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.

Comments

gaming introduced early compromises

[yagu]

Gaming and computing are two different animals. This is even more true for mult-user computing, a la Unix, OS X, XP, and now Vista. And, some of today's security problems in Microsoft's security model are directly related to and introduced by gaming requirements early on (circa 1992, 1993).

Gaming demands high-end, near-to-the-hardware, unencumbered access. Multi-user computing demands flexibility, equitable distribution of resources, and if properly done, capability of extremely high and granular security.

This puts the two activities at odds in deciding how to implement a "computer" -- probably one of the main reasons hardcore gaming usually is the domain of dedicated consoles and hardware.

In NT's early days (which eventually became Windows 2000 and Windows XP) Microsoft caved to requests for compromised access to "rings" of kernel security to give better (and acceptable) performance for game developers -- most notably there were some passthroughs for video hardware access. I don't know if there were other compromises but I suspect there were. These compromises contributed to security problems (but were not the cause of all of Microsoft's security headaches).

From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista... it should be very hard for limited users to do much more that use the machine. Unfortunately, gaming typically requires access to the machine that, under the covers, is much more than typical and casual access to the innards. This is probably why Microsoft has gotten into the game console market... they finally have hardware/software dedicated to and around gaming.

It's probably a tough pill to swallow for gamers and developers used to being able to pull it off in XP (and previous generation Windows), but it's probably a better security world on whole for general computing and Vista users.

Ok.

[AltGrendel]

Meanwhile, the word has also come down that games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.

I'm sure that will make both of those Zune owners very happy.

Maybe...

[Hubbell]

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.

You're Kidding me?

[zako234]

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.

Re:You're Kidding me?

[Hatta]

I think this guy is full of shit.

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

Wild Tangent?

[Cheeko]

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.

Chilling effect, my ass.

[CDarklock]

First, disclosure: I work on Vista at Microsoft.

The "problems" Alex St. John identifies are essentially that his business model doesn't work so great when people have to click a couple extra buttons and type a password, and that he would really prefer it if children could install his products without parental involvement.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

The real problem here is that the world is changing and WildTangent has to change with it. Yes, that's difficult. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it will cost money they didn't need to spend when they were targeting XP. And yes, they may actually need to give serious consideration to getting ESRB ratings. But these are the natural and normal cost of doing business in the modern world; if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.

The whole article is just a bunch of FUD. Alex is basically claiming that Microsoft is trying to kill his business, because he doesn't know how to do business the way he needs to do it on Vista. He's afraid that consumers won't click two more buttons and enter a password to play his game. He's afraid that parents won't let their children play his games. But the answer to this problem isn't to reduce security, it's to make a better and more compelling game! Weren't you already trying to do that ANYWAY?

Don't get me wrong, I think there are still problems - the ESRB needs to better address the needs of casual game developers who produce fifty $10 games and generate about $200K in annual revenue. The current system is too heavily geared toward console and PC developers who have multi-million dollar budgets. But blaming Microsoft for everything is just a tired old excuse that invariably comes trotting out when someone is too damn lazy to read the direction of the wind and rig his sails accordingly.