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Vista Casts A Pall On PC Gaming?

simoniker writes "In an opinion piece, casual game publisher WildTangent's CEO Alex St. John (himself a Microsoft veteran and one of the DirectX creators) has sharply criticized some of Windows Vista's features as they related to video game creation, noting: 'We have found many of the security changes planned for Vista alarming and likely to present sweeping challenges for PC gaming, especially for online distributed games. The central change that impacts all downloadable applications in Vista is the introduction of Limited User Accounts. LUA's can already be found in Windows XP, but nobody uses them because of the onerous restrictions they place on usability. In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable.'" Meanwhile, the word has also come down that games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.

4 of 425 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe... by Hubbell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's just upset that his company's spyware and crap won't be able to be installed on people's computers without them knowing it anymore? Damn, this might just be an MS Vista advertisement in disguise.

  2. You're Kidding me? by zako234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this guy is full of shit. When I go on the internet, if i know i'm going to download something, I'll be fine pressing "yes" as i'll soon be selecting where it goes so i'm ready for a prompt. If something is going to download without me saying it can, then it can very well get the hell out of my computer. The security dialogs in Vista dont require you to put in a username and password every time you try to acess a flash game on the web, and this article clearly is full of it. Wild Tangent games often appear on my computer when i did not ask for them, and i really hope that the vista security will help me keep their crap off my computer in the future.

    1. Re:You're Kidding me? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think this guy is full of shit.

      You're right. WildTangent is malware. No big surprise he'd be against proper security.

      --
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  3. Wild Tangent? by Cheeko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I may be wrong, but doesn't Wild Tangent have a rep for being pseudo spyware? It certainly gets fladded on my system constantly. I know it comes bundled with AIM and some other applications, so I don't really consider it nefarious, but I still don't think highly of it.

    It doesn't sound surprising to me that a company that sets of security flags as is, would be concerned about new security features. I'd be more interested in what the developers at ID, SOE, or EA have to say about how the features will affect the ability of them to develop games, in particular online offerings.