Why isn't the Epic Games studio releasing the game on Steam for Linux?

Jan 23, 2014 16:51 GMT  ·  By

Unreal Tournament 2004 is a very old game, but it still works today, in Ubuntu 14.04 for example. It's a mystery why Epic Games, which is the developer and the publisher for UT 2004, is not making the smallest effort to release it on Steam for Linux.

If you research ways of making Unreal Tournament 2004 work on modern systems, you might get lucky. Most of the time, you won't be able to make it run, unless you really have the time to follow the myriad of instructions out there.

The only version that is sure to work is the one published on six CDs. It features a simple CLI installer that works flawlessly. The last patch released for Linux is enough to play the game online, and it's just a matter of overwriting the files.

Unreal Tournament 2004 runs natively in Linux and in Ubuntu 14.04 (the system I tested it on). The developers from Epic Games don't have to do anything extra, just to wrap it up for Steam distribution.

Many publishers, like Valve for instance, chose to port and release very old games for the Linux platform. If you already have a game that works perfect on Linux, why would you not make the slightest effort to show some love for the Linux community?