It is reported that before the Steam Deck’s launch on 25^th February, Tim Sweeney also declared about the Epic Games that is not going to support Fortnite for Valve’s handling gaming device. In the response to the question by another Twitter user, Sweeney also explained that Epic is also even working hard to develop the compatibility of Easy Anti Cheat’s for the Steam Deck- but only for Fortnite.

Fortnite won't be supported on Steam Deck, confirms Epic Games' Tim Sweeney | Technology News,The Indian Express

It is true that though Fortnite is available on Steam and now the Steam Deck has been designed like an open platform with such meaning of the users that also can install many games outside of Steam’s storefront. It is just like the other large, online multiplayer titles, Fortnite is facing many issues having such anti-cheat software on Steam Deck’s Linux-based OS.

While asking the question as to whether Epic would update Fortnite “to make Proton/Wine be compatible with EAC and battlEye anti-cheat on Linux”. In response, Sweeney answered that there is “ a big effort underway” to develop[ Easy Anti Cheat for other games on the Steam Deck.

Fortnite no, but there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022

When asked the reason about Fortnite had been excluded from that initiative, Sweeney just describes that it had mainly a matter of scale with anti-cheat requirements differing hugely depending on how many regular players a game gets.

We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022

The threat model for anti-cheat varies per game based on the number of active players and ability to gain profit by selling cheats or gain prominence by cheating. Hence anti-cheat which suffices for one game may not for another game with 10, 100, or 1000 times more players.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2022

At the time of replying to the users who were pointed out that Sweeney had not had much trust in his company’s own product, the CEO agreed that they were right,” with regard to anti-cheat on the Linux platform supporting custom kernels and he threat model to a game of Fortnite’s size.” In another reply, he also pointed out that Fortnite’s 60 million active players made it a much separate case to other games using Easy Anti Cheat.

Epic won't update Fortnite to run on the Steam Deck. Tim Sweeney says Linux is 'a terrifically hard audience to serve' : r/pcgaming

There also some payers have given some suggestions that Sweeney is not interested in having the biggest title of Epic on to the hardware of rival and it is more likely that the Steam Deck is also a niche for the Epic to desire to put in the effort to guarantee compatibility. Sweeney asked one of the users, “the market for non-Steam-hosted games unlimited availability Steam Deck hardware is how big exactly?

It is not long after the Steam Deck also originally declared Sweeney was one of its first outspoken fans. In the tweet, he also called the device an “ amazing move” by valve. The open-platform approach of Steam is really praised for the device.

A big thanks for the source.

Read: Agent Neon Visits to Valorant with the new Sparkly trailer