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Wine Emulation (Games) Software Entertainment Games Linux

Some Linux Gamers Using Wine/DXVK To Play Blizzard's Overwatch Banned (phoronix.com) 81

Posted by BeauHD from the false-positives dept.
Longtime Slashdot reader DrYak writes: Phoronix is reporting that multiple users who all use Wine and DXVK compatibility layers have seen their Overwatch accounts banned by Blizzard. Previously, Blizzard has stated: "playing on Linux or even a Mac while on an emulated Windows environment is not bannable." But users report on Reddit getting banned simply after testing some rendering options. Tech support has answered that they are escalating the ticket and trying to take a closer look, hoping to avoid this from happening to other Linux users. According to Phoronix, the most common explanation for the bans "is a false-positive from Blizzard's anti-cheat technology having issue with DXVK."
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Some Linux Gamers Using Wine/DXVK To Play Blizzard's Overwatch Banned More

Some Linux Gamers Using Wine/DXVK To Play Blizzard's Overwatch Banned

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  • Ban First, Think About Fixing it Later (Score:3, Informative)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Friday September 14, 2018 @05:58PM (#57316858) Homepage Journal

    A bit bloody arrogant don't you think, Blizzard?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      or.. perhaps there are some settings or reproducible rendering bugs in dxvk that give an unfair advantage to players who use it, and the bans are entirely justified.

      • Segregating would be a good compromise. Let all the DXVK players mingle with each other.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Segregating would be a good compromise. Let all the DXVK players mingle with each other.

          The two or three that are logged in at the same time? :-)

    • Re:Ban First, Think About Fixing it Later (Score:4, Informative)

      by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Friday September 14, 2018 @06:08PM (#57316900)

      Looks like a perfectly normal screwup to me, not a reason for indignation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      I don't play Overwatch - is their anti-cheat technology any good at banning actual cheaters? Or is this its only feature?

      • Never encountered an overt cheater. Then again, I almost never encounter cheaters in any game these days. I think everybody's anti cheat tech is pretty solid.

    • not really, I banned activision from my house due to their treatment of linux.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        not really, I banned activision from my house due to their treatment of linux.

        But you're willing to reconsider and rescind your ban if they provide a reasonable explanation for why their anticheat technology flagged a false negative and fix it, right?

        Of course you're not.

        • I'm willing to rethink the ban if they stop actively trying to undermine linux gaming.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

            I'm willing to rethink the ban if they stop actively trying to undermine linux gaming.

            A false positive is not "actively trying to undermine linux gaming."

            But just so long as you're willing to make same "ban first, think about it later mistake" that you're complaining of, more power to you. Improving the world zero steps at a time.

            • The fact they now have to advertise the fact that playing on linux isn't a bannable offensive kinda suggests its not false positive; and even if it is a false positive, its one false positive among a pile the size of E
              verest of true positives.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                The fact they now have to advertise the fact that playing on linux isn't a bannable offensive kinda suggests its not false positive;

                The fact that they have "advertised" that playing on Linux isn't a bannable offensive rather suggests that it is a false positive, because otherwise there would be masses of Linux gamers who had been banned for using WINE/DVXK long before this. Even TFA calls this a false positive.

                and even if it is a false positive, its one false psitive among a pile the size of Everest of tru

                • No, they started taking action a couple of months after they found out people were playing their games on linux

                  https://eu.battle.net/forums/e... [battle.net]

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                    Umm, there is not one report on that thread of people being banned for using WINE/DXVK.

                    Youre using "taking action" as a euphemism for what, exactly? Failing to provide support?

                    • You clearly miss the point entirely. Activision, for nearly two decades have done everything they could to undermine, damage and thwart gaming on linux. from legal action to firing any developer that dared use it.
                      for example.
                      https://www.gamingonlinux.com/... [gamingonlinux.com]

                      it is definately not a coincidence that a couple of months after someone starts a thread asking "will i be banned for using linux", acti starts hunting down and banning linux users.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                      So you utterly missed the part of your own link that stated:

                      UPDATE: It seems Linux was never a platform to begin with!
                      Quote
                      It's also worth adding a quick note here in case people don't see my clarification later in the thread - Linux was never a platform we were developing for and I simply assumed that it was. Shoot the messenger if you need to, this was entirely a bad assumption on my part.

                      What legal action? What developer firings? All you've done is link to pages that say that Linux is not a supported pl

                    • The one that immediately springs to mind is the various id software court cases. but there are a lot of them, as mentioned in https://www.gamespot.com/artic... [gamespot.com]

                      basically they do everything they can to subvert linux developement, its one of the reasons they have only 3 titles on android vs 10 on ios, when android destoys ios for graphics subsystems.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                      The one that immediately springs to mind is the various id software court cases. but there are a lot of them, as mentioned in https://www.gamespot.com/artic [gamespot.com]...

                      Which mentions a single ID software court case that has to do with share ownership squabbles, with nary a mention of Linux.

                      I keep asking for support, and you keep pretending that you've provided it. Yet no lawsuits, firings, or bans intentionally related to Linux usage can be found.

                      Sad.

                    • It starts with "Once again, a nasty legal battle has pulled back the curtain of secrecy that shrouds major game-industry deals. " i.e. there's been a lot of them. Agreements with microsoft to not let any of their studios produce linux versions, replying to linux support requests that they are breaching terms of service by using their pc games on Linux (that was the point I banned them iirc), just a pile the size of everest of examples, I didn't exactly keep a journal, but as far as I know its well known to

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                      It starts with "Once again, a nasty legal battle has pulled back the curtain of secrecy that shrouds major game-industry deals. " i.e. there's been a lot of them.

                      And then goes on to describe how several founders allegedly screwed another founder out of his share of ownership so that they could make more from a buyout.

                      Money problem, not a Linux problem.

                      Agreements with microsoft to not let any of their studios produce linux versions

                      Link?

                      replying to linux support requests that they are breaching terms of servi

    • you know most banning are done by a bot. so the bot in error probably thought it as a form of cheating. at least that said it was a error and are correcting it.

    • I totally understand, but specifically this combo showing up as a false positive is going to be difficult to get legit users white listed and still have an effective anti-cheat. I do not envy Blizzard programmers at the moment.

  • Sound's reasonable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AlanBDee ( 2261976 ) on Friday September 14, 2018 @06:23PM (#57316976)

    According to Phoronix, the most common explanation for the bans "is a false-positive from Blizzard's anti-cheat technology having issue with DXVK."

    I tell you what, I already had my cane in hand and ready to shake... but then paused long enough to actually read the explanation and this sounds very reasonable. It's obvious by their response that they have nothing against Linux or people using compatibility layers.

  • It's all part of the plan. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Stick with Windows, and everything will be okay." - Microsoft

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  • It sounds like all this could be avoided on Blizzard's part by creating a Linux native port of the game. With all the Linux gaming love coming from Valve/Steam, it seems like as good of a time as any.

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