EA Blocks Linux From Apex Legends

[Zema Bus]

This is a channel I often watch.

[Grogan]

I had cancelled my EA subscription (expires sometime this month) and was considering un-cancelling it, but after this, I'm going to tough it out. What's going to happen to me is that I have games where the EA subscription added unwanted cosmetics and shit in my game states that I've never even used, that is going to invalidate my saves. I actually OWN all the games I'm playing on EA... Mass Effect Andromeda I bought on Origin on day one, I rebought Mass Effect Legendary Edition on sale in anticipation of cancelling. I'm likely going to lose my maxed out profiles now that I use for new game+ type playthroughs. I also own Deadspace 3 and wouldn't want to have to collect shit and craft my weapons and upgrade my rig again etc. I'll probably never play that game again. That's how they get you.

A WIndows cheat on Linux isn't likely to work, because they don't use valid APIs, and that's all Wine emulates, not hackish trial and error programming.

They can fuck right off, for this. It sucks that they bought out Bioware, I'd have never dealt with them if they wouldn't have bought the Mass Effect franchise.

[Grogan]

https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/EA

Options gear icon top right... "Ignore this creator"

Then, EA games will no longer show up on the Store page or in your feeds. Fuck them. I did that because the first thing that came up in my face on Steam today was Dragon Age Veilguard and it felt like an insult.

The more I think about this, it doesn't make sense (the math doesn't add up). The real reason is probably more that some EA exec owns shares in Microsoft and Sony.

[Zema Bus]

That possibility did cross my mind.

[Grogan]

First they came for Apex Legends...

I was going to install WRC 2024, the latest rally racing game from Codemasters (of the DiRT franchise), published by EA. Might as well make use of that subscription I renewed, thinking this wouldn't affect me. I don't play multiplayer games, but when the single player and multiplayer clients are one and the same, it's baked in.

Look how this game went from Green, 6 months ago to this shit sandwich... a long list of red Borked entries because EA added their new anticheat shitware to this game.
https://www.protondb.com/app/1849250

I'm glad I checked first, I was expecting it to work because it otherwise would (Codemasters games did, even when they didn't have native Linux ports) before wasting 100 Gb downloading.

What a douchebag thing to do for a rally racing game, that most people probably don't even play online.

[Zema Bus]

EA released a video with a graph showing "meaningful reduction in cheating", though the point in the graph where they started blocking Linux was halfway down an already downward slope.

[Grogan]

Nah, that's bullshit and the numbers wouldn't add up. The real reason is someone on their board of directors is hostile to Linux. Most of their clientele would be dumb enough to believe those disingenuous statistics.

It's coming... there is going to be a push in the U.S. to vilify it because China uses it to make AI tech that rivals and demonetizes theirs. Companies lost billions in stock value just after China released DeepSeek under a MIT license. (yes, I heard that Meta was one of them... it explains that overzealous attempt to ban it by someone at the company)

[Grogan]

EA's anticheat now requires Secure Boot to be enabled so you can't use a modified kernel. My nephew tried to install Battlefield 6 and it refused to run, demanding that Secure Boot be enabled. He said fuck that of course, as he dual boots Linux on his desktop PC, doesn't want that hassle, and understands that Secure Boot is more to protect Windows FROM you.

[Zema Bus]

That's ridiculous, just to play a game. I see they also require TPM 2.0.

[Grogan]

I've been meaning to mention, that I finally have followed through on actually canceling my EA Play Pro subscription and let it expire on the 26th. There is just no point in that for me, as most of anything I'd want to play there that I haven't already, has that anticheat malware that locks Linux out.

The good thing is, the games that I bought out just rolled over to my purchased ones from the Play Pro editions seamlessly without reactivation (or reinstall). When I first logged onto the client after the subscription expired, it presented me a list of all the titles it has removed from my library, including those (the EA Pro Editions). Essentially everything I ever installed through the subscription. However, it didn't remove my games, they just switched over to "owned".

I bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition on sale last year for $5, but ended up not canceling because it was still worth it at the time. I actually have that game on Steam, but I don't like EA games on Steam because I can't control the EA client (thin client mode), or the environment to make the EA client work correctly.

I had to buy Dragon Age The Veilguard, as I have found that to be very endearing. That wasn't on sale, I paid 100 and something for the Deluxe ($71.95 CAD for the regular) to avoid having broken saves. I feel better about that game now, it didn't feel right just "renting" it, because I like it so much. It feels better that it's "mine". They could decide at any time that they are no longer offering that in Play, but owning it is pretty much grandfathered. (they wouldn't get away with snatching away people's owned games). I have seen them remove games from the library (ones I didn't have installed anymore).