Psyonix will stop supporting Rocket League on Mac and Linux in March, and while it’s offering refunds for the game, players are reportedly not getting reimbursed for microtransactions. Rocket League was just the second game to support full cross-platform play across all of its platforms, after Fortnite. That makes the end of support for Mac and Linux a big deal for players on those platforms, who don’t have as many options as players on consoles and PC.
It’s not the first time that microtransactions have been at the center of a controversy in Rocket League. Last year, a movement against loot boxes picked up steam, leading to discussions about banning that form of microtransactions for being predatory and contributing to gambling addiction. Rocket League’s heavy use of loot boxes to deliver random cosmetic items to players put the game squarely in the crosshairs. Near the end of 2019, Psyonix eliminated loot boxes from Rocket League in favor of “blueprints,” which allowed players to see exactly what they were purchasing, but was again hit with criticism over their high prices.
Mac and Linux players who’ve recently made in-game purchases in Rocket League may now have even more reason to be upset. Psyonix announced the end of Mac and Linux support in an upcoming update, but said that players could request refunds through Steam. Many players on the Rocket League Steam discussion page and subreddit have claimed difficulty getting their refunds processed, though Psyonix says it’s working to correct that. More troubling are the reports that the developer doesn’t plan to refund microtransactions at all. One Reddit user posted a screenshot of a conversation with a Psyonix support worker who says, “the refund is for the base game only.” While Psyonix hasn’t made a public statement about not refunding microtransactions, Steam doesn’t offer a way to get refunds for them, so the developer would need to make such a process available on its end for it to happen.
Psyonix said that Mac and Linux players were being cut off in part because Rocket League is moving away from DirectX9, and adding in support for alternative rendering options on those platforms would be too time-consuming. According to Psyonix, Mac and Linux players make up less than 0.3 percent of Rocket League players. The developer suggested that they use workarounds like Bootcamp on Mac or Wine on Linux to continue playing the Windows version of the game.
While Psyonix’s reasoning for dropping Mac and Linux support may be sound from a business perspective, the frustration from players is understandable. It’s easy to spend much more than the purchase price of Rocket League on microtransactions, and having them disappear feels like flushing money down the drain.
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Rocket League is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux.
Source: Psyonix, CaptainKrisss/Reddit
