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Steam On Windows 10 Will Get 'Progressively Worse': Gears of War Developer (ndtv.com)
Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, or UWP, approach isn't sitting well with many game developers. Four months after criticising UWP ecosystem for being a walled-garden, curtailing "users' freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers," Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, the studio behind the Gears of War and Unreal franchises has once again lashed out at the Redmond-based company. He alleges that Microsoft plans to make Steam -- the world's largest PC gaming platform, "progressively worse and more broken." in a move to bolster people's reliance on the Windows Store. From a Gadgets 360 report: "Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They'll never completely break it, but will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seem like an ideal alternative. That's exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they're doing it to Steam. It's only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan but they are certainly trying," Sweeney said. He adds the outcome of this would be forcing every app and game to be sold through the Windows Store alone. "If they can succeed in doing that then it's a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows store. Once we reach that point, the PC has become a closed platform. It won't be that one day they flip a switch that will break your Steam library -- what they're trying to do is a series of sneaky manoeuvres. They make it more and more inconvenient to use the old apps, and, simultaneously, they try to become the only source for the new ones," he claims.
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!
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.
I was under the impression that a lot of things on Windows 10 would get progressively worse, especially after the end of the free upgrade period.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
"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.
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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.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.