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Windows 10's Store Locks 'Call of Duty' Purchasers Into Windows-10-Only Battles (vice.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Two Call of Duty games have been remastered for Windows 10, but if you buy them through the Windows 10 Store there's a problem. "Windows 10 Store players will be isolated from other PC versions of the game," reports the Windows Central site, noting a statement from Microsoft which implies that the decision was made by Activision.
"For unknown reasons, Windows 10 Store customers are segregated from customers who bought the game from Steam, which is by far the most popular platform on PC," reports Motherboard. "Call of Duty fans who made the unfortunate of mistake of giving Microsoft their cash are left sitting in lonely multiplayer lobbies waiting for games that'll never start."
Motherboard reports that at least one player successfully requested a refund, calling the situation "another black eye for a digital storefront that PC gamers already avoid like the plague."
"For unknown reasons, Windows 10 Store customers are segregated from customers who bought the game from Steam, which is by far the most popular platform on PC," reports Motherboard. "Call of Duty fans who made the unfortunate of mistake of giving Microsoft their cash are left sitting in lonely multiplayer lobbies waiting for games that'll never start."
Motherboard reports that at least one player successfully requested a refund, calling the situation "another black eye for a digital storefront that PC gamers already avoid like the plague."
If you paid for a PC game, and *DON'T* have a disc in your hand as a result, then you are just a plain old sucker. The app store model only works for smartphones, but PC owners DEMAND more. Tell these companies that you won't stand for crappy practices and limited availability. Tell them by not giving Microsoft's store ONE RED CENT!
I disagree. My use of Steam over the last 7? 8? years has been nothing but a pleasure.
The only downside I've ever had with Steam is that it lets me easily buy games from Sid Meiers, which for me are like a life-ruining crack addiction.
The app store model only works for smartphones, but PC owners DEMAND more.
Incorrect. Physical sales for PC games have been dead for years. Even if you buy a boxed copy of a game, it will probably just have a Steam code inside. Among developers who release their games for other platforms, it's still common for >90% of a game's sales to be through Steam.
And honestly, it's better that way. I don't need boxes and DVD cases cluttering up my house when I'm going to use them exactly once and then put them away for a few years until the next time I get a new computer and need to reinstall them. Not to mention that it's easy to lose or damage a disc, and for older games it can be very difficult to track down a physical copy that somebody's willing to sell.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Getting all games on all platforms is not feasible, no.
But why the flying hell can't the SAME GAME on PS4, XB1, Windows Store and Steam just ... just play TOGETHER?
FF14 has managed to do it, although I'm told Sony really didn't like the idea - but they have PS3, PS4 and PC players on the same servers. They then have OTHER problems if you want to, say, migrate your standalone PC account to Steam, but that's a whole other can of worms.
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Well, how IS the 1990's? Because that's the last time you could reasonably work that way.
And I have to say, much as I dislike the concept, Steam has been flawless for 13+ years for me and I don't buy games any other way any more.
I do claim my games on all platforms (e.g. GOG Connect, Origin etc.) when they allow or I have extra keys from bundles, just to spread them out and give me a game if Steam should ever be down. But I have 1000+ games on Steam and I can't see me stopping absent serious problems.
By comparison, I've never even looked in the Windows Store, I just disable it on all machines (work ones that I manage, and personal) and all my Games For Windows Live games have been retired or stopped working properly. Same for GameSpy and others.
I realise the limitation and I'd love every game to be DRM-free but it's just not practical in this day and age. Steam is the best compromise there is, and it shows.
But the last time a disc touched my PC? Years ago. They're all sitting upstairs and I *re-bought* most of the games I was keeping the discs for on online downloads (like Steam or GOG) just for the convenience factor. I'm probably never going to put those boxed games anywhere ever again and a lot of them are hard to get working nowadays anyway.
So your sentiment is so misguided. Sure, ideally, it would work like that. But it doesn't. That's the simple fact of the matter. And you're 13 years too late to change that. Kids these days don't even understand the concept of a machine that's not on the Internet, programs that don't just download and install at the touch of a button, or things like serial keys. They literally were born AFTER that stuff was dead.
And good luck buying a laptop with a CD drive nowadays, or one with an OS that lets your old games run without you having to do anything.
windows store locks out mods and other stuff that you get with non sandboxed steam and gog games.
It doesn't work in some genres, especially for PvP.
Let's take Overwatch, for example. PS4 and XBOX gamers, using a game controller, are at a significant disadvantage as compared to mouse/keyboard. For instance, Torbjiorn got a nerf on consoles, but not on PC, because people can track and aim more quickly on PC, negating his advantage there. So you may not want to matchmaker those people together, as the PC gamers will, on average, own the console gamers.
But for Windows Store and Steam not getting matched together? Yeah, that's insanity.
-=Lothsahn=-
Stories like these just makes me depressed and realizing that we have a world worse than what's depicted in Max Headroom.
I think that both Aldous Huxley and George Orwell underestimated what we would come to.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This is not Windows 10's fault. The game dev and/or publisher is responsible for this.
No one will use UWP for serious 3D games - Angry Birds, sure. CoD, never.
We tried to make a cross-platform video streaming app with it and it took 6-8 months longer than expected (mostly due to Microsoft bugs and limitations, as you said) and in the end STILL didn't actually work properly on most "Windows 10" devices. We couldn't even get it to work properly on all Windows 10 Surface Pro tablets and PCs (let alone non-x86 tablets and phones). Made Android platform fragmentation seem simple in comparison.
If you paid for a PC game, and *DON'T* have a disc in your hand as a result, then you are just a plain old sucker.
Just because you have a disc doesn't mean you own anything, in fact you license the software and that's the way it has worked for decades. So if you think there's a difference between having the game on a physical disc or downloaded to your hard drive then you haven't been paying attention.
The app store model only works for smartphones, but PC owners DEMAND more.
No they don't, the runaway success of platforms like Steam PROVES that.
Yeah, it's kinda crazy how the entire comments section is idiotic Windows 10 bashing when this is all on Activision and Valve. They're using Steamworks for multiplayer matchmaking, and Steamworks doesn't work if the game isn't sold on Steam (which is why most stores just sell you a Steam key). Microsoft sells the actual game rather than a key, so in order to work on their platform, Activision stripped out Steamworks and implemented another matchmaking solution, segregating both platforms. Since the Microsoft stores sees far fewer sales, the people who bought it there get shafted.
There's a ton of ways this could've been fixed, but there's no reason to blame Microsoft here. The fact that Steam has such a hegemony on PC gaming is not good, and that's just one example of why.
yes you can turn it off through a simple switch in control panel
This has been repeatedly disproven; unless you're using Enterprise, you cannot fully disable the telemetry.
And PC players have options for outside-game chat and voice programs that let teams coordinate or stealthily share info better.
When I was a kid that was called a TELEPHONE. I agree with the rest of what you said, but please don't make it sound like console players have exactly zero options for voice communication.
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