CCP Games drops Linux client support for EVE Online
by James Egan 
Feb 9th 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items, Mac, Linux
One of the nicer aspect to EVE Online, in terms of accessibility, is that you can play it across the trinity of operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. The latter two have been made possible through the CCP Games partnership with TransGaming Technologies, via their Cider and Cedega technology, respectively. Unfortunately, while the Mac client has attracted (and retained) a number of users, the same cannot be said for the EVE Linux client. We received word from affected players over the weekend that CCP is dropping support for the Linux client, but it's official as of this morning. CCP Whisper stated, "I am sorry to announce that from the 10th of March onwards CCP will no longer be officially supporting the Linux operating system. The low amount of users of the Linux client did not justify the degree of additional complexity having three operating systems imposes on our development and release schedules." He states that he and CCP Games are fully aware of the disappointment this will cause but the resources the company has devoted to Linux support could be put to better use elsewhere, in ways that benefit more players.
CCP Whisper closes by thanking the Linux client users for their support, saying, "I am sure this announcement will cause a rather emotional response, and all I can offer as a counter is that this was not an easy decision to make." However, he suggests alternatives for how to run EVE Online on Linux, as documented in a knowledgebase article.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
UltimateQ said on 1:35PM 2-09-2009
That's a little sad, but I agree. If no one or very few people are using it, there is no real reason to support it.
I support Linux, and I think the world would be a better place if we relied on free OS's instead of rather than products like Windows or Mac OS.
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Fess said on 2:28PM 2-09-2009
Ouch.
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NightMiles said on 2:19PM 2-09-2009
Honestly, I don't believe most Linux EVE players will consider this a problem or a reason to stop playing. Playing the straight-up Windows EVE binaries under plain WINE has been a common practice for some time now. Also, since the same technology is used by Cider, if CCP continues working with Transgaming to maintain the Mac OS X user experience, EVE should continue to work just fine under WINE.
The above being said, CCP is definitely making an intelligent move in dropping official Linux support. Those dollars and man-hours can be invested far more wisely.
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Laurie said on 10:35AM 2-10-2009
Mabey they could look at helping the people who support the wine compatibility for EVE in fixing some bugs? I know that setting up eve under wine isn't as simple as just clicking install, but there are a couple of extra files I feel the should include (A .dll and the microsoft core font set are needed to play but don't come with eve)
Jacek Antonelli said on 11:06AM 2-10-2009
Agreed. The Linux client didn't work nearly as well for me as running the Windows client with WINE. (Actually, that may partially explain why so few people used the Linux version in the first place.)
From my perspective, dropping the Linux client is a smart move. I don't think either CCP or most Linux users will miss having it.
Wjowski said on 2:36PM 2-09-2009
Massively stupid. No pun intended.
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crsh said on 12:00AM 2-10-2009
Sad, yes. Stupid, no.
CCP isn't a megacorp, and in case you haven't looked at a paper lately, it's belt-tightening time all 'round.
If not enough use it, and the win32 binaries work just fine in Wine/etc, get rid of it.
Wjowski said on 2:56PM 2-09-2009
Oh? Perhaps you'd care to tell me what Bizarro World business ethic mandates that you cut loose paying customers during one of the worst economic environments this generation's ever seen?
NightMiles said on 3:10PM 2-09-2009
That would best be answered by stating that CCP is a business, and they are in business to make money. If the return on investment in keeping the official Linux client support is in the negative, it only makes business sense to cut your losses and move on.
It's not as if the Linux client will suddenly stop working (if it ever worked in the first place...) and you are certainly welcome to show your displeasure by canceling your account(s). In the end, however, it is helpful to realize that you are still getting the product you paid for, which is permission to connect to and play on EVE's game servers.
I know that I'd much rather see them drop a client used by a tiny minority of EVE players than to recover from the loss of keeping it going by laying off employees or reducing the amount of investment they put into the game itself as a whole.
Karl said on 3:11PM 2-09-2009
Major kudos to CCP for even having and keeping a linux client alive for this long. Sad to see it go.
As far as business model involved, that would be the following one: too expensive to retain the number of customers using it. It costs to develop for that platform, and if that platform doesn't draw enough customers, then it'll get cut.
NightMiles said on 3:12PM 2-09-2009
I suppose I should clarify. Yes, the client will stop working suddenly upon release of any patch after March 10th. However, as of right now you are still up and running.
The Prince of Cats said on 3:50PM 2-09-2009
In all honesty; I have used the Linux client and it is not pretty. It has issues...
Personally, I think Wine is usually enough for any MMO with OpenGL support...
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Cander said on 5:09PM 2-09-2009
"Perhaps you'd care to tell me what Bizarro World business ethic mandates that you cut loose paying customers during one of the worst economic environments this generation's ever seen?"
One that is paying more to support that small subset of customers than they are receiving from those customers?
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ethereal.wolf said on 7:57PM 2-09-2009
really, most of the linux users were running it in wine anyways, and the few that were using the actual linux client can certainly switch over to wine. noone is being left out in the cold here.
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Tateru Nino said on 11:40PM 2-10-2009
The EVE Linux client just hasn't had the necessary time and effort for it to really work properly. It appears it isn't going to get the same attention that the Mac client did.
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