I’m annoyed that I can’t play it and glad there’s anti cheat.
On the other hand, I didn’t realize that BattlEye would prevent Linux users from playing entirely. I’m not a Linux user (yet) myself, but that really sucks. Also, rockstar is extremely predatory with the shark cards (it was worse with Red Dead Online!) so they do kinda deserve it as some form of karma for being terrible
Edit: EAC -> BattlEye
On the other hand, I didn’t realize that EAC would prevent Linux users from playing entirely.
For the most part any game that “won’t run on linux” totally would if it wasn’t for the anticheat not working (or being supported) on linux, that’s usually the downfall. For instance Destiny runs fine, but if they see you’re using linux they ban your acct because fuck you that’s why. Tbf, even if the anticheat would work it’s usually kernel level spyware that linux users mostly refuse to run, so eh.
Also battle eye works (same with EAC) on Linux you just need to enable it
I believe it’s BattlEye, not EAC
Yeah it is, my bad! It’s in the body of the post and I forgot lol
At least you can turn it off in singleplayer and still use your mods there. That’s a pretty important consideration imho.
How do those community servers for RP work? Do they require mods? Do they still work?
Pretty sure Rockstar allows community servers to disable the anti-cheat as well, just like single player.
The GTA RP community at this point is a considerable part of why people are still playing GTA.
