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Steam On Windows 10 Will Get 'Progressively Worse': Gears of War Developer (ndtv.com)
Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, or UWP, approach isn't sitting well with many game developers. Four months after criticising UWP ecosystem for being a walled-garden, curtailing "users' freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers," Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, the studio behind the Gears of War and Unreal franchises has once again lashed out at the Redmond-based company. He alleges that Microsoft plans to make Steam -- the world's largest PC gaming platform, "progressively worse and more broken." in a move to bolster people's reliance on the Windows Store. From a Gadgets 360 report: "Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They'll never completely break it, but will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seem like an ideal alternative. That's exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they're doing it to Steam. It's only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan but they are certainly trying," Sweeney said. He adds the outcome of this would be forcing every app and game to be sold through the Windows Store alone. "If they can succeed in doing that then it's a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows store. Once we reach that point, the PC has become a closed platform. It won't be that one day they flip a switch that will break your Steam library -- what they're trying to do is a series of sneaky manoeuvres. They make it more and more inconvenient to use the old apps, and, simultaneously, they try to become the only source for the new ones," he claims.
I guess he forgot about the old Microsoft motto: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. It's still alive today, albeit a bit more subtle than it used to be.
Surely not ? Say it ain't so ! Microsoft trying to monopolise something. Who'dda thunk it !
I will hold on to an older version of Windows, either 7 or 8.1, just to be able to play certain games. I wish there was an alternative though because I hate having to deal with all the sneaky updates.
If he really believes that is the intent, now is the time to sue them, claiming they are abusing their monopoly position. That is the heart of his claim.
Yes, most likely he will lose the lawsuit - now.
But in doing so, he will force Microsoft to make an argument about how what they are doing 'now' is not abusive. This will limit their possible actions in the future, as they won't be able to stop doing that without incriminating themselves.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Steam on Linux of course. It's there, it works. The limitations on game availability are gradually being reduced, in contrast to what they're afraid of in Windows. At some point, the trend lines will cross and Linux will become the preferred platform.
Yet another example of Microsoft active in an abusive, monopolistic fashion.
If you want PC gaming to survive, make sure you only buy games that have Linux/macOS support. As the alternatives' market share increases, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD will be compelled to spend more money on their hardware support for non-Windows OSs, and game developers will be wont to make their ports better.
I'll be the old codger who still runs 7 on main and 8 on my laptop for the foreseeable future.
2021, year of the linux desktop confirmed.
lose != loose
Valve is not stupid. They have received a lot of flack for StreamOS and pushing linux as the future platform, particularly since, today, it only offers negatives (specifically, library support is small compared to winblows). But, clearly, Valve has been anticipating this from Microsoft for a long time. Any decent company knows that it isn't terribly wise to be so dependent on a competitor. Microsoft is a competitor of Valve's and the platforms look increasingly similar now that internet distribution is the norm. Vulkan is starting to look very promising. Soon, the only reason I'll need to run windows is for work and to fire up the occasional retro game like GTA San Andreas. Hear, hear, Valve!
couldn't do it without tv wmd on credit religious franchise never ending depopulational holycost is in full swing... cease fire stand down,, spirit of creation disallows murder & mayhem totally bogus representation of most of us...
it's that guy opinion, not based on anything. windows store has a fraction of the market, with steam, origin, uplay, etc around. the best way of running windows 10 is to use the LTSB version which doesn't have all that UWP crap.
Be or ben't
One of the things which turned me off to Steam was how they overwrote secure directory perms, to make it so that all users could modify folder, which only Administrators should be able to modify. Sorry Steam, you're insecure.
I don't see any proof. If you want your app to be distributed as UWP then ya you have to buy into the ecosystem but I don't see anything prohibiting anyone from distributing outside of that. I'm a Windows software developer. My stuff is scientific but it verges on many of the same requirements and features as a piece of game software. All of my stuff has been directly compatible from 7, to 8, to 10 and I see no signs of anything that will make my software cease functioning.
So I don't know where this grief is coming from other than to have a nice sound byte for MS bashing. More details would have been genuinely helpful instead of alluding to some conspiracy theory or cabal.
All my old games, my old windows software, I couldn't get it to work under Windows 7.
Thankfully it's all old enough that it works perfectly under WINE on Macs or Linux. Is anybody porting WINE to Windows?
Still steaming along in XP.
... that a x86 console with Windows was not necessary at least of course MS can obtain monopoly with that?
How will Microsoft pull this off? Steam downloads and installs applications. Is MS going to make downloading things outside of the Win Store difficult? Make installing applications difficult? I don't see either of things things flying with anyone who sells software meant to run on windows.
because steam is so open and friendly... what's the difference?
I think some suits up at Microsoft finally had another meeting on the Apple Store 30% revenue for every transaction and are now starting to deploy phase one of total Apple-like integration using their own Store. Next Year all Microsoft Store. Year after, some random % markup of products After that, who knows, maybe they will just Buy Steam and rebrand it as Skype for Steam 2.0 or something.
I'd like to know what evidence there is to support this, rather than words on a page ranting about perception. Not that I don't agree caution, it's one thing to make big noise and proclaim persecution when none exists. Show the evidence and remove doubt about Microsoft's intention.
Is there a windows store for the desktop version of windows 10?? I did not even know that. Does it also Work with Windows 7/8?
I love some M$ hate as much as the next person but I have noticed zero issues with Steam on Windows 10 and have seen no evidence whatsoever of Microsoft making a move to lock down the platform. In fact if anything they keep opening it up. I mean for fucks sakes they just allowed the use of linux binaries, that is hardly the move of a company on track to restrict what software can be installed.
I think that this doomsday scenario is "probably unlikely".
Not because I think that Microsoft is nice or anything (I'm not that naive). No. This very much depends on how "not-bad" the Windows store ends up being.
Their last attempt to control the PC platform, using games as a trojan horse, was with Games For Windows Live. It was vehemently rejected and abandoned because it was just crap.
If the Windows store ends up being crap (which, to me, seems likely), people will stay away from it, and will suffer whatever issues pop-up just to use Steam. If the store ends up being "not-bad" enough, then Steam is in trouble because the doomsday scenario becomes very likely.
Let's wait and see. Remember that Ubisoft and EA have tried pushing their own "store" platform (Ubiplay and Origin), and both have so far failed to divert significant numbers of people away from Steam.
Steam, it seems, is here to stay, for the foreseeable future.
Maybe Microsoft actively pushing Steam away is what it takes for to encourage Valve to push on with SteamOS, and games developers to finally get a clue about the need to also make Linux versions of their games.
Every Sidekick or Hip top fan can remember how they destroyed and killed the Sidekick.. Along with a ton of people's information... Accidentally...
I was under the impression that a lot of things on Windows 10 would get progressively worse, especially after the end of the free upgrade period.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Does that mean Apple's motto is IEEE?
.
Microsoft needs a Windows10-only world in order for its strategy to succeed.
Microsoft knows it will not succeed through competing, so it has to try to succeed through control
Yes there is. But no, they have not crippled Steam in any way, and have not announced any plans to implement any restrictions in the future.
"Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, the studio behind the Gears of War and Unreal franchises has once again lashed out at the Redmond-based company. "
I've been an Unreal fan since the original Unreal Tournament.
WTF?
Unreal stared out Linux friendly. I got GOTY working with Linux, I got the original Unreal working with some patches, 2003 was Linux compatible from the start as was 2004, then Microsoft made some maps for 2004. Unreal 2 wasn't Linux compatible, UT3 was GOING to be Linux compatible, I even bought my copy under the belief a patch/installer would happen, and it never did (you owe me a refund fucker). To top it off all the OLD Unreal games that came out as Linux compatible are only available for WIndows on Steam and other game distribution networks. I have a Mac OSX version of 2004 and it still works on modern OSX, but you don't even offer Mac versions on those networks, just WIndows.
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HELPING THE ENEMY?
Your company, of all the companies around, have one of the best track records of working with cross platform compatibility until UT2004, then you pull the plug and even shit all over your old games by making them Microsoft only to newcomers despite the fact you're pissed at Microsoft?
It's like walking into a dark alley, have some guy try to mug you with his fist and saying "Right oh, that will never do, if you wanna mug someone you gotta have a weapon, here take this knife so you can rob me propper!" You're a living Monty Python skit, saying one thing and doing another.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
If they really want to make the Microsoft store a better choice than Steam (or, hell, ANYTHING), they really have a lot of hard work ahead of them.
Hell, at this point, even buying a Mac and swallowing the Apple store instead is a more viable alternative for any gamer than to accept the train wreck the MS store is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He says that they've started doing this by adding new features to Windows which are only available to software distributed through UWP. This is certainly in line with how Microsoft has operated in the past, but what are these new features which are so important to new games? I'm struggling to imagine anything other than DRM and social networking integration that MS can mess with too much before they just block third party software altogether.
Tell us another one as you vainly attempt to remain relevant with your one trick pony studio.
You lucky, lucky SOB.
Do yourself a favor and stay ignorant of this DOA train wreck. Seriously, even EA's Origin is more usable, and that's saying a lot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The only reason to game on a PC is abundance of choices of indie games and places to get them from. The only reason remaining to buy a PC is gaming. If consoles remain locked down, they will eventually be eaten by Android boxes/sticks because of low entry price point. Microsoft is killing the very reason why Windows was dominant for a long time.
Age of Empires, which is a Microsoft game no longer in distribution. My old CD's for it are long gone. I've noticed over the past few month's that running the game has become problematic. Being that the machine is a Win10 I created from components, I suspect the premise of the article to be correct - MSFT is compelling my machine to not run Steam well. It might be time to convert the whole thing to Ubuntu or Fedora.
Didn't realize that Microsoft was directing game developers to only make stupid Minecraft clones and "survival" games
Ten years ago, it was relatively straightforward to install Linux in one bootable partition, install Windows in another, and share data partitions between them.
Try that now, and you'll be forced to wait somewhere between 20 seconds and a week every time you boot into Windows after writing to a NTFS partition. Every. Single. Goddamn. Time.
It's gotten so bad, I know people who've set up a NAS just to keep Linux and Windows from directly touching each other's files.
The fucked up licensing for exFAT is another example of Microsoft making it intentionally hard for Linux and Windows to directly share hard drives. It's damn near impossible to get proper exFAT support under Linux, using ext2fsd under Windows is slightly brittle, FAT32's inability to deal with large files has gotten too annoying, and Windows goes full-on psychotic whenever it notices that someone else has been touching a NTFS filesystem it regards as its sole property.
The NTFS problem is particularly frustrating, because it's the only modern filesystem we have LEFT that works under both Linux and Windows. Unfortunately, Windows enforces limits on NTFS filesystems that go above and beyond the limits imposed by NTFS itself. It's absolutely possible to get a NTFS filesystem into a state that's completely legit as far as NTFS is concerned, but Windows won't touch with a 40 foot pole.
I've personally been living dangerously and using ext2 via ext2fsd, but when you do that, it's REALLY easy to accidentally mangle or delete files by mistake... especially if you go a step further and try to selectively move certain special directories, like "my documents" and "my pictures", to the ext2 volume. Moving personal special directories is semi-undocumented black magic to begin with, and it doesn't take much to end up in Windows Permissions Hell (where not even a user with admin rights can touch a file, and attempts to recursively take ownership of files in a directory STILL fails because Microsoft decided to treat unknown ownership GUIDs and permissions as "deny everyone, INCLUDING administrator".
God, I miss the days when being a local admin was as good as being root under Linux. Under recent versions of Windows, admins are more like Orwellian "outer party" members who can do slightly more than proles, at the cost of having their every move watched and second-guessed by the inner party. Microsoft needs to add a third option to their "access denied, contact your administrator" that says "I *am* the Administrator!"
Sue them under anti-trust laws.
Table-ized A.I.
Is there a windows store for the desktop version of windows 10?
Yes.
I did not even know that. Does it also Work with Windows 7/8?
It was released with Windows 8.
It only carries the new 'modern ui' apps. There are a variety of technologies in place to make the apps more self contained (more sandboxed); as well as let you potentially deliver the same app to Windows Desktop, tablet, and phone, (and xbox) consumers in one transaction.
Its not all bad. The original 'metro' was far too "phone/tablet" and lousy for desktop. The only one I personally use is Netflix.
Its gotten better, the apps will run in windows now ("small w" windows ie not full screen), and they added title bars and so on to the desktop version but I still have zero desire to use it for games or anything paid.
Myself, I like steam and gog. Both steam and gog are cross-platform (mac+windows+linux); which I actually value a lot vs (winphone+windesktop+xbox) which I do not value at all.
I could see the Windows store coming to replace random download sites for a lot of things, and that would be a good thing for the user experience and for safety + security. (e.g. it would be a good source for stuff like CPU-Z, qbittorrent, Acrobat Reader, Dropbox... etc etc... ) Having all that in the windows store would be good for the windows platform -- updates could be centralized instead of each doing their own.
The trouble with that is right now none of those apps will actually currently work if delivered by the windows store; due to the restrictions and sandboxing etc. CPU-Z I think needs admin rights to get the CPU information it reports, which store apps can't have. Dropbox needs shell integration which store apps cant' have. qbitttorrent... not sure if the windows store can distribute GPL stuff due to GPL license rules on making source available via the distributor...Maybe it is? And acrobat reader installs browser plugins etc which the again... app store apps can't do.
So... its a neat concept, that needs to happen but the chasm between what an app store app can do, and what windows desktop users need is still too wide.
This is why MS is focussed on games -- games are generally pretty self contained, and they are hoping to tie it together with xbox which makes sense, and may be of some value to xbox owners... to be able to play chunks of their xbox library at home or on their laptop...
The point being... a good app store run by microsoft would be good for the windows ecosystem. However, if Microsoft tries to squeeze out the other app stores, that would be a bad thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
That will be my last reason for using windows gone.
Hurry up MS, I can't wait.
""Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run"
Every new version of Windows used to Break Lotus 132 until they could issue a patch, and slowly Excel replaced 123 as the leader in spreadsheets.
I hate Windows 10 more than most (look at my post history), but they're not fucking up Steam or any other general program and they're not going to.
What, specifically, is Windows 10 doing now that supports these claims? Steam (the client) is a buggy all on its own, and it has been since its inception. It's no longer worthy of the "Steaming piece of shit" nickname, but it's still pretty sloppy, ugly, and slow and if you ever have problems with the client not properly downloading/verifying game files, not properly syncing your library, crashing, or just not working, good fucking luck. Valve's "support" is 2 rounds of automatic responses from a robot and then silence.
Further, Tim Sweeney is an ass. Why should we listening to him? And why is he moaning about this shit now? Valve stopped crying about it years ago. They were afraid that Windows 8 would result in people using the MS store so they cried and whinged to anyone who would listen about MS is locking down the PC, how the Windows store will be the only store, etc. Oh, and Steam just so happened to have a half-baked plan to stop them - SteamOS with big picture mode! And Steam-branded PCs that make PC gaming as easy as console gaming, at triple the price!! And a half-baked controller was coming soon!!!
I don't know if Valve stopped crying about Windows because it's been years and no one left Steam to use the Windows Store, or if they are quietly giving up on the push for Steam OS after realizing how much work maintaining an OS is and how few games are going to use OpenGL or Vulkan, or if people stopped listening to their FUD after years of 8/8.1/10 with zero lockdown.
What about GoG? Does it rely on violating security to install/run games, or do they do something different?
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
For starters f**k steam. They have the exact same goal Microsoft dreams of.
And f**k Microsoft with it's perpetual bullshit. Developers and end users are sick of being prevented from using the latest version of Direct X just because not everyone runs the latest version of Windows. As a result Microsoft's stack is on track to be ignored and left behind. Vulkan is going to win over DX12 leaving future Direct X a moot point.
Regardless it shouldn't be hard to sell software directly with numerous ecommerce packages and services available. It shouldn't be hard to get your title out to distributors.
What we have increasingly with Steam is the same problem with any successful App Store.
1. Many titles are only available via Steam. If you want to buy somewhere else your fucked.
2. Too many end users only know Steam and won't look elsewhere even if alternatives exist.
3. Nothing you buy is able to operate independent of where you bought it.
The end result is lockin the very same lockin Microsoft dreams of imposing within Windows. I don't give a shit whether it is Steam or Microsoft or Google or Apple... this bullshit is completely unnecessary.
Ultimately lockin is bad for customers and developers alike as the App store monopoly inevitably leverages itself extracting more and more value from an increasingly captive audience with nothing real to show for it in return save the bank accounts of the few "winners" at the top.
Let me start out with a hearty "FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!"... Sounds like Valve needs to speed up Steam/Linux development.. I supported/used Windows from 1991 to 2010, and when I retired in 2010, I decided I was sick and tired of MS's stupidity.. So all of my systems are happy on Linux, and for the Steam games I play, the Linux Steam client works 100%.. Oh sure, theres a couple of newer games on Steam I'd love to play BUT there is NO WAY in HELL I'd go back to Windows just to be able to play them....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Steam is the one reason I use Windows. So if this is true, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Steam games run in a VM. That way any intel based OS can use STEAM.
Suddenly all games are for Windows,OSX,Linux.
BOOM! I just increased your profit margins and solved your problem..
You can send me royalty checks later.
same as always
I don't like your anti-competitive potential, but I have no real examples of said behavior.. it's just a feeling. Funny, I've felt the same way about Steam. It's not actually Microsoft's fault that Steam's Linux box is a decade away. It's not MS's fault they are the only ones making easy to integrate high end IDE's. It's not MS's fault that no other company has invested anywhere near as much into code development and likely the PC platform in general.. you know the productive one that has made the real difference in our lives, not the silly fisher price smartphone version. The problem with PC gaming is that people spend money on inferior mobile games because mobile is all the rage right now. Mobile has plenty of potential, but people are realizing it's limits a bit more and moving back to more practical positions where they want smartphones to be PDAs and desktops and laptops to be integrated into their mobile platform. MS didn't make smartphone sales drop off. That's consumers. MS didn't make PC gaming sales drop off. Consumers like the cheaper more reliable consoles. At least now your PC has something similar to a factory reset button. Once that process is perfected maybe we'll see PC gaming improve as the cost of PCs are lower and Windows 10 provides lower administrative costs for home and SOHO consumers. I probably slightly increases costs for medium sized businesses with real domains and group policy, but any OS upgrade does that, especially since most users are way back on 7. Win10 may not offer much for corporate customers, but it's awesome for everyone else and MS is currently extremely active in it's development. This is about as exciting as Windows has been since Windows 95. I don't know why Google doesn't think integrating into the desktop is important. I think they are betting it all on mobile dominance which the numbers don't exactly support. The problem is that leaves a solid opening for MS to eventually offer a superior mobile platform. Google's desktop offerings are all very weak for the sake of a unified experience 1.0. Google needs Unified Experience 2.0 because Win10 and Outlook.com just look better. Win10 on an Atom tablet with Chrome just destroys Chrome on an ARM. Win10 appears to multitask much better, no idea if that is an OS problem or a Chrome problem. Atom probably uses more battery, but not so much it matters on a tablet. On a phone it would matter, at least for now. Sooo since all apps are not magically going to get optimized for ARM overnight. Intel is clearly pointed it's R&D machine at mobile computing and exciting stuff will happen if only because of the combined money of Intel and MS. There isn't anything in computing that is realistically going to stop those two. Intel HAS to get into mobile and MS has easily the best core platform. MS just needs a tad bit more usability, their on-screen keyboard is probably the single weakest link and it appears they've fixed that on the Phone platform. Sadly without tons of revenue pouring in like the inferior Android personal data mining tablets have brought, MS hasn't focused as much as they should. Things like the RCA Cambio are just awesome buys. It's a 2 gig ram 32 gig full Win10 platform all in one touchscreen with a good battery life and great performance and it's like 100 bucks right now. Even just on hardware it blows away any deal you get with Android. RISC is awesome, but apps just aren't honestly optimized for it well. Intel will eventually eat up anything ARM has produced as battery technology makes the need for RISC once again vanish. Sorry efficiency lovers, I feel your pain, but the market will go that way. Google has not created a desktop environment capable of competing with MS. Desktop environments are still the most productive and most necessary. MS will continue to leverage Google's lack of a productive OS and true productivity apps basically because Google refuses to take computing seriously and instead things big colorful minimalistic interfaces are awesome. They are for simplistic devices, but it's just not workin
DirectX 13, Windows 10 and UWP apps only. Easy. Just devote no resources to the win32 api, declare it 'legacy' for gaming and unsupported. Now every games publisher will have to develop using the new API, which also means no running the game on Windows 7 so MS can kill off their stubbonly-refuses-to-die OS. It won't hurt Steam directly, but once you have publishers having to use UWP anyway you are half-way to getting them to sell in the Microsoft store.
Where's the proof though? It seems this is just Tim in dire need of a tinfoil hat. I guess we'll see in five years, but it will be hard to prove if the bugs are actually caused by the steam devs themselves (which is the most likely outcome).
In the grub menu to Linux. Problem solved.
Fuck off dickheads
John Carmack a few years back was a proponent of WINE for Linux gaming. The WinXP/xbox 360 DirectX 9 cross build system was popular for several years. WinXP is no longer receiving changes. I figured the winXP & DirectX 9 API would make a suitable target for a specific Linux & WINE distro.... Or maybe it could be windows Vista & DirectX 9, or Windows 7 & DirectX 9.
Good thing he's fighting the good fight and making Gears of War 4 on multiple platforms to keep competition alive! Oh wait, it's an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive. I think Epic's problem is they made a deal with the devil now they're surprised when it's time to pay up.
Linux is a far better, far more compatible, and far more user friendly platform. Every time I have to test anything on Windows, it is a thoroughly grating experience.
Why not just give Microsoft's telephone number when things stop working, and let users complain directly to Microsoft. You break it, you fix it. It's not our responsibility as developers to work around the ineptitude of Microsoft. I don't believe the conspiracy theories that it is an attempt to force users to use Windows Store. I have never even seen it - to me it seems that it's a dead project already. Microsoft just lacks the competence to develop good software, or to achieve minimal quality standards. Having developed many big HPC programs that also ship for Windows, I have developed a poor impression of the platform. It has a dismal filesystem, poor memory manager, and staggers miserably under load. The APIs are terrible, the technologies come and go before you finish anything, Visual Studio is slow, has rotten C++ code completion, and a useless code model - probably stemming from lack of a proper AST. Totally unusable for developing any real world large application.
Even trying to find basic system settings, or get enough software installed to do basic things is a serious chore. Having come from a Windows background many years ago, Windows 10 seems like a huge step backwards. Basic settings are buried under layers of illogically laid out control panels. The ribbon tool bars are a torture of multiple clicks. Windows 8 onwards are the first versions of Windows, where I use only the command prompt to do everything, simply because the GUI has become so utterly abysmal, and even with the terrible console and dismal native shells. What happened to being able to find things in menus, and not have to click multiple times to get to them. The user interface is now rubbish by any standard. While Linux is hardly a shining example of usability design, it is at least light years ahead of Windows, and considerably more functional than an Apple, and of much better quality than both.
and now Steam won't run, either.
I expect that there is an email somewhere in MS that says exactly that. After all, it worked for Lotus Notes didn't it?
This will end badly.
"DOS isn't done until Lotus doesn't run."
If you don't like a company or their product then don't give them money or use their product.
.dll downloads. No longer do my eyes scream in agony at stark white dialog boxes in a darkened room.
I'm happy to say that Linux (specifically Ubuntu and Mint) has never been better in terms of hardware support and software compatibility.
Steams runs flawlessly for me on Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 even using a weird and little known window manager. Over 80% of my games run just fine:
XCOM and XCOM 2
Alien: Isolation
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
Empire and Atilla Total War
All the Valve games
Indie games: Hyper Light Drifter, Serpent in the Staglands, Broforce, Darwinia, Frozen Synapse and others
Wargame: AirLand Battle
Kerbal Space Program
Age of Wonders III
Antichamber
Metro 2033 and Last Light
Planetary Annihilation
The Talos Principle
Torchlight II
Wasteland 2
The Witcher 2
And that's just the games that I've bought and played. New ones are coming out every week-- more than I have time or desire for.
Everything I could want or need installs through a package manager-- yes an actual package manager like windows should have had twenty years ago-- for free.
I have access to every programming language known to man, more text editors than I can list, more IDEs, more compilers, more everything and all trivially installable for free.
I can trivially download themes for all my applications with a huge variety of colors and styles or even create my own without any bullshit hacks or fly-by-night
I can update or upgrade my system when I want rather than when Microsoft wants.
I can pick from and install any combination of dozens of desktop environments whenever I want. Try 'em, don't like 'em? Uninstall and try another one!
And they all support customization to an extent that will inspire awe in the average Windows user-- yes, you can set a hot-key for that! Yes, you can move the close button to the left or the right or the center or even remove it altogether! Yes, you can script a widget that will alert you when it's time to take the dog for a walk, or even download one that someone else already wrote! And on and on.
Oh wait, did I mention that all of this is FREE? Free as in cost and free as in freedom.
No longer do I worry what data Microsoft is gathering about me; no longer and I simply an advertising mark.
No longer do I pay stupid amounts of money for a dongle from Apple or for a replacement disc from Microsoft.
No longer do I sign up for a {$software->manufacturer} account just to use my computer.
No longer do I pay for the privilege of using my own computer and operating system for as long as Microsoft will deign to allow me to.
Microsoft continues to screw you over and over and over again and you still use their OS???? Isn't that the definition of insanity?
Come home, slashdotters. Come home.
For one, they haven't done anything yet. This is Tim Sweeny doomsaying. Now maybe his predictions will be accurate but they are false right now. Presently, Steam works excellent in Windows 10. You download it, install it, and it just works as it does on any other platform. They have done nothing to stop it from working.
You can't scream about "abuse" when nothing has happened. That is like claiming someone robbed you when they didn't actually take anything from you or even say anything to you they just "look sketchy, like they might rob you."
Second, all the monopoly stuff has gone out the windows with Apple around now. You can't argue MS is a monopoly in the desktop arena with Apple selling tons of their products. Macbooks are trendy as hell and all kinds of people buy them. Having a major, viable, competitor defacto makes someone not a monopoly. Same deal in servers to an even larger extent as Linux is huge in the server market. And in phones? Shit MS is hardly a player.
They aren't in a monopoly position anymore, so anti-monopoly arguments don't work.
...and I didn't realize that Microsoft's war on Steam was so thorough and insidious that it was affecting the Mac version since version one.
...or that it crippled Valve's ability to make a useful, reliable interface for its Steam controller in Windows.
...or that it sabotaged SteamOS right out of the gate.
...or... well, you're getting the idea.
By way of public fire.
Microsoft did this to Novell very well. And Lotus 1-2-3. They didn't have to do it to LANtastic, that died around Windows 7 days from neglect.
Admittedly, they may be out of practice, though I'm pretty sure there was some work done 'to' Quickbooks until Microsoft realized they could both never compete, and more importantly never make money in that industry...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Maybe it'll end up being true, but so far there is zero evidence. The only thing so far they've done that would in any way limit Steam is that their universal applications (what used to be called Metro) are Windows Store only. So you can't sell those on Steam. Ok, except nobody but MS makes those because nobody gives a shit. The "universal" part doesn't matter, MS's phones and tablets are in their final dying moments so there's no need to make something that runs both on real Windows and Windows RT/Phone.
At this point Win32/64 programs run better and have less limitations, and also have the advantage of running on all versions of Windows not just 10, so that is what people keep making. MS themselves are releasing their games using their new UWP format, of course, but nobody else seems to give a shit.
So it is a meaningless limitation for now. Programs using an API nobody uses won't work with Steam. Who cares? Other than that, nothing has changed or been limited. Steam runs great on Windows 10.
Will something change in the future? We'll have to wait and see. There's no evidence now though, because it hasn't happened. This is a doomsday prediction, and like most doomsday predictions it is based on what the predictor feels to be true, not actual evidence.
Care to elaborate?
The whole concept of "store" in Windows 10/UWP and Android is a pain. The default Microsoft/Google store gets trusted by default. On Android (at least on my phone) you can't set up the Amazon store and delegate trust to it (i.e. anything that Amazon says is Ok is Ok with me). You have to disable security to install apps from Amazon, which isn't great. Microsoft is doing the same thing, including the awkward side-loading option.
Windows store does have an "enterprise" option if you are going to use UWP for internal enterprise apps, but you still have to have Microsoft review, which also isn't great.
In my preferred universe, Microsoft and Google (and Apple, for that matter) would allow me to set up trust to any application source (store) I want (including, of source, Steam). If the current model of application protection were applied to browsers, every website would have to get SSL certificates issues individually for each OS, because there would be no mechanism to delegate trust to Verisign, Thwate, Entrust, etc. Users (and enterprises) should be able to manage trust for non-OS related applications and files, which means that we need a mechanism to trust third-party stores.
I am having problems with the whole 'embrace/extend/extinguish' as a business plan. Here is the problem:
This is essentially behaving as a predatory monopoly. If anyone ever was to come forward and testify that this was the actual marching orders for a government, MS would get wrecked. While they have vast resources at their disposal, a few irate senators and judges have the power of the entire government.
Now, if this was a small company, they might be able to keep a lid on such designs, but this is a large, multinational company that has been around for the past thirty plus years. If you are telling me that they have the operational security to keep this plan hushed up for that long, with that many people involved, they are better at keeping secrets than every spy agency on the planet.
Remember, just ONE person who has knowledge of these plans has to go blab to ruin everything. It looks to me that MS is mostly blundering around like a drunk bull in a china shop, occasionally wrecking a former partner who happened to be in their path. These people aren't the cylons, they certainty dont have a plan...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As a young person studying computer science, I watched Microsoft use crooked business practices to foist its empirically inferior software on the masses. In many cases, they wrote their OS to cause competing software to crash or perform poorly. I did work on Windows 95, 97, and 2000, so I know first hand how bad they were. And yet MS became dominant. Why? Largely because they wouldn't allow any computer makers to sell Windows and any competing software at the same time. In the end, you were either an MS shop or an Apple retailer. The end result was that the computing industry was held back approximately a decade in terms of OS technology. As direct evidence for this, I present the fact that NeXT existed in 1987, almost a decade before Windows 95. NeXT was already a full and modern OS, and indeed forms the basis for Mac OSX. Think about that: The important parts of OSX, a fairly decent modern OS existed nearly a decade before the turd that is Windows 95.
I am not a fanboy. I use Linux and OSX, and I freely admit that neither are perfect. OSX is retreating back to being an iOS black box, while Linux is sometimes irritating. But I will never move back to Microsoft. I saw what they did. I know that they have made the quality of the technology we all use poorer through their monopolistic practices. The parent article only confirms for me that Microsoft has not changed.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I tried contacting the "7 days to Die" for support because the game kept crashing but only got a deaf ear. I will never buy another steam game again unless it is free because it simply is not worth it (especially poor support from the game developer).
Then perhaps they should sue Microsoft regarding this anti-competitive behavior, so they can start deposing Microsoft employees under oath.
OTOH, since we're no longer a nation of laws, it's possible that even if Valve had Microsoft dead-to-rights, perhaps ${USPresident} would somehow intervene and protect Microsoft. Again.
I guess he forgot about the old Microsoft motto: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. It's still alive today, albeit a bit more subtle than it used to be.
The industry as a whole seems to have forgotten the events of 15-20 years ago (as is common in human society).
If it hadn't, we wouldn't have let systemd do the exact same thing with regards to compatibility with non-systemd distributions, let alone other Unices.
"Sure, all you have to do is add a hard dependency on our library!"
"They way you've been doing for 30 years is incorrect, here make a chance that will force mindshare onto your entire userbase."
"Distributions CAN use something other than the defaults, but we want them to use the defaults and there's no guarantee that not using the defaults will ever continue to work."
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Think about it this way, if Microsoft intentionally tries to sabotage steam on Windows it may make people consider switching to Linux to play their steam library, which in turn would force more game developers to target the Linux platform. Then IF steam on Linux gained enough momentum, It might force Microsoft to backtrack on their decision, keeping them honest. But maybe at that point the people who made the switch to Linux might just stay there. That's a lot of ifs but it could happen...
This is my sig, there are many like it but this one is mine
Only UWP will receive API updates(including DirectX), Win32 will stagnate and eventually be unsupported, rendering your back catalog useless, and the ties to Windows integration and MS services embedded in UWP will seek to usurp any Steam equivalents, and perhaps even cause incompatibilities and require workarounds for Steam, giving steam users and devs additional headaches compared to running the Windows Store Xbox Live versions
Twinstiq, game news
Anything they say about Microsoft other than "THIS FUCKING COMPANY is a US spy shop" can suck a fat dick.
So that the full control can be pulled from Microsoft. This is hyper important for the future.
Others projects (like Wine) must be legally able to implement a perfectly reliable implementation of the Windows API.
We have an OS working to compete with MS in the games arena (SteamOS).
We have an open source API set to compete with Direct X (Vulkan)
We have game developers in AAA studios who see the writing on the walls.
And now we have a time frame to get all of this sorted out (5 years, per TFS). SteamOS and Vulkan aren't going to overtake MS overnight, and game studios can't just drop Windows development.
But in 5 years ...
This signature is false.
Store censorship can be come a big issue apple has issues with that.
Just think if there was no Leisure Suit Larry do it being banned in the app store for being adult. But at the same time they are ok with the stuff on HBO / MAX / SHOW / ETC.
That a self-grandizing twat from Epic games that regularly spews diarrhea from his mouth - somehow prevents even a modicum of reasoning from the Slashdot masses without devolving to M$ Sukz. Jeebus the Halloween Papers? Really?
I haven't used windows 10 yet, but from the moment I installed windows 8 it felt like I was looking at a store front, starting with making it difficult not create a Microsoft account. Having to go to a shop to install an upgrade.
I want my computer to belong to me and not a vehicle for a company to advertise to me or my children. The mac is better they have a store but it isn't so in your face.
So... did anybody actually RTFA? (Yeah, yeah, not new here, whatever.) You need some kind of grounds to sue. I checked TFA; it contains exactly one more concrete claim, and exactly as much evidence to support the allegations, as TFS.
Concrete claim:
Leaving aside the fact that you can (fully supported) sideload UWP apps, I don't even see what this has to do with Steam. Adding new features to a platform that Steam doesn't use will not impact Steam at all! The author doesn't ever even imply, much less actually claim, that Microsoft is specifically removing or modifying anything that will impact Steam.
Evidence to support the allegation: Nothing at all. I mean, maybe the author has some (in which case it would presumably come out at trial), but TFA doesn't even claim to have evidence, much less present any. Not one single point. This entire article is no more credible than idle speculation!
As far as I can tell, Steam runs about as well as it ever has (which is to say, much better than it used to in the Win7 days) on Win10, Look at that: I just made a more-concrete claim about Steam on Win10 than anything in the entire article.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
The Linux game library needs a leg up. It can get this by having more open source developers work on reverse engineering/reimplmenting Windows games on Linux. Projects like OpenMW could be extended to add support for Oblivion/Skyrim and Fallout 3/New Vegas/Fallout 4. Major developers are still holding off porting a lot of AAA titles. There needs to be more games built by the community and more awareness made of the games available. Most people aren't aware that OpenMW hackers have already got Oblivion assets loading, or that there's a GTA3 Linux engine remake.
I don't get it. Steam has been a pile of shit since Windows 7. It's slow to start, conflicts with other games while it's running and responds like a slug. Not to mention it's download speeds are horrendous. Steam is almost as bad as iTunes. I don't think Microsoft needs to do anything to make Steam perform horrible. Valve is doing that all by themselves.
2021, year of the linux desktop confirmed.
It's a lovely dream, kid. But the numbers tell a different story.
95% of Steam gamers run Windows. 43% have migrated to 64 Bit Win 10. That is up 3% in one month. 4% run MacOS. 1% Linux. Valve posts no numbers for Steam OS. Steam Hardware & Software Survey: June 2016
Steam Machine hardware sales have been pathetic.
I'm not convinced that anyone has the foggiest idea of how to position and sell these things. The Steam Machine with decent specs costs more than a video game console and with good specs more than a mass market Win 10 gaming system with better specs.
The ZOTAC NEN Steam Machine Gaming Mini PC (Intel Skylake Core i5-6400T Quad-Core NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 8GB Memory 1TB Hard Drive) is top of the line, at $1,085 from Amazon.com.
#7,205 in Computers & Accessories, #89 in Computers & Accessories > Desktops > Minis.
need to open sandbox to map editing / mods. The steam workshop does a good job with finding / updating / install mod's and lot's of games have it built in with easy uploading of stuff in game.
Glad to know I'm not the only who noticed that, hey, Steam-on-Win10 actually still runs just fine. If you read TFA, you'll see it looks about as credible as somebody in ragged clothes standing on a street corner and shouting that the Martians have mind-controlled the government. There's no evidence claimed, much less presented, whatsoever. The only actual concrete claim made (about how some new features are UWP-specific) has nothing to do win Steam; Steam has never cared what features Windows Store apps do or don't have, any more than it has cared what features Java ME does or doesn't have. Nothing that Steam actually uses has been impacted, so far as I can tell or so far as TFA claims.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
They can't be too worried about it or they'd be either porting their games over to Linux entirely, or making them cross platform with Linux. Linux is the obvious choice because it's free, and current windows users can just duel boot into Linux to play games instead of ditching their current setup and purchasing a new, much higher costing, computer.
I don't see them even hinting to that option, however.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I enjoy Steam on Ubuntu and can play fun games like FTL. I can also play old but fun win32 games in emulation, like Civ.
I admit there are still a lot of games that only run well on windows.
Mr. Sweeney's arguments seem a bit alarmist. I have been using Microsoft products since the DOS days, and remember how Lotus would mysteriously break upon a new release, but in the modern age, I see this happening less and less. The proof that is offered appears to be anecdotal, and/or is the far past, and/or is a circular argument where the proof is based on another article by the same person.
There is no proof, no even hint of proof, that Steam has been "made worse" so far. In fact, I could argue the opposite. As a gamer, I remember will when Steam was forced upon us. I managed to not install it until a game was exclusively offered on Steam, and was forced to make the plunge even though I did not want it. I went through the hassles of being forced to be online to play Steam single-player games, of debating what games to buy to avoid digital-only content where I really "owned" nothing, etc. My past self claims that Steam ruined my gaming experience further by giving me less - no ownership, no trades, no printed manual, no local backup media, etc.
Everyone and their mother is adopting proprietary digital content delivery and it is most definitely NOT in the customer's best interest. Each delivery method means open ports, proprietary back-end databases containing sensitive content (credit card numbers, etc.), and software running with elevated privs that could easily be misused, whether by design or mistake. GoG Galaxy, Steam, uPlay, Origin, Battle.net, et al. Running all these eats up system resources, puts the host computer at higher risk of exploitation, puts the user's private (and often financial) information at risk, and on top of all that, does not make it easy to access a game library as a whole.
Proprietary digital content delivery is not about the customer, it is about the company.
Given all this, Mr. Sweeney's core complaint seems to be with UWP specifically, which is, at least initially, something that seems to be relatively good for the customer - specifically, giving him/her games on more than one platform, often for a single purchase, and providing a single location from which to purchase games (a single library, if you will).
That being said, a game is just an application. Code is code - you can download and install it in a variety of ways. I have no doubt that Steam, uPlay, Galaxy, etc., will all adapt as the platform changes. In fact, I fully expect that proprietary delivery systems will hook into UWP, if it ends up living up to the hype. Think about it - I already own games in Steam that actually run uPlay so I can play them. Precedents already exist.
If I were to truly buy into Mr. Sweeney's hype, I would claim that all proprietary digital delivery is, in essence, a closed, vendor-locked-in "platform", and that what customers really deserve is a universal content delivery system that supports concepts of ownership, trading, selling, a single library, etc. Wait - customers DO really deserve all that.
Here just to remember you guys that is going to happen again... after Citrix bought XenSource.org and get ownership over XenServer, a few months later Microsoft and Citrix signed an "colab agreement" that just what everyone here well remembers... they suffocated XenServer to death (almost).
I'm pretty sure Microsoft is going to play this game again... and I really hope to see Valve f****ing M$ a$s expanding the Linux games library.
At least for me is clear that Linux is the gaming platform of the future. Microsoft is dead.
Steam has always been buggy as hell on anything I've used it on. Random UI glitches, random download failures (Delete Local Content and try again!) and randomly not letting me play my games because it can't connect to the Steam servers and refuses to go into Offline Mode (had that one happen yesterday.)
Windows XP, 7, 10, MacOS X, even the Android app has flaked on me. Granted, I've never tried it on Linux. Maybe it's stable there.
Steam has already made moves to have other options -- I don't what will be used, I'm thinking SteamOS and Steambox (???) --, but I'm reminded of DOS/4GW and how it allowed Doom to thrive (probably against M$ wishes).
Also having a successful game in other platforms (think a live Linux version) would make it harder to MS$ to misbehave.
pick a linux you like, wether you want to go with systemD or not, release ALL your games in that system too, and no one will use windows, ever again
the only reason im even going to be using windows 10 is because of games (and not the ones on the store, those are terrible), It has always been because of games, dont be fooled about aplications, its NEVER been that, its the EFFING GAMES, We dont use their software and little apps, its been a long long time since weve been using other browsers, other media players, other burning suites, other EVERYTHING, except for the games, every single thing i do on this w7 pc i can do on a linux, the apps are even the same except for a couple of them, i can do everything but gaming
release your stuff for linux too, convince other devs to do the same
do that and microsoft will not be able to pwn you, because we all will be using linux
and im talking about the real deal, im talking about releasing the new deus ex, dishonored 2, battlefield 1, watch dogs 2, etc etc, the big ones, you release all the big ones in linux and no one will ever need to boot into windows ever again, because there is no reason to, there is LITERALLY no reason to use windows except for games
I don't know if it's true or not, but MS has done enough things like this that I'll be watching to see if they move in this direction because I certainly can't put it past them after all the times they've burned us.
Anyone else remember from a bazillion years ago "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run"?
Seems to me that Valve has an opportunity here if they can get good buy in from Intel. Why not evolve Steam OS to have solid hardware support on x86? Give it a functional browser, SMB integration, some media players. I know I'd be onboard for that.
If I bought a Windows 10 little alpha, I would've put 7 on it anyway
Pretty much the only reason I even boot up Windows anymore is to play Steam games. After that, meh... who needs them?
Anti-trust laws...
Yeah that really worked out swell with AT&T over the long run!
Basically this.
One reasonable filesystem that is supported R/W in both systems is UDF. On a usb flash it works fine, not sure how it would behave on a partition...
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity or incompetence."
Chances are it wasn't on purpose; Microsoft just made some stupid design decisions.
Basically what CrashNBrn stated. Arstechnica does a great breakdown why Tim Sweeney is an idiot. http://arstechnica.com/informa...
MS just taking a page out of the Apple playbook and their walled garden. Years ago I had an Apple iPhone (3GS). One of the most frustrating things about it I found was being forced to use iTunes which was a huge POS (by design I later found). One of the things iTunes liked to do was break links to music not bought on iTunes. You could repair the links, but only manually, and only one at a time... Just broken enough to annoy you into using iTunes more. When I searched for answers, found that this was a "bug" that has been identified by the user community like 5 years prior, never fixed. Community was so frustrated with Apple, they built an open source java fix themselves. However each and every successive iTunes release would find a way to break the 3rd party fix. Forcing the guy who maintained it to eventually just give up in frustration. If was shortly after figuring all this out, I decided to make the move to Android.
So my advice for Steam is to really work towards Linux/Android. MS will almost certainly play their games (pardon pun). However there is a good chance that MS will almost certainly be even worse than Apple, and frustrate people. If you have an alternative available that people can use, I'm guessing the capitalization on that could be pretty big.