You can access the gcc-4.9 compiler in Ubuntu 15.10 as it is currently released, be configuring update-alternatives: After doing this, I was able to compile and run the VMPlayer 12 modules, and I assume that the VMware 11 modules will compile as well. I am running 15.10 daily-build, and it has both gcc-5 and gcc-4.9 installed.
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 60 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.9
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-5 60 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-5
sudo update-alternatives --config gcc