Recently a game called “The Finals” has released and after their beta was over they stopped supporting Linux, and a lot of people are clearly pissed and have sparked a ton of debates within their Discord server but I constantly and constantly see an argument brought up by Windows users in the community saying that they dont want Linux support and argue that enabling Linux support is only going to add more cheaters into the game. (as its a pretty big problem right now even though they’re using EAC.)
I don’t believe it, I haven’t seen any proof of it, but I wanted to ask you guys what your thoughts are on it. And, if you have some sort of source proving whether or not this is the case, please do share.
TL;DR - Yes, and companies should fix this by catching cheaters on the server, not the game client. Client-side cheat detection will always have gaps.
Server-side cheat detection is a lot harder than integrating an off-the-shelf cheat detection engine since it needs game-specific logic and likely more moderators to determine the difference between a cheater and a high performing player. It also requires more server resources, which also has ongoing costs.
Client-side anti-cheat is “good enough” for most studios, so they can get away with it. It’s also often cheaper to not support a niche platform if the missed sales are likely less than the cost of ongoing support (or the opportunity cost of other lucrative projects).
I think that’s really important to understand, especially when it comes to larger games like Fortnite supporting Linux, especially since most of those potential Linux users are likely already playing on Windows, console, or mobile. The profit is low, and the risks make it a hard business choice to defend. It’s still stupid, but it likely makes sense from a business perspective.