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.

Comments

EEE

[pete6677]

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.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, how could you say he "forgot," when it's exactly what he's talking about?

Re:EEE

[Shadow99_1]

I think MS forgot that some of us (like myself) have hundreds of games in Steam. Unless MS plan to do what GoG did and let me have my games on whichever service I use, then I'll keep using Steam because that's where my games are. I have seen nothing in the windows store I want to buy and so I don't own any games there. Maybe they should keep looking at making compelling products that make me want to buy them and not making the largest competing service, where I do own stuff, worse?

Re:EEE

[Phusion]

Although I'm sure that TS has the inside track on the games biz, will Microsoft really pull this off? Will they be able to deal with the giant backlash they'll receive from their growing Win10 user base when Steam stops working? There are so many steam clients installed on Win10 machines, I don't see how MS can just patch out Steam until it's too buggy to use, then shuffle in the windows store. There will be anarchy, cats and dogs marrying eachother, fire, brimstone etc.

Re: EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. This is Old School MS...

"DOS Ain't Done til Lotus Won't Run"

Learn from history or repeat it.

Re:EEE

[rgbatduke]

Not that much more subtle. I watched as Microsoft crushed a long list of companies using exactly this strategy across the 80's and early 90's. Borland was easy -- it's so easy to break a compiler with an OS upgrade. Lotus. Word Perfect. Wordstar. Various games. They certainly tried it with their browser and it took a decade long billion dollar court case to stop them. Every operating system update, everybody else's software would break, a bit, while Microsoft's clone -- often a clone of a startlingly original and brilliant idea -- did not. Add in their marketing team to convince businesses that if they didn't buy Microsoft's house product, they would break their... um... not arms, not legs, what's the word, "interface" if the competing product didn't perfectly comply with the new specs (and of course, they never did).

Microsoft simply made it impossible to buy a PC without their operating system pre-installed in any store that sells systems WITH their operating system pre-installed with punitive pricing agreements that dropped the margins below any possibility of profit if you tried selling a naked system or a system preinstalled with some other OS. They then convinced freelance software developers that they could get rich, quick, writing for their platform (and at first, it was true!) But gradually it has become clear that if you have a brilliant software concept, write the next killer application, and do so for Windows, Microsoft will let you run wild for a few years to build up the market and use their enormous software foundry to write their clone, then they will jerk around the OS so that your product breaks but theirs doesn't until they have the lions share of the market IF you don't sell out to them when they politely knock on your door and make you an offer you can't refuse. Five years later you will wish you hadn't.

I have to admit that I'm a tiny bit surprised that they are doing this with Steam as it could backfire. I'm guessing that part of this is punitive. They WANT game developers to be in a Microsoft cage, with huge cross-platform development barriers, and Valve is the company that has seriously broken out of that mold and made Linux gaming with native libraries and code possible for games that run on Windows as well. Since they are preparing to make users lease Windows for eternity and ensure a perpetual cash flow for every Windows computer purchased, and since software sales through "app stores" run by the company are now a major profit center for companies that have successfully built them, they hope to retake world domination while they still have control of congress and the unions and all those companies with 401 and 403 plans heavily invested in Microsoft.

Unless and until the government actually enforces anti-trust laws across the board, we'll have to put up with this shit. The "free" market doesn't, and won't, have a chance as long as the company that makes and sells the OS, with a virtual lock on third party PC sales in spite of much lower priced and viable alternatives, also writes software for their own OS with an insuperable advantage over independent developers, no matter how large or powerful. Software store selling "certification" (still the same company) make it even worse.

Face it. Microsoft is in the protection racket, and has been for nearly 30 years now. FUD is their stock and trade. They represent everything that is wrong with capitalism that isn't restrained by strong anti-trust controls and limits on things like sales agreements so that they do not and cannot become long term monopolies. They have so much money that they could CONTINUE to be mismanaged for another decade and STILL would be huge. And who has the guts to tackle them (again) in the US courts? They can spend a billion dollars a year in defense, stretch an antitrust case out for a decade, lose it, and still come out a total winner. They've done so in the past and will do so again in the future.

rgb

Re:EEE

[mattventura]

They could. We already saw tons and tons of backlash over Win10 telemetry and upgrading without consent. They can put it off because people realistically have nowhere to go. Apple doesn't make a machine geared towards gaming, and Linux still has a pitiful game catalog.

Re:EEE

[tripleevenfall]

I don't see this as EEE per se, but it's another example of MS being a poor imitation of Apple.

MS is jealous of Apple's business model, which controls the entire platform end to end and monetizes it. As a result they have been aggressively pushing people to Windows 10 and will continue to sever links between users and (anyone but MS).

MS wants the walled garden and wants the App Store. They want to control music and software and movies and everything, as Apple does for most users.

The difference is that Apple users opted in to that ecosystem by buying Apple products. MS just wants to throw a bag over your head and have you wake up in their walled garden.

They're trying to Retcon the past decade that Apple's been eating their lunch.

Re:EEE

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I agree. It's too late for Microsoft to defeat Steam with their Windows Store. People will switch to SteamOS before giving up Steam in favor of Windows.

Re:EEE

[spire3661]

Yep. Win32 apps are labeled 'Desktop App', even the java version of Minecraft, but Win Store apps get 'Trusted Windows Store App'. Its and incredibly dishonest way of presenting things. The digital signature that popped in an admin prompt when i installed Minecraft isnt 'trusted'?

Re: EEE

[mSparks43]

I was going to ppst that steam cant possibly get any worse. But it sounds like you have had a different experience (never used windows store, and zero interest in ever doing so)

How on earth do you use it?
Ive tried 4 or 5 times over the years to get anywhere with it, and every mouse click on the god awful ui seems to take an age to respond.

Re:EEE

[Penguinisto]

Yeah, it's not EEE, but more like their even older mantra, slightly updated to today: "Windows isn't done until Steam won't run!"

Re:EEE

[Captain Splendid]

I don't see how MS can just patch out Steam until it's too buggy to use, then shuffle in the windows store.

This is exactly what they did with Netscape and IE back in the day, and that worked gangbusters.

Re: EEE

[Captain Splendid]

Dude, if you're whining over 5 bucks to get you that one non-F2P game in your library in order to enjoy full features, steam wasn't for you in the first place.

Re:EEE

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Clearly you never supported the Netware clients for Windows when they were engaged in destroying Novell. They are experts in this operation and have done it multiple times, each time obvious to everyone paying attention. They can and will pull this off, unless they are sued in such a way that the plot is laid bare in public. People will have to be called to testify about off the record conversations. I don't know of any private or corporate entity who could sue Microsoft in such a way. They are simply too powerful. Those of you who think you will resist...well...I'm afraid you will find that you can't. Either the market gets a state-level assist, or MS will get the result it's wanting.

Re:EEE

[citylivin]

Well one could argue its already happened to skype. But I think the old adage applies, never attribute to malice what can be explained by plain old incompetence.

Still I would believe it in a second if some concrete evidence came out.

Re:EEE

[MickyTheIdiot]

The US justice system is essentially a system where the group with the largest number of lawyers wins regardless of the actual law. If MS can't win the case on the merits they will drag it out until the other side goes bankrupt or the settlement is minuscule. If anyone goes after them in the court for bad faith then that party better have deep pockets.

Re:EEE

[FictionPimp]

Exactly, I keep my windows desktop for 1 reason and one reason only. If you ruin my large collection of games I will have no reason to keep my windows PC around anymore. I"ll just go back to what I used before, linux.

Re: EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, we can tell when you respond to your own post. Nit wit.

Second, accounts were being horribly abused in free-to-play games so they made a fix. You have to be a long-term user or a paying user in order to engage in social/trading activity. Overall, an improvement.

No one wants the experience you get with unrestricted free accounts, so you either play by a reasonable set of rules or you piss off. The game is probably better without a whiner like you.

Re:EEE

[tepples]

The difference is that Apple users opted in to that ecosystem by buying Apple products.

As did Microsoft users by buying Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One products.

Re: EEE

[Shadow99_1]

I've never experienced any slower response then I would with any other web browser using it... and heck you don't need the client to buy things as you can use the web site if you want. You do need the client to download the games (& play them), but that interface is pretty simple and not slow (it's all on your PC).

However I've been using steam for... 9 or 10 years...? So I've had issues at times in there, but also found it much better than buying from a store. And among all possible stores, it usually has what I want to buy. GoG still has a limited library (though it is improving), Origin is still mostly EA, Uplay is only Ubisoft, and the Windows Store has what... basic apps and mobile games?

Re:EEE

[tepples]

A digital signature tells only who signed a program. It doesn't tell whether the behavior of the signed program meets platform guidelines.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

and Linux still has a pitiful game catalog.

Yeah, but when none of your games purchased on steam work does windows even have a benefit?

A quarter of my games have linux native versions, wonder how many would do with wine? Microsoft's only benefit was their large third party application library which they're going to destroy with their app store. They're shooting themselves in the foot and have become a follower instead of leader, they're already dead.

Re:EEE

[thegarbz]

Not that much more subtle. I watched as Microsoft crushed a long list of companies using exactly this strategy across the 80's and early 90's. Borland was easy -- it's so easy to break a compiler with an OS upgrade. Lotus. Word Perfect. Wordstar. Various games. They certainly tried it with their browser and it took a decade long billion dollar court case to stop them. Every operating system update, everybody else's software would break, a bit, while Microsoft's clone -- often a clone of a startlingly original and brilliant idea -- did not. Add in their marketing team to convince businesses that if they didn't buy Microsoft's house product, they would break their... um... not arms, not legs, what's the word, "interface" if the competing product didn't perfectly comply with the new specs (and of course, they never did).

Horsecrap. Microsoft's strategy was firmly embrace, extend, and extinguish with a side of abusing market dominance to pre-package software. In terms of compatibility they have shown that for many years they went actively out of their way to provide compatibility for applications including providing testing releases and beta programs for developers to ensure their software would work.

The big problem back then was the use of undocumented features by 3rd parties, the type that were destined to break because by their nature they didn't have a functional description, and when it did break people cried foul.

Re:EEE

[TemporalBeing]

I don't see how MS can just patch out Steam until it's too buggy to use, then shuffle in the windows store. This is exactly what they did with Netscape and IE back in the day, and that worked gangbusters.

Netscape vs IE
WordPerfect Office vs MS Office
DOS vs Dr. DOS/CPM-DOS/etc
POSIX vs Win32
Xenix vs UNIX

It's the oldest play in MS's playbook.

Re: EEE

[Bengie]

You endorse harrasing spammy bot/troll accounts? Buying a game is just to raise the bar enough to keep people from harassing each other. Actually, just buy anything on Steam. $0.50 game would suffice.

Re:EEE

[Wraithlyn]

The difference is that Apple users opted in to that ecosystem by buying Apple products.

The difference is that Apple's walled garden is iOS, their mobile OS for phones and tablets only.

MacOSX, their desktop OS (ie, the equivalent of Windows) is still totally open. Yes, they have an App Store on MacOSX but it's totally optional and you can install anything you want on your machine.

Re:EEE

[Grishnakh]

Yes, but those are a small minority of Windows users. That's roughly akin to Apple doing something to all their users just because the ones who bought Apple TV are Ok with it.

Re:EEE

[Grishnakh]

Will they be able to deal with the giant backlash they'll receive from their growing Win10 user base when Steam stops working? There are so many steam clients installed on Win10 machines, I don't see how MS can just patch out Steam until it's too buggy to use, then shuffle in the windows store.

Why wouldn't they? What are the users going to do, switch to Linux? MS could make Steam stop working tomorrow and users would put up with it. Why should MS care about a "backlash"? Again, what are the users going to do about it? Whine and complain?

In reality, a few people actually would switch to Linux or Mac, the rest would just complain a lot and then buy stuff from the Windows store. I honestly don't know why MS isn't even more aggressive with this stuff, unless there's a very real possibility of governmental action against them. The late 90s court case proved that the US government isn't going to do a damn thing to stop them (remember, they were found "guilty" and then there was no punishment at all), so I can only guess they're trying to avoid action by the EU. If it weren't for that, they could just screw over users as much as they wanted, and again, what are the users going to do? They've already proven that 95% of them are completely unwilling to leave the Windows platform.

Re:EEE

[Grishnakh]

How are they "dead"? What are users going to do if MS makes Steam completely inoperable on Windows? Whine and complain? Users have already proven they're completely unwilling to leave the Windows platform, so MS has every incentive to screw them over as much as they want.

They're not going to be able to get users excited about their products like with Apple, but they have a huge userbase that just isn't going anywhere, ever, so they might as well come up with any method they can of milking these people for money: advertising baked into the OS, the Windows app store, spyware and selling info to marketers, etc. Why shouldn't they? And exactly what incentive do they have to not be as overt about their customer-screwing as they want?

Re: EEE

[SuperDre]

Oh what bs, they did not cripple netscape or wordperfect, they used api's and their knowledge of windows others didn't have.. And i think the whole story is bs, i don't see them deliberatly cripling steam. Sweeney should provide real evidence for that, shouldn't be that hard if his claims are true..

Re:EEE

[im_thatoneguy]

Netscape became Firefox which did just fine. And Netscape has its share of proprietary extensions that were just as non-standard as Microsofts because the web sucked without them back in 1999. Most of microsoft's DHTML became HTML5... which was only ratified like last year. Nobody is willing to sit around for a decade for a standards body to work.

POSIX is alive and well in Linux. Windows wasn't a Unix based operating system so it's not shocking it wouldn't stick to Unix compatibility.

Xenix was from the 80s and Microsoft clearly wasn't interested to focus on Windows. It's not like Microsoft slowly extended Unix until it became Windows and Linux/Unix is dead today.

You mostly just listed a bunch of competing products as if that is anything like what is happening today.

Re:EEE

[F.Ultra]

Been there and done that. We used Netware back in the NT4 days on my first workplace and with great mystery the Netware stuff got slower and slower with each NT4 Service Pack. And they will get away with this again if they begin to target Steam because as you say they are to big to fail, if something does not work well in Linux it's a Linuxproblem but if your application does not work well in Windows then it's your problem. The sad thing is that it's the Microsoft customers that have brought this on themselves.

Re:EEE

[F.Ultra]

I hope that you are right but fear that you are wrong. And unfortunately we also see that the game devs complain about it but do they release their games for Steam OS? Do they use cross platform things like OpenGL and Vulkan? No they use locked in shit like DirectX12.

Re:EEE

[Cederic]

Agreed completely. I can use old PCs with existing Windows installations for Lightroom and the old games that don't have Linux versions - and stop patching those to avoid the rot.

Anything new needs to run my game library as held within Steam. If Windows wont do that, I wont use Windows.

Re:EEE

[CheapEngineer]

Yep, that's gonna do wonders for Linux adoption. Call everyone you're trying to get on to your f'ing OS a dumbass. And you wonder why the dream of Linux taking over the desktop has been a mirage for the last 15 years?

Re:EEE

[Altrag]

I'm entirely sure they'd be happy with you re-purchasing your games through the MS store.

The bigger problem with the backlog of games (and other software entirely unrelated to games) is that Steam people aren't stupid or lazy, but many other developers are. Short of literally locking the platform (which would garner them some serious anti-competition lawsuits,) at the end of the day they have to allow software to run on their platform. Nobody uses an OS purely for the file explorer. Third party apps are a necessity.

Which means Steam can just continually upgrade their app to match. They're doing that regularly anyway to keep up with video driver changes and other tweaks.. its a bit of a pain but having one more source of reasons to push patches isn't exactly going to break them.

What would get broken is everybody else who doesn't have the money or manpower to keep up with a constant stream of breaking changes. Never mind the developers that have gone out of business and end users that rely on their products go from unsupported to completely SOL.

MS really can't "break" Windows in any significant way. Sure they might try to tweak or deprecate specific APIs that Steam happens to use and few other software packages do, but I'm sure the Steam programmers have the capacity to work around things like that. And the main Win32 API can't just be pulled without driving off a large portion of your customer base that now can no longer use all of the (non-game-related) apps they rely on. Especially corporate customers who make up a large portion of MS' income and give exactly zero shits about Steam or games. Probably prefer if their users aren't able to play games on their work systems. But they sure as hell care if their $50,000/seat CAD software stops working every few months.

Re:EEE

[goose-incarnated]

Not that much more subtle. I watched as Microsoft crushed a long list of companies using exactly this strategy across the 80's and early 90's. Borland was easy -- it's so easy to break a compiler with an OS upgrade.

The demise of Borland makes me weep :-( Just last night I was installing the last copy of a 16-bit C compiler + Assembler that I have[1]. Try as hard as I could, I simply could not find my Borland disks (not that it would have helped much - I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to locate floppy drive anywhere). I found only my printed copy of the TASM manual.

Back to my pontification: the demise of Borland makes me weep, but I realise that they were the architects of their own destruction. Borland did not die in a day, and before the writing was on the wall it was clear to all the leading desktop-software companies in the mid-to-late nineties that they had better be making plans for survival as Microsoft eyed different desktop applications.

Borland could have survived: there were enough people who would have paid good money for a decent C compiler and IDE on Linux, Solaris, etc (anyone else here remember how awful gcc was? Or the whole egcs split?) and I made multiple requests to Borland via my employer for a port. No port was forthcoming.

Instead, a few years later we got Kylix which tanked horribly, then gcc's legs started moving and we got a decent compiler for unix systems. I purchased Turbo C 2.01 (three or four disks, I forget), Turbo Pascal (which I eventually used to write a compiler!), TASM, C++ Builder and Delphi (some student version). I wanted to purchase their tools for Linux as well, and I wasn't the only one.

It's not terribly hard to port a compiler - after all the code-generation mostly remains the same, only the static and dynamic linkers/loaders would see major change, and that's an easy enough problem to solve. The majority of work would have been in porting their libraries. But no - no Turbo C for us dirty Linux devs...

[1] Writing something that runs before the bootloader. Long story. Found my Watcom 10.0 CD, though, and installed that. It appears to work on Windows seven and on WINE. Unfortunately the assembler syntax is fully undocumented, so I'm using nasm now.

They've done so in the past and will do so again in the future.

rgb

Which is why I'm so confused about developers who, for no good reason, tie their application/game/program to the windows platform exclusively. They will die, and I'll probably weep for them too. But, first they'll flock to the windows store, in the process burning their bridges to other platforms behind them. Once they're unrecoverably wedded to Windows again they'll be squeezed until they're dead. Like Borland.

Re:EEE

[Fragnet]

I have no idea what this story is all about. I'm a Windows developer maintaining a suite of software and I have to test it against every new release of Windows to check for bugs and changes, some of them subtle but none of them I would say attributable to malice. APIs change over time. Things get deprecated, improved and so on.

Re:EEE

[Darinbob]

Except that on the Apple Mac platform (not iphone/ipad, but osx) the walled garden is not walled. You never have to use the store on OSX. At one point there was a snag in that you couldn't get the basic dev command lines tools except in the store (necessary to build an alternative development environment), but they fixed that. There are definitely moves on Apple's part to try and close the wall, but they're no where near as restrictive as what Microsoft is aiming itself to be. As long as there's a way to write code and run it on your own machine then there's no way to lock it up (thus the push from Microsoft to get Windows-friendly UEFI).

Re:EEE

[rgbatduke]

Yeah, I wasn't even a fan of Pascal, but Turbo Pascal for DOS was an awesome experience, as was both Turbo C and to a similar extent Microsoft's early QuickC. And QuickBasic was lovely -- an IDE that would literally pop up the manual page for any instruction you could type enough of to recognize, or match a string in. QB was in some sense my favorite IDE of all time, and I wrote a slew of code in Basic back in IBM PC days.

I didn't even include Microsoft's screwing of OS/2 and IBM in the list -- I put on the Extreme Linux expo in Raleigh, NC back in the day not long after that and IBM was an avid supporter; their staffers were all literally burning with anger at Microsoft and were particularly eager to loan us piles of PCs and more for our cluster demos. Claiming that Microsoft was all warm and fuzzy towards developers and that it wasn't their fault that important packages inevitably broke on every major version update, or that there was no "conspiracy" because it was against the law to deliberately break them to the advantage of Microsoft's competing packages simply ignores reality. There wasn't a "conspiracy" to remove competing web browers from Windows machines or disable them so that they wouldn't work right, but Microsoft did it anyway and lost a small mountain of money on a lawsuit. And they won, won, won the lawsuit in spite of the hundreds of millions they spent on the settlement and the billions they spent dragging the suit out for close to a decade. By then it was a moot point. After that, nobody had or is likely to have in the future, the stomach to tackle Microsoft in court but somebody enormous with equally deep pockets.

That's the problem. A hundred-odd billion dollar multinational company is largely above the law. They can outspend almost anybody, and anybody who thinks that this doesn't matter in civil or corporate court (or even in criminal court) is naive in the extreme. Once enough retirement funds are heavily invested in Microsoft stock, nobody wants them to go down, not really, no matter how much they hate them. Not congressmen. Not the president. Not union leaders. Not corporate leaders. Most of the everyday people don't care. The only ones that do are oddball nerds like me who find their corporate ethics revolting and who resent the rise of the corporate shadow government to the detriment of personal and economic freedom. And there just aren't enough of us to matter.

As Donald Trump (defending his actions exploiting major economic downturns in the past) says, "It was just business". And so it is, and so it will be, without toothy laws regulating just what "business" activities are ethical and permitted in law.

rgb

Re:EEE

[Darinbob]

The trick is to fool newcomers. Ie, new to PC gaming, they think Steam is the way to go for getting mods, the location for "official" forums, etc, while all the old timers say "no!" and try to correct them. But over time the focus starts shifting. So MS thinks they can do the same thing: Supply something that they claim is easier and lure in newcomers who don't know any different. After awhile they say "Steam? Can't I just use the Windows Store? Why go with the extra complication?", and Steam ends up being for only oldtimers and treated as irrelevant.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Apple users opted in to that ecosystem by buying Apple products. MS just wants to throw a bag over your head and have you wake up in their walled garden.

You don't have to upgrade to windows 10, if you choose to do so, you are "opting in"

Re:EEE

[BronsCon]

He actually said most people are smart enough to figure it out... that the rest are morons doesn't negate the compliment he gave his target audience.

Re:EEE

[gweihir]

There is also the little question of the anti-trust implications. The EU alone could already severely punish them if caught.

Also, one wonders what they would have to break in addition to make Steam hard or impossible to use. Conceptionally, it is just a network-connected bit of user-installed software, much like a web-browser, for example. I think the only credible attack is that they would pay/coerce many game developers and publishers to only publish in the Windows-Store. That will probably fail miserably.

Re:EEE

[gweihir]

Same here. And Vulcan looks like it could fix a lot of the remaining issues with gaming on Linux. Engines based on Vulcan should become pretty popular as the same developers can then target Windows, Linux, Android, etc. without having to learn a new engine.

I think mobile gaming will, in the end, be the end of Windows-centric game development. And as soon as that has happened, there is no reason to stay on Windows anymore.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

No they won't. You all keep saying that but then you bend over and let them do whatever they want; It happens every time they do something stupid with Windows.
You complain but then you let them do it anyway.

Well you know what? It's your own damned fault. I called this back when XP required on-line activation and everyone agreed but nobody boycotted it and after a while even said I was stupid for sticking with Windows 2000 and that I shouldn't complain.

So unless you're actually going to do something about it, like help make WINE better or support ReactOS or make Linux less shit for casual users and the desktop, or even help with Haiku, (Which would have been a great alternative platform) then STFU.

Re:EEE

[vux984]

Yes, they have an App Store on MacOSX but it's totally optional

It pretty much HAS to be installed, and you pretty much have to use it for OS updates.

And with each successive release OSX tightens the screws a little more, in the name of security...

You can't run apps you didn't get from the app store on a new mac until you go into security settings and turn on the ability to use apps you didn't get from the app store.

So its totally optional, in the sense that it comes pre-installed, you can't remove it, you have to use it for some things, and out of the box it is only option you are allowed to use to get new apps.

But yes, you can tweak the security settings to allow you to get software from other sources.

So...its like secureboot...which everyone here likes and thinks is ok... right?

Re:EEE

[Wraithlyn]

Yeah, how DARE they make the out-of-the-box setting "safe by default" for Average Joe users who don't know anything about security. The monsters!

Anybody that knows how to install their own software knows how to change this setting.

Stop inventing non-issues to bitch about.

Re:EEE

[vux984]

My point was that this is precisely the same thing Microsoft has been doing with secureboot.

Stop inventing non-issues to bitch about.

Stop having a double standard.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

And all the telemetry data can be disabled in the next version coming out in a few days. There are now GUI controls for it, registry settings for it, and Group Policy objects to control what you give Microsoft in your enterprise.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/configure-windows-telemetry-in-your-organization

Re:EEE

[ConceptJunkie]

No they didn't. Netscape did it to themselves. It's one of the rare instances where Microsoft really did have the superior product. Of course, they went on to let IE bitrot for years until Mozilla came around. But Netscape's problems were entirely self-inflicted.

Re:EEE

[mykro76]

Linux still has a pitiful game catalog.

Perhaps you haven't checked in for a while. Of the 2,000 most highly rated games on Steam (they all have positive ratings of at least ~85%), 755 are available on Linux.

Not that gaming on Linux doesn't have its problems, but it's getting better every year.

Re:EEE

[Wraithlyn]

And I was replying to someone that was generalizing all Apple products as walled gardens that controlled all "music and software and movies and everything", without making a distinction between iOS and OSX, which are extremely different.

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

They're also trying to burn down everything around them. Simple fact of the matter is that the entire early Microsoft empire was built on a relatively open system, the IBM PC, which ended up iteratively becoming the Wintel ecosystem as we know it. Microsoft itself owes its dominance in operating systems to this approach (see: PC-DOS vs. MS-DOS). Unsurprisingly, just as the Wintel ecosystem evolved with this approach, so did all of the software. Software that is still needed, and that very compatibility is the biggest selling point for Windows. Now they're trying to tear down the whole thing and hope that - somehow - everything will still turn up in Microsoft's favor.

Re:EEE

[Megane]

You forgot a motto: "It ain't done 'till Lotus won't run!"

Re:EEE

[Anonymous Coward]

The article you linked to says the opposite. You can only reduce the spyware down to "security" level, so it's always going to be sending something to M$.

I can operate my own PC thanks. I don't need or want M$ going in and screwing shit up or collecting any data whatsoever.

Re: EEE

[Grishnakh]

I think there's more to it than that. People use Windows because it's "the standard", and "everyone else uses it". If some of their software stops working on it, they're going to blame the software, not the OS, and not many of them are going to decide to dump the OS and switch to Linux or Mac: it's just too much of a change for them.

Re:EEE

[Lonewolf666]

That's the problem. A hundred-odd billion dollar multinational company is largely above the law. They can outspend almost anybody, and anybody who thinks that this doesn't matter in civil or corporate court (or even in criminal court) is naive in the extreme. Once enough retirement funds are heavily invested in Microsoft stock, nobody wants them to go down, not really, no matter how much they hate them. Not congressmen. Not the president. Not union leaders. Not corporate leaders. Most of the everyday people don't care. The only ones that do are oddball nerds like me who find their corporate ethics revolting and who resent the rise of the corporate shadow government to the detriment of personal and economic freedom. And there just aren't enough of us to matter.

Sometimes governments will take care of the problem. Usually not the government of the country where the company is based, that government might be sufficiently bought. But others might do something.

Take Microsoft for example:
The browser antitrust case in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Microsoft_antitrust_case) mostly petered out when the Bush government was no longer interested in breaking up Microsoft. The case ended with a settlement that brought some obligations for Microsoft to share their APIs, not a really harsh judgment.

The EU competition case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case) led to overall fines of more than two billion dollars over several years.

By contrast, the EU is so far pretty lenient with Volkswagen ("Dieselgate"), while the US authorities seem to go for big fines...

Re:EEE

[rgbatduke]

Insightful reply, thanks,

rgb

Re: EEE

[elrous0]

time to use linux

When you see how bad Linux is, you'll be back.

Re: EEE

[rtb61]

Cough, cough, Android vs the Losephone (it would be lying to call it a Winphone). This story is about companies propping up M$ to their own destruction, basically suckers.

Re:EEE

[lucien86]

Maybe you are right but if they try it Microsoft are just dooming themselves. Steam is too big, has too many users, and each user already has too much invested in the system through their library of games. I can see a future where Steam or someone else puts the money in to build a complete new OS that replaces Windows. They definitely have access to the technical expertise and money and people to do it.
Given the choice today post Windows 8 and Windows 10 and their corporate shimmying who would choose Microsoft over Steam? They start to loose Windows then they also lose half of their corporate markets as well. How many businesses still using XP, Vista, or Windows 7 would just love to switch to a non-Microsoft product if they could as their next upgrade. If anything a lot of businesses are even more paranoid about an OS vendor that might be using its privileged position to spy on them than ordinary users are..

Re:EEE

[lucien86]

Lets face it, Microsoft today is looking a lot like a dinosaur looking for a tar pit.

Re:EEE

[F.Ultra]

I hope that you are right but so far I have not seen any evidence that this would happen. Just look at the company that cries in TFA, they are heavily invested in Microsoft technology, they write their games in DirectX and on Windows only so they do absolutely nothing to help change the situation. So I'm quite confident that if Microsoft manages to destroy Steam then Gears of War will be released on the Windows 10 App Store or what ever it's called, they might whine and cry but they will release it there.

Re:EEE

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, except in this case there's countless prey animals constantly distracting the T-rex from the tar pits, telling him "don't go to those pits, come eat me instead!!"

Re:EEE

[MercTech]

Naa, Digital Research has already shot themselves in the foot when they couldn't support a bailout of IBM after they had a computer in production but didn't have an OS, DRDOS was an attempt to grab the side market after Microsoft had the big contract.
    I think I still have a copy of QDOS. Quick and Dirty Operating System was sold in the postage stamp advertisements in the back of computer magazines. A good OS for the hobby experimenter as it was so cheap. Then Bill Gates bought it to fulfill his contract for PC-DOS 1.0

Re:EEE

[_KiTA_]

This is more a FUD technique than EEE -- and a classic variant by Microsoft, to be sure. Remember when they threw a fake error message for DR-DOS users who wanted to use Windows? Same sort of thing.

Re:EEE

[billcopc]

it's so easy to break a compiler with an OS upgrade

That's funny, I used Borland and other 3rd party compilers for almost my entire career, and never encountered any such breakage. Heck I have code from 20 years ago that somehow runs perfectly fine in W10. The only things I've had to fix from that era, were things I wasn't supposed to be doing in the first place, like self-modifying code and other low-level hacks that don't fly in a post-80486 world. MS jumps through hoops to retain backward compatibility because the entire value of their platform is in the massive wealth of software written for it.

punitive pricing agreements that dropped the margins below any possibility of profit if you tried selling a naked system

What ?! I've sold "naked" systems since the 90's and somehow managed to turn a profit. MS doesn't make it unprofitable. All they did was give ridiculously cheap licenses to the big guys, while the rest of us indies have to pay the regular "OEM" pricing which is frankly not much cheaper than full retail.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft. The ones you've mentioned have very little basis in reality. The only people who can break Steam are Valve with their potato-quality code. Microsoft and its partners do not want to piss off the hordes of PC gamers, because the day we abandon Windows will be the day Linux finally gets decent graphics drivers for Steam Boxes, and that day will mark the beginning of the end for Windows' market dominance.

Now is the time to sue them

[gurps_npc]

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.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[LichtSpektren]

Microsoft's legal department has orders of magnitude more funding and personnel than the entire company of Epic Games. A lawsuit wouldn't be very wise from a business perspective. We should be thankful they're being brave enough to at the very least call out MSFT's behavior.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[WheezyJoe]

It's not a matter of whose legal team is bigger. It's only a matter of whether your legal team, budget, and will-power is big enough to sweat through the motion practice, discovery process, travel to different venues, and other inconveniences that tend to squash little people. Epic certainly has enough, as well as enough to solicit help from other affected parties, and even consider a class action.

I think they'd also have enough cash to take a prosecutor for the E.U. out for a nice lunch and round of golf. Bottom line, Epic Games can do some damage, and Microsoft has lost monopoly battles before.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[mark-t]

While I like this idea in general, the biggest problem with it is that Valve would need to knowingly invoke the courts in a case that they do not expect to win. This could be seen as a deliberate manipulation of the court system and a waste of its time, and Valve could pay end up paying punitive damages.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[Mashiki]

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.

Well I'm getting my popcorn over the entire thing. Then again, a lot of gamers said "Fuck you" to Epic when they decided to dump the PC for consoles. A keen reminder that it was PC's that made their company, and now he's there whining because consoles are on the decline while gaming PC's are climbing. Lot of people see this as him trying to rebuild his credibility because he decided to bet on the wrong horse in this race.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[spire3661]

If we couldnt secure a meaningful anti-trust punishment when they controlled almost all computers on the planet, what makes you think that we can succeed when they are greatly diminished?

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[EndlessNameless]

Claims construction, research into case law, deposition, discovery/disclosure, and review of testimony and evidence all take place outside of the courtroom.

All of those tasks are performed and reviewed by peers prior to court appearance.

The actual court appearance is a miniscule fraction of the total billable hours for complex legal matters.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[gurps_npc]

That is not simply not true. You don't need to expect to win, you need a good faith belief that you have been wronged.

If you were correct than NO ONE could ever sue Microsoft because they are so rich and have such good lawyers that no one could expect to win.

Re:Now is the time to sue them

[mark-t]

No.. the reason I would suspect that could not win is not because Microsoft is so rich, but because they would not be able to show that Microsoft was contriving to break their application in the first place. This isn't because that's not what Microsoft is doing, but because it is doing so at such a pace that to suggest that they are at this juncture is naught but speculation (even if it does turn out to be true, which I expect it will). The advantage of bringing this up in court now is that Microsoft would have to make formal arguments that they are not currently being abusive, and these arguments would limit their options to do so later, whereas waiting until they actually are will be simply too late, and the damage done will be utterly irrecoverable. The disadvantage is that with absolutely no sustainable case at the present time (even though I believe that it is almost certainly true, I know of no objectively valid basis to suggest that it would be), I fear that doing this could be inferred as a deliberate attempt to manipulate the court system into furthering a company's agenda for its own profit, rather than using the court system to achieve a just ruling (because justice does not generally consider events which have not yet happened), and Valve could end paying punitive damages for wasting the court's time.

Monopolistic abuse

[LichtSpektren]

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.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[LichtSpektren]

The only reason they have a monopoly on gaming is because other platforms need to show up and compete, if game support on Linux was up to snuff I wouldn't run Windows at home outside a VM

That's true, but it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Developers and AMD/Intel/NVIDIA don't support Linux as well as Windows because few people use Linux for gaming, and there are few Linux gamers because Windows support is better for most games.

If we want to live in a world that's not locked down by Microsoft, we need to collectively make some sacrifices and buy Linux games now, while the support's not quite as good. That's the only way it'll get better.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[Blaskowicz]

AMD drivers are work in progress, e.g. GCN 1.0 cards get the new driver at a future unspecified date and they're still currently sold (Radeon R7 240 and 370).

Got a Radeon 5000/6000 or older gen APU? (all currently sold, e.g. Radeon 5450, R5 230 and A4-4020 and A6-6400K). Your drivers are "legacy".
Want good AMD graphics but want it cheap? you need to get the right kind of APU (A8-7600 and up) but then, your CPU will be a bit slow.
It's still harder than with Windows.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[Carewolf]

Yet another example of Microsoft active in an abusive, monopolistic fashion.

Well, it would be or will be, they haven't actually done anything against steam yet.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[Megol]

Don't bring logic to a troll thread...

I can say that MS would kill themselves if they tried to create a walled garden - and they probably know it (unless they are idiots). But sure, they could try [speculation!], after all they control the software.
A semi-walled system where one can connect to a number of stores or (optionally) enable a developer option that keeps the status quo could possible be one way
MS are moving, the reason is that Windows (like other "modern" systems) doesn't protect against malware good enough. Limiting a standard installation to get their software from a select pool of services could help (if one service/store fails in blocking malware it could be blacklisted easily). Ideal? Not in my perspective though the alternatives are probably worse.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[EndlessNameless]

Got a Radeon 5000/6000 or older gen APU?... Your drivers are "legacy".

This is true for Windows too. The Radeon 6000 series is over 5 years old, which is positively ancient from a gaming perspective. The 5000 series is closer to 7 years.

Modern games require functionality that these cards simply do not have. This has been a part of PC gaming for a while---either get used to it or get off the bus.

Since Linux is receiving roughly the same duration of primary support, I don't see where the room for complaint is.

A video adapter should function for 5-10 years, true, but a gaming card has a useful life of 3-5 years at most.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[thegarbz]

Yet another example of Microsoft active in an abusive, monopolistic fashion

One man's tinfoil hat wrapped around a crystal ball prediction against a company with whom he has an axe to grind is an "example"?

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[thecombatwombat]

If you want PC gaming to survive, make sure you only buy games that have Linux/macOS support.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I'm fairly certain it's equally or more important that you actually play them on Mac and Linux?

Valve shares the actual download and usage statistics with publishers, don't they? They need to see users actually playing them on these platforms if we want them to think these platforms are actually contributing to their success.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[Blaskowicz]

On Windows the old drivers keep running, that's quite the difference.
These old Radeon 6000 parts (again, they still sell and go against nvidia's geforce GT710 or Intel's Celeron and Pentium) are DX11 ones and can technically run a lot of things too. So a 6950 2GB for example has a quite a lot of features, horsepower and memory still, but on Linux it will run the open source driver only, and not the same ones as Radeon HD 7000 and up.

This is what sucks : if you want to play games (even old ones), Linux requires you to upgrade hardware more often than Windows.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[houghi]

The scarifice people have to make is not buying Linux. People buy things all the time. The thing is being able to buy it and people will. They buy Android phones just as they buy Apple or any other type of phone. Why? Because itis pre-installed.

The majrity of people still does not buy or install an OS and they never will. They buy a PC with whatever is on it. They might not even know what an OS is.

Just like people buy a car with the radio it comes in. It is not that hard to replace it. The replacement will be better in almost any way. People still can't be bothered.

So why are there no Linux machines for sales and why does it work with Android devices? Money.

On Windows they pre-install several programs. e.g. an anti-virus program. They in turn pay for the price the factory pays for Windows, so no price fifference anymore and perhaps even a loss.

If anything is going to throw Windows from their throne, it will be Android. Not sure if that is for the better to just replace one Monopoly on the OS on another with absolute power ofer all the data.

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[lucien86]

I think the whole problem is that Microsoft have lost most of the talented intelligent people they used to have, and are now indeed run by morons..
As businesses age this seems to happen as a kind of 'natural' process. - Just look at Sony, once practically the premier, most respected, and most profitable electronics company in the world. Their incompetent management finished all that. The biggest rot started when Sony became a vendor of movies and then betrayed their primary customer base in trying to protect that empire through DRM and crippleware. The other old Japanese 'dinosaur' companies followed them. Today they are all just burnt remnants of what they used to be and the video/PVR market is virtually finished..

Re:Monopolistic abuse

[Carewolf]

I think the whole problem is that Microsoft have lost most of the talented intelligent people they used to have, and are now indeed run by morons..

No, Microsoft has always seemed this way. If anything they appear remarkedly stable in competence.

Windows 7 and 8

[ULTROS]

I'll be the old codger who still runs 7 on main and 8 on my laptop for the foreseeable future.

Re:Windows 7 and 8

[MightyYar]

I'll admit that 7 is better than XP, but not by enough that I would have bothered to upgrade if they hadn't discontinued support. It makes me wonder if one of these Windows clone operating systems won't eventually get good enough that I won't bother running Windows proper at all. If there was an OS that was feature-compatible with, say, Windows 2000 and also supported modern hardware, why would we bother with this proprietary crap?

Re: Windows 7 and 8

[Bing Tsher E]

Windows 7 at least has mainstream 64 bit support. Who wants to stick with XP an it's inherent limit to a few gigs of RAM?

Re: Windows 7 and 8

[MightyYar]

Well, that's why I mentioned supporting modern hardware. Certainly 64 bit processors, USB3, etc. would be on that list.

Re: Windows 7 and 8

[lgw]

The reasons most people moved off of XP were 64-bit support and a proper security model. If you have those 2 things, you're a clone of Win7, not WinXP or 2000.

Re: Windows 7 and 8

[MightyYar]

I think we're bogged down in semantics :) ReactOS targets Windows Server 2003.

year of the linux desktop

[steak]

2021, year of the linux desktop confirmed.

Re:year of the linux desktop

[rochrist]

Thank you, Coward. That was quite ....articulate.

Re:year of the linux desktop

[almitydave]

Yeah, if Steam ceases to function, that will be the end of my last motivation to use Windows. Maybe they should take that into account, because Steam is ready to make the switch.

Although Mint is my primary OS, I bought a SSD + Win10 last year for Steam games. Most of them run on Linux, but a few are Win-only, and even some of the Linux-capable ones run a little better on Windows. The last version of Windows I purchased was XP, and Steam games are literally the only reason I bought a newer version. If Microsoft breaks Steam, I'm gone.

Gaben Ain't Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re: Gaben Ain't Dumb

[Bing Tsher E]

Get in bed with Sony on a purported "open source" initiative? Are you kidding??

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[spire3661]

"(specifically, library support is small compared to winblows). "

No, the biggest problem with SteamOS is that it does not perform as fast as Windows. My GPU becomes less valuable in Linux. The games thing is dumb, SteamOS has more games than either console. If you look at it solely as a console with all their limitations, it has a hell of a library.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[NotInHere]

Yeah Sony is well reknown for how much it likes open source, rather paying people money than giving them the ability to install the OS they want on hardware they own. Or requiring developers to sign an NDA if they want to develop for their platform.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[ausekilis]

No, Valve IS stupid. Gaben used to go on and on about how open source was the future, but kept his focus on Windows...

How exactly is his direction to port the source engine and most of their games (including ALL their popular ones) to Linux, not to mention encouraging other software developers to release linux versions, focusing on Windows?

I'd argue without Gaben's push, we wouldn't see Witcher, Borderlands and many other titles released in Linux. Yes, there's still some publishers that focus on the larger Windows market share, but that's not Gaben's fault.

... when another company was ALREADY using open source with their gaming hardware.

MacOS is based on BSD. He could have pursued Apple too.

That company was Sony. If Gabe Newell dislikes MIcrosoft so much, why didn't he form a joint venture with Sony, which has been using open source software longer than Valve has!

Steam Machines are a console take on PC gaming, that would put Steam in direct competition with the Playstation store. Sony already has hundreds, if not thousands, of games in their back library... many of which have PC versions as well. They get their monthly money from their subscribers to play online. Why would Sony kill that cash cow?

He could have also teamed up with Apple, who has been using BSD for over a decade now with their OS. That may have made an Apple/Steam console actually worth a crap... though I doubt Valve would be okay with Apple taking a 30% (or whatever) cut to each sale.

Essentially, the PS3/PS4 OS's are what SteamOS wants to be.

The reason is that while Gabe rants against walled gardens, the truth is he just wants gamers to use his OWN walled garden.

The truth is he wanted to Console-ize the PC gaming environment, to make it more of a one-size-fits-most for games. That's why Steam has Big Picture Mode, why steam machines exist, and why Steam Link was created. Yes the start wasn't as awesome as it could have been, but they are certainly making strides in the home theater gaming pc market. The Steam controller already makes life easier for many keyboard + mouse games.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[MarkRose]

That depends on two things:

The OpenGL stack. AMD hasn't put the same effort NVidia has into making OpenGL fast. At the moment, almost every 3D program on Linux is using OpenGL.

The porting technique. Some of the games are Linux native, while others use an API translation layer, which includes every game coded against DirectX.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[DrXym]

My opinion is Valve never expected SteamOS to take off. It's just a way to hustle devs to port their apps so if they launch a cloud / streaming service they'll have a lot of games that can be hosted without paying Microsoft a license to do it.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[Tough Love]

No, the biggest problem with SteamOS is that it does not perform as fast as Windows. My GPU becomes less valuable in Linux.

Latest benchmarks indicate that situation is strictly temporary as driver quality has improved rapidly for all major vendors, including the fully open source drivers. And Linux native ports are already performing as well or better than Windows in some cases, as compared to the earlier crop of D3D wrapper games. Also, the move to Vulkan is happening fast because of the performance (check out the Doom demo) and the cross platform appeal. So Microsoft just won't be able to hold things back on that front any more.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[Tough Love]

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).

I would not say that Linux offers only negatives. Notice all the network lag issues that force Dota 2 tournament pauses on a regular basis. Just doesn't happen on Linux, network performance is consistently solid as a rock. And at the Manila Major last month one of the matches was stopped for 20 minutes because a Windows 10 "upgrade" started in the middle of the game.

Re:Gaben Ain't Dumb

[CronoCloud]

You've made some good points there, I admit.

That's why Steam has Big Picture Mode, why steam machines exist, and why Steam Link was created.

But the thing is, consoles do BPM BETTER than steam does and have been doing so for YEARS.

A windows Steam machine basically has all the drawbacks of Windows, printer queues, system services, Firewalls, antivirus/antimalware etc etc.

A SteamOS machine is still Linux. For example Steam has built in game streaming on windows, but that doesn't work on Linux/SteamOS. If you want to gamestream on SteamOS it is back to the command line you go to fiddle with ffmpeg x11grab scripts or install OBS.

The Steam controller already makes life easier for many keyboard + mouse games.

Considering I first hooked up a keyboard and mouse to a console in 2002...the Steam controller is a solution in search of a problem that isn't really a problem. Which could describe Steam boxes as a whole.

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Archangel Michael]

Steam should be sponsoring WINE project, and start getting it stabilized for STEAM. I've long proposed that WINE could be the final nail in the coffin of Microsoft, if it becomes the full replacement to Windows. Imagine all the Specialized Windows Software, that is dependent and only available on Windows, being tweaked enough to run in WINE. It is a way to wrest some of the control of Windows APIs from Microsoft.

no references

[sirber]

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.

Re:no references

[EvilSS]

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.

shhhhh. Don't interrupt the circle jerk with logic and facts.

Re:no references

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear! My first thought upon reading TFS was "Steam is broken?". If it truly is broken, why didn't they give any examples of its brokenness?

Re: no references

[Anonymous Coward]

Been available since 2015. Running it actualy.

Steam should stop modifying perms

[jader3rd]

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.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[geek]

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.

This. I want to cheer Steam as much as the next person but the Steam app is a fucking security disaster. I love Gabe but the dude is a crappy CEO. The flat management style at Steam means nothing gets done or things get half done because no one has the authority to power things through to completion.

Gabe saw the writing on the wall with Windows 10 and started SteamOS as a response but where is the follow through? It's stagnating and dying on the vine.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[BenJeremy]

The reason for doing this should be obvious... many older games are broken when they are installed under Program Files "secure" folders. As I've been running SSDs for my system drives, my Steam libraries are usually hosted on my data drives, which solved the problem when it first cropped up.

Basically, it's a compatibility issue that arose from Microsoft tightening up security. Hard to blame Steam (or Microsoft) for this one.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[Junta]

IIRC, recent versions of Windows have a mechanism to make applications *think* they are writing to that applications directory but are instead writing to an overlay layer (VirtualStore).

This should mean a user need not have permission to modify it, but older applications (and only older applications *should* be messing with it, like 15 years old at newest) should be none the wiser.

Steam however acts in many ways like a mid 90s windows application. Providing it's own concepts of user directories and divorcing it from the system separation and producing a very weird thing.

Re: Steam should stop modifying perms

[JediJorgie]

Steam asks the user to elevate so it can finish setup. It doesn't do it as a regular user. Of course it also doesn't work properly if you don't let it do what it wants.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[sabbede]

You can always set your library folder to something outside Program FIles so it isn't an issue.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[sabbede]

VirtualStore isn't really up to the task. Doesn't play well with the DRM, updates, in-game settings, etc. Steam needs to have direct read/write permission for game files, and context switching (run as admin) only causes more headaches.

Creating a separate SteamLibrary folder outside the secure locations with relaxed permissions is the best solution. Or just don't worry about it.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[Blaskowicz]

So what about control panels and stuff to change date/time, hard disk partitions, install or update software : all the desktop OS have those.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[lgw]

Sorry Steam, you're insecure.

What, the major games that install DRM rootkits didn't tip you to that?

My gaming machine install is disposable. It's the only sane approach. I'm sticking with Win7, perhaps forever; it's an arena where DRM rootkits fight each other for dominance; Steam itself is insecure; I occasionally download a mod and you never know about those. "Security" and "gaming machine"? Lost cause.

And that's just fine. Almost all games save state to the cloud these days, so if I find myself singing "FDISK, reboot, re-install, do-dah, do-dah" nothing of value will be lost.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[sabbede]

Honestly, I don't see what the problem is. Yes, it's under Program Files, yes it relaxes permissions, but so what? Nothing gets elevated and permissions outside steam aren't affected. Having a user-writable folder in a secure location should only be an issue if there are system files inside it. It can cause headaches on shared systems, but for a home user it really doesn't matter.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[Blaskowicz]

I have stored games on a separate hard drive or partition since like, 1999.
A separate directory hierarchy is much needed. See, I can't install large open source games on linux because they want to put themselves in /usr/shit. I'm not going to create a 100+GB system partition just in case I find games that are remotely worth playing.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[Joe_Dragon]

What about game mods and maps that need to be in the game dir and not the user dir? Game updates? Better to for steam to be able to install them with out poping UAP stuff all the time?

What about gaming cafe like places where you have more then 1 user and want to have some lock down.

Some games DRM / ANTI cheat stuff / forced auto updates / mod / workshop auto update needs full write to game dirs and some times more to work.

Re:Steam should stop modifying perms

[EndlessNameless]

Your question is vague, and what it implies is wrong.

Try opening the Disk Management tool on Windows without admin rights and see what happens. With default settings, it will not even load. If you tinker with it you might be able to open it, but you still can't make any changes.

Open up the time applet from the clock in the system tray. See the little shield on the "Change date and time..." button? That means it requires elevated privileges. If you're not an admin, you will be prompted for admin credentials.

Poorly-designed applications like Steam can work around this by running the UI in user mode while interacting with a privileged service in the background. Setting up the service requires admin rights, but you provide those during the initial Steam installation. After that, it only needs admin approval to update that particular service.

I don't buy it...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

How exactly will they break steam?

[Eldragon]

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.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[LichtSpektren]

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.

Read the Halloween Documents to see how Microsoft operates. For example, a program competing with Microsoft's will have lots of nonsensical pop-up errors, so the user will be wont to switch to Microsoft's. In Windows 10, the OS will automatically uninstall Chrome or Firefox and switch the default browser to Edge instead based off of a "detected incompatibility". Things like that.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[UnknowingFool]

Well for starters permissions on directories and applications could be changed in the name of security so Steam will need workarounds. Steam, like any application, will need to access Windows APIs which only some are known internally so that any Windows Store app works differently (and better) than Steam apps. Back in the days of early Word, there was accusations by WordPerfect that Word had access to undocumented Windows APIs that made it both load faster and work better. It was a possibility or it could have been WordPerfect not knowing the Windows API as well as the DOS API. However, it is no secret now that MS has gone to great lengths to hinder partners if it meant harming a competitor.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[Phusion]

Been running Win10 since the first public beta, never had Chrome and Firefox uninstalled. Have it running on desktop, laptop and a netbook, never had this happen.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, but it does reset the browser default to Edge.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[chispito]

Read the Halloween Documents to see how Microsoft operates.

To be fair, if your job at the time was protecting Windows 98, I would like to see your proposed strategy.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[lgw]

Read the Halloween Documents to see how Microsoft killed my Pappy!

That shit was 18 years ago now, give it a rest. Hanlon's Razor applies here as always: never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. If Steam games are starting to have issues on WIn10, it seems far more likely that MS can't find its ass with both hands these days, than that it has some nefarious master scheme.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[rahvin112]

I've been running Win10 since the initial public release. MS has not uninstalled alternate browsers but they have rewritten the default application to Edge twice.

The original author was mistaken as I know of no reports of uninstalling but the issue of Microsoft re-writing defaults and changing the process of setting those defaults to make it scarier for uninformed users is a real issue that you can't just hand wave away. There should be no question these changes were done in a deliberately anti-competitive measure.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[Joe_Dragon]

Will they lock out user maps and mods in games? Try to make then a paid addon? Do content ID BS you mod / map made an content hit so you will get 0% of the mods sales.

Force you to buy live?

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[Tharkkun]

Nope, but it does reset the browser default to Edge.

No it doesn't. Only during the initial upgrade. After that it's fine going forward.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[legRoom]

Hanlon's Razor applies here as always: never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

Ah, yes - the Hanlon's Razor argument: this maxim is true because it has a name!

Seriously though, Hanlon's Razor is idiotic. Malice - or more accurately in this case, greed - is extremely common in the real world (as is incompetence). Dismissing the possibility out of hand is bizarre and naive.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[Painted]

It's done so for me once. And on at least two different occasions I've watched, powerless to stop it, as it one-by-one resets all application defaults back to MS's apps.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[lgw]

It's too easy to be overly cynical. It's something to guard against. The world usually isn't out to get you: the world is usually just dumb. "The man is keeping me down" is usually a feeble excuse. Conspiracy theories are usually wrong.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[legRoom]

Hanlon's Razor begins with "Never...". Now that I called you on it, you have switched to "...usually..." without admitting what you were doing.

Hanlon's Razor has no place in rational discourse, as it assumes an absolute that is known to be false even by those who repeat it - namely, that malice/greed/etc. are very rare and/or always easily distinguished from incompetence.

You are trying to set up a false dichotomy: that one must either accept Hanlon's Razor, or become a cynical (or perhaps wild-eyed?) conspiracy theorist. This is not so; the better alternative is to rationally evaluate the details of each specific case under consideration. If insufficient detail is available, then just admit that you don't know what's going on, instead of trotting out a vacuous meme.

(Notice that I have not commented one way or the other on the truth of the accusation made in the summary.)

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[lgw]

Bah, enough with the penerdandtry. Normal humans understand what other normal humans mean by words like "always" and "never".

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[legRoom]

Bah, enough with the penerdandtry.

It's not pedantry; if you read what I wrote more carefully you'll see that it does not depend upon a literal definition of "never". (Unless you insist upon committing the same error in interpreting my words, which you accuse me of committing with yours.)

However, "usually" and "always" are still very different words even allowing for the normal imprecision of humans speech: "usually" simply means "more than half the time", whereas "always" means "an overwhelming majority of the time".

It is simply not true that malice/greed is so rare that its occurrence can reasonably be ignored by default, and you know it. Society has rules, judges, and enforcers (not just talking about the government here - think parents, teachers, sports referees, etc. too) for a reason: because people lie, cheat, and steal quite frequently - especially when they think they can get away with it.

Big businesses break the rules all the time, often intentionally. We know this because they get caught sometimes. We also know that they have little incentive not to in many areas, because when they do get caught the cost is often much less than their ill-gotten gains.

If you say that incompetence is more common than greed, I might agree with you (depending on the context). However, even if I agreed that the odds - generically speaking - favoured the incompetence explanation, you still need something more substantial than the citation of a foolish meme to dismiss the alternative as unreasonable in any particular case.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[A Friendly Troll]

Works fine. I have it open 12 hours a day. Not a single crash or freeze.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[LichtSpektren]

Read the Halloween Documents to see how Microsoft killed my Pappy!

That shit was 18 years ago now, give it a rest. Hanlon's Razor applies here as always: never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. If Steam games are starting to have issues on WIn10, it seems far more likely that MS can't find its ass with both hands these days, than that it has some nefarious master scheme.

If corpses with slit throats start appearing on the streets the day after an infamous knife murderer is released from prison, you should assume all those people just were too incompetent to keep their throats safe.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[lgw]

I'm not being pedantic - you just have to look at the precise meaning of all the words in the past 3 posts just right, and you'll see!

The point of Hanlon's razor is that it's a good life strategy. Feeling that someone's out to get you, especially when there's nothing you can really do about it, will not make you more happy.

Re:How exactly will they break steam?

[legRoom]

Are you too incompetent to copy-and-paste, or do I detect a wee bit of malice in the way that you misquoted me?

The point of Hanlon's razor is that it's a good life strategy.

Deliberately putting one's head in the sand is not a good life strategy.

Feeling that someone's out to get you, especially when there's nothing you can really do about it, will not make you more happy.

Who told you that "there's nothing you can really do about it"? Incompetence and malice call for different responses, and thus attempting to distinguish between them is useful.

When a business sends me incorrect bills by accident, I should correct the error and double-check their figures in the future. If such errors occur frequently, I should politely complain to management and encourage them to figure out why their billing process is so flaky, and fix it. This action is helpful to myself, the business, and their other customers: honest mistakes don't necessarily favour one party over the other; they just sow confusion and it is in everyone's interest to prevent them if reasonably possible.

When a business defrauds me on purpose, I should end my relationship with them as soon as possible, and/or threaten legal action. Otherwise they'll just keep looking for ways to cheat me - possibly a way that I'm not clever enough to spot, next time.

Neither of those approaches is useless, but matching the approach to the situation is important - but Hanlon's Razor would prevent me from even trying most of the time.

Saw that coming a mile away

[Dust038]

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.

Re:Saw that coming a mile away

[guises]

On the one hand, this is certainly true. On the other hand, it's not like Steam isn't a walled garden itself. Valve takes a 30% cut too - this won't mean squat to the average Windows gamer. (Though it would suck for those of us who play on Linux.)

Re:Saw that coming a mile away

[Somebody Is Using My]

Microsoft desperately wants to become a services-based company. It's been on their game-plan since the early 90s (at least!) and they have been incrementally moving the company - and their customers - in that direction ever since. For a long time, everyone - including Microsoft - assumed that the ultimate goal was to charge a yearly - or monthly! - fee for the use of their software, be it their Office productivity suite or Windows itself. Initially they were hamstrung both by the lack of infrastructure (e.g., high-speed internet) and customer acceptance (outside of corporations, the idea of "licensing" software - as opposed to buying it - was absolutely foreign to people). Nowadays, with high-speed downlinks and almost two decades of slow-but-fruitful customer education, neither of these problems are as much a roadblock as they were before, and we've already seen Microsoft dip their toes into service-based sales (e.g., Office 365, as one example). But as the importance of desktop PCs and operating systems decline, recent indications are that Microsoft is becoming less interested in monetizing their own software as they are in creating a platform where they can monetize OTHER people's software. The massive buildup of Azure and the pushing of the UWP platform are the two most obvious examples of this strategy.

Ultimately, I think that Microsoft will license their "client / store" for free so they can grab the services fees, even to the point where their reliance on Windows becomes a secondary consideration. That's right; I forsee a day where - if they can get UWP running securely - we might even see Microsoft-blessed apps running on Linux (as well as MacOS, Android, and any other system they feel they could monetize). The Seattle behemoth is transitioning itself away from its Windows monopoly (not entirely without resistance from within) because they recognize that - long term - remaining an OS developer isn't going to be a viable strategy. I think this is a major reason that the Windows10 upgrade was released for free (and why Microsoft pushed so hard with the XBox and Windows Phone), as it greatly increases their potential market (a lot of Microsoft decisions start making sense if you ask yourself, "long-term, does this help Microsoft move towards a services-based business?").

Obviously, third-party store-fronts like Steam challenge this goal, so while I don't necessarily believe accusations that Microsoft are sabotaging their competition, it wouldn't entirely surprise me.

Re:Saw that coming a mile away

[guises]

If it were forced on you by the OS, then the OS would be the walled garden since the OS would the thing limiting what you use and how you use it.

Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[Twanfox]

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.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[duke_cheetah2003]

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.

This. It's a pretty big accusation, and as a regular gamer who uses Steam pretty much every day, I haven't seen any brokenness. Microsoft does have a history of doing that sort of thing to competitors, but I haven't seen anything yet.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[JustNiz]

Problem is that even if this is fake, just by putting it out there someone at Microsoft will find out and think "hey thats a good idea...".

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[whoever57]

I'd like to know what evidence there is to support this, rather than words on a page ranting about perception.

History. Microsoft has done the same in the past, it worked then, so it's likely that Microsoft will use again what was an effective strategy before.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[Twanfox]

Attributing personality to a legal construct is a little like believing a pet rock can bark at you. Good imagination, but doesn't bear practical results.

It is exactly because of history that I did suggest caution and scrutiny. I also realize that random accusations do not make fact, and if someone is accusing someone else of wrongdoing (breaking Steam, in this instance), I have to say to the person making the accusation 'Prove it'. Fairly simple request for them to provide their evidence, which is, literally, all I asked for.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[Twanfox]

I doubt they needed some Random Commenter on Slashdot, or even game studio co-founder, to suggest outlandish subversions of law. High level management seems to at times revel in coming up with stupid ways to screw over others, rather than focus on just making a better product everyone begs to use. If you've thought of it, you can pretty much be sure they already thought of it too.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[whoever57]

Attributing personality to a legal construct is a little like believing a pet rock can bark at you. Good imagination, but doesn't bear practical results.

Companies are run by people. People use strategies that worked in the past. Companies definitely have strategies that they use over and over again. You are 100% wrong, or perhaps just in denial.

I have to say to the person making the accusation 'Prove it'. Fairly simple request for them to provide their evidence, which is, literally, all I asked for.

At which point, said company will be bankrupt. There is plenty of historical evidence. Of course they can't prove it because that requires a whistleblower at the highest levels of Microsoft.

But I have come across people like you before: willing to accept any type of behaviour from Microsoft and not attribute any of it to a strategy. Perhaps you think that it is accidental that Microsoft adopts strategies that result in the continuation of its near monopoly?

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[thecombatwombat]

I'm not sure if it's evidence exactly, but I'm not sure evidence is required. Requiring evidence of someone's intention is almost always impossible. Listening to the opinions and warnings of industry experts is a worthwhile thing to do even if they can't prove someone else's intentions.

The article gives some details as to what got him going here:

"Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP, and is effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem," he wrote in the Guardian at the time. "They're 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."

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[Twanfox]

Microsoft has launched many new features of Windows. Some survive, some don't (SideShow, Gadgets to name a few). "effectively telling developers" isn't the same as "actually telling developers" which is required for malfeasance. It is also not mutually exclusive. It doesn't say "if you're a game studio and developing for Windows, we are not going to let you run your program on our OS unless you make it compatible with UWP." They're also not curtailing users' freedom, though I admit I don't even know what he means by that. Not every piece of software installed on your PC will take advantage of all features of the OS. Why would my game need to manage my drive encryption or be able to set my desktop background? Heck, some don't even care if they're network enabled.

Basically, the statements quoted, to me, do not stand up to the idea of proof. Game studios could go right on doing what they're doing and say nuts to UWP. Besides, after just a shred of thought and research, these criticisms of UWP and any technical limitations that discourage development of PC Games in UWP, Microsoft has already responded to.

http://www.gamespot.com/articl...

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

The claim being made is that Microsoft will actively alter Windows so as to make alternate deployment platforms like Steam substandard and behave erratically. We are fully within our right to ask for proof of that activity being done. Besides, it seems like we're back to the age old Slashdot problem of reporting on old news.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[duke_cheetah2003]

I doubt they needed some Random Commenter on Slashdot, or even game studio co-founder, to suggest outlandish subversions of law. High level management seems to at times revel in coming up with stupid ways to screw over others, rather than focus on just making a better product everyone begs to use. If you've thought of it, you can pretty much be sure they already thought of it too.

Ultimately, at least from my perspective, it seems like a bad idea for Microsoft to break someone elses stuff. Wouldn't that further promote SteamOS and migration of games away from Windows? That seems like shooting yourself in the foot to spite competition. Not saying Microsoft isn't short-sighted enough to do this, but you'd think they'd learn by now, their OS is already teetering on the edge of irrelevance, breaking other people's stuff to 'promote' using their stuff seems like really bad business at this point. Android is very well poised to jump into the desktop arena, Microsoft needs to be very careful right now, IMHO.

Android now has something Windows has enjoyed for the past two decades: Most people can operate a Windows computer. And now, most people can operate an Android phone or tablet. It's not a very big jump for Android to invade desktop space.

Re:Evidence, or it didn't happen?

[rwise2112]

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.

There's none, and in fact Microsoft plans on releasing games on Steam

Is there a windows store for desktop windows 10??

[TheSunborn]

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?

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[gmack]

Bug for bug comparability with Windows is HARD and even worse is that Windows and Unix have fundamental differences in the way they structure resources. Native and cross platform apps are the only way that Linux will not be a second class platform when it comes to games.

 

Good.

[JustNiz]

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.

Re:Good.

[Tharkkun]

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.

Good luck. Valve can't even make Steam work properly. You think they'll attract developers into creating games under Linux to distribute with a product that doesn't even work?

Re:Good.

[JustNiz]

> Valve can't even make Steam work properly

What problems are you having? It always works just fine for me, and I use it for steamVR too.

Re:love to hate

[LichtSpektren]

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.

How is giving support for Linux binaries proof that they're not trying to clamp down on their competitors?

Only Steam?

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:Only Steam?

[Opportunist]

Yeah, but you won't notice it as much because the OS itself comes apart at the seams, so everything else doesn't look so bad in comparison. At least unless you have a real OS to compare it to.

Re:looking up tripocalypse on alphabet.com

[spiritplumber]

http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/we... Actually it's just a roleplay scenario I wrote.

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Archangel Michael]

You realize that the exact same argument was made against Linux and Apache among other software products, right?

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Bing Tsher E]

But what WINE can do is convince publishers they don't need to work on native ports for anything but Windows. If a 'good enough' approximate Windows application runs on WINE there is less motivation to produce anything more.

They learned this lesson the hard way at OS/2. It had great Windows 16 bit interoperability, in fact it was the "better Windows than Windows." So nobody published native OS/2 versions of their products. Then 32 bit Windows happened along and OS/2 users found themselves marooned with only the old versions of the applications they needed.

Re:Microsoft sucks

[Dunbal]

I hate having to deal with all the sneaky updates.

If all you use your machine for is games, just turn off Windows Update once you've got SP1 installed on Windows 7. IF (and it's a big IF) your machine gets compromised - who cares. It's a games machine. Wipe. Reinstall. No data to worry about. Heck Steam even keeps most of your save games in the cloud nowadays anyway.

Yet another reason...

[QuietLagoon]

... why Microsoft has used malware-like tactics to trick people into installing the unwanted upgrade to Windows 10.

.
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

Epic Games what the Mega-Fuck?

[pecosdave]

"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.

Re:Epic Games what the Mega-Fuck?

[Tough Love]

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?

What are you talking about? I just installed and ran the Linux port of Life is Strange. Unreal engine. Looks good to me. By the way, impressive game if you are into teen angst, which I am not but I'm still impressed.

Re:Epic Games what the Mega-Fuck?

[jbickers]

Epic are a bit of a disgrace as far as their own gaming history goes. Their last decent PC game was almost a decade ago, and that coincided with them becoming part of the Microsoft mono-culture. I'm sceptical that Sweeney actually cares about this; maybe this is just an observation that he made in passing, which is being reported as a bigger deal than he intended. If not, then the cognitive dissonance must be strong.

Re:Epic Games what the Mega-Fuck?

[UnknownSoldier]

Agreed it is a little hypocritical of Epic.

I guess helping to make sure their games run on OSX and Linux costs too much.

It isn't an expense, it is an investment in the future to help keep Microsoft honest.

Re:Epic Games what the Mega-Fuck?

[pecosdave]

I consider bitching on Slashdot to be a form of lobbying.

A comment I made here was influential in some changes where Kubuntu is concerned (I went to/stayed with Netrunner anyways).

I've been reading Slashdot since the late 90's even if I didn't register to comment way back then. I have found that Slashdot represents the will of geekdom - companies can chose to follow the Slashdot consensus or crater. Microsoft has been able to resist, but even they haven't been unscathed, they've gone against the Slashdot consensus and very slowly have been slipping into irrelevance. Everyone else sells out, craters, or changes their way of doing things (look at some of the nastiest DRM schemes for an example).

Epic can pay attention to what we have to say here or they can become a division of Blizzard.

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[dnaumov]

Except that running mission-critical software in an emulated and/or virtual environments happens at EVERY SINGLE FORTUNE500 company that has existed for more than a couple of decades.

They have a LONG road ahead

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:They have a LONG road ahead

[JustNiz]

No you don't get it.
Microsoft don't ever waste time/money on making their products actually any good. They just sell stuff by forcing it down peoples throats. Either to people who are already so locked-in to their walled garden that they can't get out, or by razzle-dazzle marketing to clueless sheep who dont ever do any research before they buy anything. Thats Microsofts entire business plan right there.

Re:They have a LONG road ahead

[sabbede]

Well, it worked pretty well for the Windows 10 version of Minecraft. And for Netflix.

And that's all I've ever used it for. No point to the dang thing.

Re:They have a LONG road ahead

[Opportunist]

They still have to do a lot of work to do to make the Steam store as bad as theirs.

What new features?

[guises]

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.

Re:What new features?

[SuricouRaven]

If I were an evil Microsoft manager, I'd go for the next DirectX version. Games need that, especially as DirectX is sure to eventually have features for handling VR.

Re:What new features?

[spire3661]

Its Microsofts version of Steamworks, except they can mess wtih the whole OS itself.. They do the same shit for their own applications. I can use Bluetooth buttons in the Windows store apps, but not Win32 Windows Media Player. They are locking up functions like that to their apps.

Re:Is there a windows store for desktop windows 10

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Unlikely...maybe

[Junta]

That was a downright 'friendly' approach. MS could start shipping in a mode that forbids anything but UWP by default, under some claim of improving the security of the platform.

They can (credibly) point to both Apple and Android as examples of platforms that have locked application delivery to their respective platform by default. Yes in Android you can enable sideloading (but you get shown a very 'scary' dialog about how risky it is and you really shouldn't do it), but as an application developer, you really have to let Google distribute it for you or else miss out on the market.

Idiots

[iamacat]

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.

Re:Idiots

[GuB-42]

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.

I think you forgot about MS-Office... It really is the killer app in business environments. Not only it is best in class but there is also a huge legacy of software written entirely in excel macros.
The real reason people buy PCs is for producing content, gaming is a secondary market.
And indie games are secondary to PC gaming, especially now that consoles and mobile devices have indie channels. Most PC gamers are power users, enjoying state-of-the-art hardware. The reason Windows is so popular for PC gaming is that its driver model support proprietary software better than linux and is not locked down like the Macs.

Re: Idiots

[iamacat]

Days of producing long, monolithic documents for printing is long behind us though. The focus in collaboratI've editing with tools like Google docs, web-based e-mail, instant messaging and blogging. Even Microsoft had no choice but to make office apps for Web and mobile. So not a big reason to keep a PC.

I only play 1 game, and it's through Steam

[DFDumont]

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.

Re:I only play 1 game, and it's through Steam

[erapert]

Have you considered trying AoE out on Wine? It may not work, but it's worth a shot isn't it?
Age of Empires
Age of Empires II
Age of Empires III

Didn't realize

[foghelmut]

Didn't realize that Microsoft was directing game developers to only make stupid Minecraft clones and "survival" games

Re:because...

[Opportunist]

That Steam works. As a player, it does exactly what you expect. It handles the deals with the companies that want to push their stuff on their platform, they have a decent return policy that pretty much ensures whoever sells through them has to deliver a working product, they do have a very well working installation tool that (at least so far) didn't cause any problems for me (if a game worked AT ALL on a platform I chose, it did install without a problem), in a nutshell, Steam "just works".

I can't really say the same for anything MS has pushed. Ever. Just yesterday during an install of a Visual Studio component I got a cryptic error that was due to me having to restart the machine before that VS component could be installed. There was no, zero, indication that this could be the problem in the first place.

I don't really expect MS to be any more useful as a game delivering platform for games they didn't produce if they can't even get their act together for the software they themselves have 100% control over.

They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Miamicanes]

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!"

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[sexconker]

Just install onto separate physical drives.
If you want to share data between the two, use FAT or NTFS with no trickery on a third drive or, as you pointed out, you can use a network drive.

You could also do this on 2 drives in RAID 0. That's my standard config anyway. Just present two separate devices to the OSs.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Dual booting? Good God do people still do that?

Just set up a VM.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[NotInHere]

I have been told that the linux NTFS driver is just a big bunch of guesses of what the proprietary original is doing.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[hey!]

I still dual boot -- but I almost never use Windows, which is kind of the point. I don't use it enough to justify paying for a virtualization compatible license, and it's just a static waste of resources to boot in Windows to run Linux under a VM.

I suppose one solution for those instances where you have to boot Windows yet also access stuff in your Linux partition is to use raw partition access in a virtual machine and serve the data over a virtual network server. I know it's possible but it's been so many years since I've had to do it I couldn't comment on how other than to say read the virtualization platform documentation.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[phorm]

Is this a win10 thing? I've *never* had this issue with anything up to the current version of Mint+Win8.1

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Sir_Eptishous]

Yep.
That is why I just gave up on the dual boot deal, and run Linux by its lonesome and Windows on another pc.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Miamicanes]

I think it's mostly a NTFS thing. Back when 99.9% of files were under 4 gigs, I just put all of my data on a FAT32 volume.

I believe the problem got worse sometime around Vista or Win7, when Microsoft started applying "special" permissions and restrictions to directories like c:\, "c:\program files", anything that's a subdirectory of c:\users, etc.

I'll freely admit that doing things like sharing Thunderbird data files between Linux and Windows was known to be suicidal even in the "good old days", but at least back then you could edit a Windows .ini file under Linux without having Windows blow up due to permissions problems the next time you booted. There were more than a few times when I successfully repaired a borked Windows installation by booting into a Linux live CD and fixing the mess Windows itself wouldn't have allowed me to fix. Now, fixing a borked installation of Windows by booting into Linux has become almost impossible. Even if you fix the original problem, Windows will invent new problems of its own and STILL refuse to start up.

I think the startup delays occur because the Linux version can't spoof Windows' auditing metadata, so Windows notices that someone was editing files it regards as its sovereign property and runs scandisk on them to re-analyze the permissions and ACL metadata. Prior to Win 7 (maybe Vista), Windows didn't particularly care about that metadata unless you had the system locked down by policy, but now it enforces it vigorously. Kind of like how I had a full-blown domain-based Samba network back in 2000 that worked perfectly, but ever since Vista and its fucking homegroup bullshit, it seems like I have to spend 20 minutes fixing Windows' latest self-inflicted breakage every time I need to access a file on the Samba server from under Windows.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[thegarbz]

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.

Windows is the arbiter of NTFS's legitness. This isn't an ISO standard, there's no magic open documentation. If Windows won't touch an NTFS partition then it's not legit.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[phorm]

Hmm. I do have a shared NTFS partition and haven't had many issues, but usually I just use it for copying ISO's, large files, or some documents, so maybe it has more to do with the files being used.

Re: They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Zan Lynx]

Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 both use a fast boot mode that is essentially hibernation. But if it detects a disk change since last boot it has to abort and start over from scratch. That's where the long delay comes from.

There's some way to turn that off.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[tepples]

Just install onto separate physical drives.

Fine for a full-size tower, hard for a small form factor desktop or a laptop.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Blaskowicz]

I use Linux's NTFS support to deal with real data merely, not Windows system files and so on, so what happens in my experience is when I boot into Windows - very rarely - I run chkdsk to check for and fix a few errors, which linux is incapable of dealing with on its own.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[sexconker]

Yet another reason laptops fucking suck, I guess. Though even the moderate size ones tend to have options for 2 drives.
And you can squeeze 2 SSDs in the H series NUCs for shit's sake.

Re:They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Anne Thwacks]

I have been told that the linux NTFS driver is just a big bunch of guesses of what the proprietary original is doing.

Since the original was just a bunch of guesses, that is the only way to achieve compatibility.

Re: They did the same thing for dual booting Linux

[Miamicanes]

From what I recall, the thing that triggers exponential delays upon reboot that can tie up the computer for days is when you do something like:

1. Boot into Linux

2. Back up an entire Windows C:\ drive into a gigantic tarball

3. Perform the annual Windows Reinstallation Ceremony

4. Spend the next two days installing updates, half of which could have been avoided if Windows weren't too fucking stupid to install SP1 FIRST, instead of installing 430 updates that are actually PART of SP1 and would have been included in it ANYWAY.

5. Boot into Linux

6. Unpack the tarball of your old C drive in its entirety into c:\oldC

7. Reboot into Windows. Windows sees a few hundred million files in c:\oldC with invalid GUIDs, and spends hours/days rebuilding its ACLs.

Or... if you want to watch Windows REALLY hang for a week, fill a 4 terabyte drive with severely fragmented files, then boot into Linux and use a program to do a full offline defrag. Windows will take SO LONG to complete the next boot (assuming it ever DOES), any time savings from the new, efficient organization will be consumed a hundred times over waiting for Windows to finish loading.

Sue 'em

[Tablizer]

Sue them under anti-trust laws.

Re: Nothing new -- Saw this with Win7

[Opportunist]

Now try with Sim City 3000 but if at all possible without installing the ancient version of Shockwave that has more holes than even contemporary Adobe products.

Re:Is there a windows store for desktop windows 10

[vux984]

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.

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Berkyjay]

Do you have an example of mission critical software emulation going on?

Horse Shit

[sexconker]

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.

Re:Horse Shit

[Sycraft-fu]

Valve quit crying because they got bored with SteamOS. A major problem with Valve's "flat" model of no bosses and no structure is that they only work on something if they find it interesting. Once they get bored, it languishes. Half Life 3 is a great example. There was clearly more story to tell, they left it unfinished, and there is clearly market demand for a sequel to the point it would be virtually assured to make money. So why hasn't it happened? Because they aren't interested in it right now. It's not a business or creative decision, it is that people are playing with other shit.

Valve is now fascinated with VR and eSports so that is where most of their energy is going. They are the shiny new toys they like, until they change their mind and chase something else. So SteamOS is in the same general boat as Steam itself in that they work on it a bit and maintain it, but there isn't a lot going on because there are few people interested in it.

Also I think they thought that SteamOS and Steam Machines would be like Steam itself: minimal effort on their part and people would just flock to them and use them in droves. Instead the market has responded with a resounding "meh". They'd need to put in a lot more effort to have a chance of making it happen and they don't want to do that.

GoG, too?

[WheezyJoe]

What about GoG? Does it rely on violating security to install/run games, or do they do something different?

F**k steam and all the rest of them

[WaffleMonster]

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.

Re:F**k steam and all the rest of them

[Lumpy]

Yep GOG is where it's at.

Re:F**k steam and all the rest of them

[Tharkkun]

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.

Steam OS competes against the PS4 and XBOX. Not Windows. When will people understand this.

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Khyber]

Banks still primarily use an emulated COBOL-based backend.

Steam+Linux = Problem Solved..

[LVSlushdat]

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....

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Sir_Eptishous]

You are correct.

I love the idea of somehow moving off of Windows, but in the workplace, it is what people use.
And we are talking about A LOT of software that will run only on Windows.
A LOT.

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[mlw4428]

For residential, no. You have mobile apps to thank for that...people are spending less and less time on desktops and laptops and more and more time on tablets and smartphones for their personal use. None of this will be relevant to desktops. For home users, the Year of Linux on the Desktop isn't likely to happen.

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Berkyjay]

Wait, would this be the same as emulating any of the Office Suite software? I mean, I worked at a company that emulated Office and Photoshop through Wine. It was a awful.

Re:love to hate

[spacepimp]

Yes UEFI is a blatant attempt by Microsoft to make Windows and PC's more open.

One walled garden said to another

[JosephDoeden]

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

There's a far easier way for MS to do this.

[SuricouRaven]

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.

Re:Microsoft sucks

[pr0nbot]

Most online games require authentication, so a compromised machine may leak all your logins. A reinstall isn't going to help you much with that.

Re:Microsoft sucks

[Dunbal]

Most logins to online servers are acquired through social engineering not keyloggers. Provided you're reasonably cautious with what you're downloading/clicking on the chances of you getting a keylogger installed on your machine are closer to zero than 100 percent. Plus nobody wants your World of Tanks account.

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Tough Love]

Steam should be sponsoring WINE project, and start getting it stabilized for STEAM.

I would prefer that Valve continues doing exactly what it is doing: promoting Vulkan as a superior next gen 3D platform, thereby promoting native Linux ports. We're at the point where quality Linux ports are at least the equal of Windows. Linux networking is way more stable than Windows judging by the lag issues I observe constantly even in pro tournaments. I would not be surprise to see Valve start running big tournaments on Linux machines, because it just works better and that matters when a lot of money is at stake.

As far as content goes, there are way more good quality Steam games for Linux than I could possibly have time to play, including some solid AAA titles. And honestly does anything besides Dota 2 really matter? (Prize pool: $18 million and climbing.)

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[Vapula]

Steam on Linux is not the only thing that will be a problem for Microsoft :

1) many people didn't upgrade to Windows 10... and it's not now that upgrade is not free anymore that they'll do it... Including people who did the upgrade then downgraded because of the issues with Windows 10. These people keeping old versions of windows will keep a good game performance and that can ba used against Microsoft to prove their malicious intent

2) Steam is also present on the MacOS/X platform... Although PC are the most present systems, there are many people under MacOS/X, thanks to (because of) the iPhone/iPad/iPod and iTunes. Microsoft is not the single player anymore OS-wise

3) WINE is getting better and better and you see more and more games/apps fully playable under it... including Steam and some Steam games.

4) Steam on Linux as a "device" (steamboxes). Their presence is small but they are one more alternative

5) of course, as you pointed out, Steam on Linux, which is getting more and more games...

Now, it's time that the game developpers start to embrace cross-platform technology like OpenGL/Vulkan, OpenAL, SDL, ... and to see competitors like Sony and Nintendo also support them... this would result in a "support every platform without using the DirectX system or support Microsoft only using DirectX"... with a good push from the two console giants, this would put the nail in the Microsoft coffin as they'd end up with only a very few exclusive and rather buggy support for the rest (unless they also embrace fully these technologies).

Microsoft tried to stop WebGL because it was a subset of OpenGL and was relying on OpenGL, a technology they tried to put away... And OpenGL is also coming back as OpenGL ES for iPhone/Android... So having good OpenGL skills is clearly not stupid...

Re:Unlikely...maybe

[spire3661]

Their implementation was so bad. I was playing GTA IV on my PC via GFWL and it would kick my wife off of Netflix on the Xbox360 because of Xbox Live. Ii was shocking display of incompetence and greed. I dumped my MS consoles after that. It was bad enough having to have Live to watch Netflix when MS was literally the only company charging for that.

Come to Linux: the water's fine!

[erapert]

If you don't like a company or their product then don't give them money or use their product.

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 .dll downloads. No longer do my eyes scream in agony at stark white dialog boxes in a darkened room.

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.

Ummm... no

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

I've been using Steam on OS X for some time now...

[SolemnLord]

...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.

Yes, they can

[rickb928]

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...

There is no, it is doomsaying

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:There is no, it is doomsaying

[DoofusOfDeath]

Maybe it'll end up being true, but so far there is zero evidence.

Not to quibble, but would it make sense to narrow your statement to the following?

Maybe it'll end up being true, but so far there is zero evidence that I know of.

Re:There is no, it is doomsaying

[EndlessNameless]

You missed a few important things.

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.

Universal apps run on the XBox One.

At this point Win32/64 programs run better and have less limitations

Unfortunately, they require porting to/from Microsoft's console. That will no longer be the case, and the XBox is setting up to be a flexible TV media device.

So it is a meaningless limitation for now. Programs using an API nobody uses won't work with Steam.

Being able to run the same code on XBox and Windows will be appealing, although AAA titles will always need access to a high-performance video API. Oh wait, UWP supports DirectX 11 and 12.

If Microsoft gets UWP working to the point where most XBox games use it, no one is going to port to Win32.

This is a doomsday prediction, and like most doomsday predictions it is based on what the predictor feels to be true, not actual evidence.

Not all doomsday predictions are equal.

End-of-the-world predictions require some powerful yet unknown phenomenon to occur.

This scenario only requires a single bad actor to successfully manipulate its own platform. And there is a history of success there.

Obviously, there can be no evidence unless internal Microsoft documents are leaked, but the scenario is credible based on known capabilities and past behavior.

Re:So sad...

[erapert]

Care to elaborate?

Hubba hubba, hubba - who do you trust?

[Carcass666]

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.

MS evil? Nah, probably just stupid...

[TiggertheMad]

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...

Re:MS evil? Nah, probably just stupid...

[Bengie]

The issue is this is always about standards. MS sees a standard they don't like and create their own. But standards are useless unless you can enforce them. Once MS's standard becomes popular enough, they go into enforcement mode, which makes their's better.

They did it before, and they are doing it again.

[catchblue22]

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.

Re:Microsoft sucks

[jwdb]

Ditto to this. I stopped updating Windows 7 a few years ago when some critical update was incompatible with dual-boot, and haven't had a problem since. Works fine for an occasional-use gaming machine.

If they actually believe this is true...

[DoofusOfDeath]

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.

EEE is not dead; look at systemd

[Etcetera]

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."

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[mark-t]

Every app that I have for windows (none of them are games) does not work in WINE.... the only linux option I have is to run them inside of a windows 7 virtualbox

Maybe this is a good thing

[diesalesmandie]

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...

Re: Nothing new -- Saw this with Win7

[Joe_Dragon]

Now get simcity 2000 network edition working.

Re:My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[mark-t]

Dammit, I hit submit instead of preview,,, totally flubbed up the opportunity for a pun about whining.

By deprecating Win32, difficulties w/steam api

[HalAtWork]

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

Windows API need to be a international standard

[jcdr]

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.

Timeframe set

[jxander]

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 ...

Re:Timeframe set

[JustNiz]

Until the big games developers bite the bullet and end their addiction to DirectX and other Microsoft-proprietary APIs, its always going to be 5 years away, and In 5, 10 and 20 years time it will still be 5 years away.

Store censorship can be come a big issue apple has

[Joe_Dragon]

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.

Re:So sad...

[CrashNBrn]

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?

This main reason I didn't like windows 8

[ewibble]

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.

Sue for what?

[cbhacking]

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:

Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP

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.

Linux Game development

[DMJC]

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.

How can steam get any worse?

[Tharkkun]

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.

Re:How can steam get any worse?

[Blaskowicz]

I can deal with it : even VLC is slow to start these days, has been for a few years and I don't give a shit, I can wait five or seven seconds more than necessary.
I could care less about Steam, if not for the fact it's basically Spyware and was the inspiration for spyware like Android, Windows 10 and Amazon e-books.

Steam OS Is Dead In The Water.

[westlake]

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

[Joe_Dragon]

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.

Re:need to open sandbox to map editing / mods

[vux984]

yes, but steam isn't a really good platform for general purpose apps. I mean they're trying it...and also movies too... but I don't think it has a lot of traction... i don't really see it replacing cnet/sourceforge/etc to get torrent clients, file compression utilities, etc, etc. maybe they'll make it happen.

It always seems a bit wonky to have that stuff tied to a steam account in any way. Logging into steam... etc...

The groupthink is strong

[cbhacking]

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 a simple solution.

[bjwest]

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.

seems a bit alarmist...

[jgranto]

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.

Re:Unlikely...maybe

[EndlessNameless]

MS could start shipping in a mode that forbids anything but UWP by default, under some claim of improving the security of the platform.

That would actually be true. UWP supports much more granular permissions than plain Win32.

But they won't do it because everyone will turn it off. If UWP becomes a major player in the next decade or so, I might expect it.

you really have to let Google distribute it for you or else miss out on the market.

It is fairly simple to sync music and photos. It could be equally easy to sync Android apps onto a phone or tablet, but Google doesn't benefit from that.

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[epyT-R]

Wine isn't an emulator. It is an api wrapper. It does not virtualize hardware.

Re:Xbox and Windows 10 exclusive

[minasoko]

Microsoft purchased the Gears of War IP from Epic in 2014. The game is being developed by an in-house Microsoft studio, now called The Coalition. So yeah, super surprising that Microsoft are only releasing it on platforms they control.

How will you be able to tell?

[damnbunni]

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.

Re:How will you be able to tell?

[JustNiz]

Unfortunately its apparently become OK for companies to release buggy software now, and people have become conditioned to just expect occasional crashes etc as a normal part of using a computer.
(I seriously do blame Microsoft for this cultural acceptance of crappy software, because back in the old days prior to Windows becoming ubiquitous, I used to work on Sun Unix systems, and system crashes were pretty much unheard of, and each was taken very seriously).

I'm not saying I've never had a problem with Steam, but 99% of the time it works just fine for me.
I've had far more cases of Windows itself crapping out, or my Android phone locking up, or Firefox locking up than I have had of Steam failing.

Re:Microsoft sucks

[spire3661]

Most gamers lose their account because they get social engineered or they used the same password for their 3rd party guild forum as their game account and someone raided the site for the accounts/passwords.

Break the monopoly with innovation

[sdguero]

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.

hows that working for ya?

[mr.dreadful]

Pretty much the only reason I even boot up Windows anymore is to play Steam games. After that, meh... who needs them?

Re: My Fingers Have An Alternative...

[epyT-R]

Agreed. The fact they've gotten this far at all impresses me. Reverse engineering something like windows is a gargantuan effort.

Re: Nothing new -- Saw this with Win7

[Opportunist]

You sure you didn't confuse it with Sim City 4?

Re:Unlikely...maybe

[b783719]

That was a downright 'friendly' approach. MS could start shipping in a mode that forbids anything but UWP by default, under some claim of improving the security of the platform.

They can (credibly) point to both Apple and Android as examples of platforms that have locked application delivery to their respective platform by default. Yes in Android you can enable sideloading (but you get shown a very 'scary' dialog about how risky it is and you really shouldn't do it), but as an application developer, you really have to let Google distribute it for you or else miss out on the market.

They did made one. It's called Windows RT with windows store apps only. and it is discontinued.

Re:So sad...

[neoritter]

Basically this.

Re:So sad...

[neoritter]

Basically what CrashNBrn stated. Arstechnica does a great breakdown why Tim Sweeney is an idiot. http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Probably True

[DarthVain]

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.