Tim Sweeney: Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Some benefits:
1. I know the game won't dump save and log files in my Documents folder (that place is mine, GTFO).
2. I know there won't be garbage files or side effects in the registry when I uninstall the app.
3. The game can't install rootkit-like spyware to inspect other processes on my system (hello Warden).
It would be nice if there was a way to distribute UWP apps outside the Windows Store, but UWP apps are way easier to trust than Win32 apps.
Now, it's logical from those vendors to lock in installation on their plateform. It's theirs. They built it. Like you build a car so it's easier for you to sell your replacement pieces and control what's going to be plug to it.
Bottom line, if you don't like it, don't use windows. Or if you use windows because it has value to you, you have to play by MS rule or hack around. Like with cars.
I dislike these rules, I don't use Window as my main system. I use a system that doesn't lock me in.
If you are using Windows (or any other system locking your in), if you have been using it for the last 10 years, you knew this. You are half responsible for your situation.
Don't tell me "I have to use it because 'work|busines|whatever'". You choose to keep this work/business/whatever. It's more important to you than playing by MS rules. Well, you made a choice. You don't like it. But you did. You never fought it, you never did anything to prevent this from hapening. You had time. And solutions. This didn't happen by surprise or on one week. People warned you about this for 20 years, and provided alternatives, and you didn't use it.
Except that cars don't work like that. You can take your Ford to Valvoline and they don't have to use Ford-brand motor oil.
Sometimes these things are interchangeable, but sometimes they aren't.
There is nothing about cars that says you can't use aftermarket parts. And to the extent that there is, they got the stupid idea from Apple and Microsoft, not the other way around, and there ought to be a law against it (if it isn't already an antitrust violation).
Let's say you're trying to be a (successful) major video game developer, though. Your approach to the problem is going to be a little different in today's market.
UWP apps are written to use the Windows Runtime API.
Traditional programs are written for the Win32 API.
If you don't like the rules for UWP, don't write games for it. Nothing stops you from writing games for the Win32 API.
Would developers prefer their games to be on Steam or on the Windows Store?
Presumably Tim Sweeney wants to do UWP or he wouldn't be making such a fuss about it....
Maybe some developers will think it's a good thing if Steam has some competition?
The US DoD has already started to move 4 million users to Windows 10, which is a good sign.
Most businesses will be planning to move by 2020, when Microsoft stops supporting Windows 7 (though I expect a few daring souls will be hoping for an XP-style extension).
So, Windows 10 is slightly ahead of track for a billion users at the moment.
Just how many gamers are we talking about here?
Project Centennial is supposed to allow for 100% compatibility with existing Win32 APIs.
This is from last BUILD.
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2015/2-692
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/msdevshow/Episode-56-Project...
This upcoming BUILD might have more talks about it.
If Valve is providing a sandbox, then it's in Valve's best interest to make sure it works fairly well, as if it doesn't then that reflects poorly on them.
Game developers will want to fit within the sandbox, and not break the rules, because the benefits of Valve's Steam are obvious, and losing access to it (or getting a worse deal on sales percentages) is a big deal.
Is it possible to break out of sandboxes? Sure. Do I think that having a sandbox in place prevents some of the more rampant abuse and some bad actors? Also yes. So I think sandboxes make us more secure (if you trust the sandbox provider), but that doesn't mean we are secure (which is for the most part unobtainable, so we should be focusing on degrees of security anyways).
Given the verbiage that you used, what you're clearly trying to express is, "anything that's not open source is inherently insecure." If that's the point you're trying to make, you should just make that point, don't dance around it by making it sound like you're talking about the usefulness of sandboxing.
Hell, chroot could be considered a form of sandboxing and it's used in open source all the time, as are VMs, as are jails, as are having dedicated system accounts for different daemons, as are a gazillion other technologies and practices that provide additional separation between software and the system it's running on. Surely you don't think that stuff is all smoke and mirrors to make people feel safe.
[0]http://techreport.com/news/27687/steam-for-linux-bug-deletes...
Isn't Warden a mechanism to detect cheating?
Absolutely not: Sandboxes keep things in, not out, and cheaters are typically the lawful root-administrators of their machine.
So they just run the games sandboxed and launch their cheats in a more-privileged mode. For example, a cheat can read the game-memory and provide a "radar" overlay to help the user locate hidden enemies. More advanced versions can could replace game-code (from the outside) or even tinker with the network-stream.
The game, meanwhile, would have no recourse, since it would (correctly) be unable to see or influence anything outside of its sandbox.
Also you are technically wrong. Part of the large uproar is that these apps prevent overlays and other features. So they do in fact keep some things out (even currently as implemented).
Then you're just renting your computer from somebody else who can dictate how you use it. ("Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go: I owe my soul to the Microsoft store...")
UWP is a good idea, but it's a little too early to apply to PC games. Give the industry and engine developers 5 years or so to widely adopt something like Vulkan (which they'll do anyway for portability reasons) and this isn't an issue; but the way games have to apply driver-specific modifications today just won't work with UWP.
Good luck if the success of your game requires tweaking the graphics card in a smartphone ;-)
There's nothing stopping them.
It's infuriating how many games do this, on both Windows and OS X.
The two extremes would be:
iOS: security and usability.
Linux: security and openness.
The problem is that it creates an unfair competitive environment. Steam can't really use these features because it has to instruct each individual user on how to turn 'sideloading' on.
According to Microsoft, 2 was always possible, 1 was fixed in November (it was previously possible but required bypassing some things), so that leaves only 3, promising to never lock it down in the future.
This idea that Microsoft could lock down its platform in the future is nothing new, and part of the nature of having a proprietary platform. It really isn't up to them to fix this problem. It's up to developers to make their software available on free and open platforms where they know that no future lockdown is possible.
I'm surprised this is the first they've done this. In a way, Valve has been reaping the same benefits of Apple and Google without supporting an OS.
It's too bad things are headed completely in this direction. Rent seeking app stores have shown that there is little resistance from developers even with ridiculous margins (30% of revenue!).
Steam, for example, has been transformative for the industry, and has led to a renaissance in independent game production. I remember the bleak days of the early 2000s, when consolidation was sending even large developers bust, with little opportunities for their staff. Many friends and colleagues were jettisoned from the industry. Apple's iOS store, also, for all its well-rehearsed problems, has supported an industry that I honestly don't think would exist without it: largely creating a viable micropayment games economy that had been wanted by developers for 20 years at least. Both have increased sales by many times more than their cut.
App stores are not rent seeking. They created a market (and in some cases a platform) for you to sell to. Being able to sell your product with only 30% overhead is something previously unheard of in retail.
If you want to get 100% of the money, then you're welcome to build your own sales system and generate trust with it, deal with bad creditors yourself, deal with maintenance and artefact distribution in a secure, scaled manner... the list goes on and on.
Go and ask some farmers if they'd feel hard done by if they got 70% of the final purchase price of their produce.
Really, it's not all that different. You have the same groups - a distributor and a shopfront. Sometimes these are the same (apple's app store) sometimes not (a games publisher managing your game on steam). You generate the primary product, and it goes through a middleman or two on the way to the end-user.
And just like a farmer, you can sell your own product yourself and walk away with 100% of the cash. But like the farmer's shack by the side of the road, you don't get as much market penetration with your product on your own website - people have to come to you or stumble across you, instead of just get your stuff at the supermarket where they usually shop.
Yes, there are differences, but no, they're not wildly different. You make something and want to sell it. People offer services to help you sell it. You give them some of the money in order to sell more product. 30% is really low overhead.
And what Microsoft does to force Windows 7 users to 10 is shaddy. Welcome to the old new Microsoft, with their evil tactics and nowadays also with software that spy's on you. So mean, shame on them. So sad, I really like Microsoft products from the 1995-2010 timeframe, and now have to replace all the legacy, though I have time until at least 2020.
No. Youll still need windows 10 to run them. So im not sure how Vulkan makes you not need DX12. If youre developing games, sure. But as a gamer you have no way to make DX12 games run on vulkan.
Vulkan's existence means I don't need DX12, and I don't need Windows 10, because game devs that care about me (and my 35% brethren) will have a Vulkan port, in the same way that game devs that care about any other non-Windows platforms have an OpenGL port (or are already using an engine that does the porting for them). Technically you're right that Vulkan won't help me run a game that uses only DX12, I doubt there will be many of those games though because of many bad incentives to do that.
The same things that make them prefer DX and games consoles, when given a choice.
Of course with the amount of nice indie games, you are free to ignore those studios.
Are they, for instance, making certain hardware accelerated APIs only available for UWP apps? If so, are these APIs designed in such a way as to prevent someone from creating an API that runs on top of Win32 that exposes the capabilities (i.e. by requiring drivers be locked down in such a way as to disallow interaction outside of UWP)?
I can't see a way outside of driver feature lock-out that the OS could effectively prevent game developers from developing games the way they have been in the past. I'm guessing this has a lot to do with their "Write it for Xbox One and it'll work on Windows 10, too" goals, but that feels more like a convenience than a lock-in -- games are a constant exercise of porting to get them on each platform, so getting them onto a non-UWP target would be another platform (which many developers would simply skip since UWP would be theoretically easier).
But seemly DX12 IS heavily tied to UWP, for example there were many rumors in gaming forums, that some UWP "features" (like locked vsync at 60 FPS, and game always being full-screen window, not allowing true fullscreen or true window) will be enforced in games that use DX12.
There is also rumors it is the other way around, that to use certain DX12 features you must make the app at least UWP compatible, this mean locking vsync and making it only support borderless fullscreen...
But the situation is just a mess and I don't found any comprehensive data yet.
I've yet to see anyone point out an actual technical feature of UWP that you can't get by delivering a normal Windows app through Steam, just store features like crossbuy with Xbox One. There are several features that normal Windows apps have that UWP apps don't have yet, as noted, and DirectX 12 is fully available to all Windows apps.
Honestly, if we're picking the lesser of two evils, I'll pick Microsoft over Valve, the company that just got around to notifying people of security breaches that happened over Christmastime this week. Valve seems to be in this weird place where they don't want to make retail games anymore because of all the Steam cash they have rolling in but they don't want to actually have to manage Steam, they want users to curate the store for them and basically are engaging in less-than-benign neglect.
These "migrations" of users from one service to another should happen naturally to be successful. Not enforced because of platform restrictions, but based on these new platforms being actually better and more desirable for the end user.
The only thing I could think of where it might matter is if the GPU drivers have better support for DX12 than Vulkan, resulting in better performance, but I have no idea if that's the case.
Couldn't they just keep using the previous version of DirectX?
If you don't like the Universal Windows Platform, well. Don't release your games on it. I have heard Steam is a quite popular alternative...
"The specific problem here is that Microsoft's shiny new 'Universal Windows Platform' is locked down, and by default it’s impossible to download UWP apps from the websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store," said Sweeney. "It's true that if you dig far enough into Microsoft's settings-burying UI, you can find a way to install these apps by enabling 'side-loading.' But in turning this off by default, Microsoft is unfairly disadvantaging the competition."
This is a boiling-the-frog kind of situation. They do just enough to get people today to accept what they're doing, then the next steps come later.
Except you don't get to do all those things through the windows store. You don't install Chrome through the windows store, only the google app with 1 tab. No firefox on the windows store either. Is steam on the windows store? How long before the windows store becomes the principle method to get apps on your desktop? Sweeny's criticism resonates here: Sweeney then compared UWP to Google's Android, which is "technically open, but practically closed" thanks to how "comically difficult" it is for general users to sideload apps. "This is not merely a technical issue: it has the market impact of Google Play Store dominating over competing stores, despite not being very good," he says.
Never. The attempt to unify across devices probably sounded like a good idea, but doesn't really make a lot of sense for anything that isn't a toy.
Unless Microsoft wants to cut the throats of all the vendors that made its operating system dominant, it's not going to get rid of Win32 applications running on the desktop.
It's almost as if there is a War On General Purpose Computation... and the locked down malware "appliances" are winning.
This started with iOS; the people that should have recognized the dangers of a gatekeeper controlling who can develop or install software decided to embrace the shiny iPhone and later Apple's tables. Now, even Microsoft is getting into the "app store" market and stripping away the remnants of their platform that weren't locked down.
> sideload apps
Is that the new euphemism for "install software"? Once everyone is convinced installing software outside of the "official" app store is deviant or unusual, it will be easy to introduce a meme that 3rd party software is risky/harmful/immoral.
> "This is not merely a technical issue ..."
/sigh/
Even with Tim Sweeny's current explanation of the problem and Cory Doctorow's warnings[1][2] several years ago, I doubt many people - even HN readers in this very thread - will actually fight this trend or even change their behavior in any meaningful way. They will continue to give Microsoft money and market share. Instead, I expect down-votes and complaints from apologists that pretend this is for "security", true-believers that pretend this trend to lock everything down doesn't exist, and willfully-blind nerds that think jailbreaking devices is a long-term solution.
Boycotts usually require sacrifice. Do you want to pay that cost now? Or are you going to signal approval to Microsoft by rewarding them with money or market share?
> as long as you have custom setting
That is going to be a never ending treadmill of fixes whenever Microsoft wants to push out changes. If you wake up tomorrow and discover that a new patch for Windows was installed, do you have the disassembled code and/or packet logs to actually know that your "custom settings" are still intact?
But none of that really matters - using "custom settings" is still telling Microsoft that you're fine with their locked "appliances". They will only change course when they see either their revenue or market share start to decrease.
Do you want to make the sacrifices necessary to send that signal now? Or do you want to wait until the costs are even higher?
It's not my opinion that jailbreaking isn't a long-term solution to the lockdown of the General Purpose Computer. Jailbreaking isn't available in all situations, it may involve legal risk, it often requires technical knowledge, and it can impact the relationship with the manufacture such as voiding a warranty.
As for the term "willfully blind", how would you describe someone who denies facts?
You may not like certain facts, but they still exist.
After briefly introducing himself as a visitor from MIT, Stallman requested a copy of the laser-printer source code so that he could port it to the PDP-11. To his surprise, the professor refused to grant his request.
"It was my first encounter with a nondisclosure agreement, and it immediately taught me that nondisclosure agreements have victims," says Stallman, firmly. "In this case I was the victim. [My lab and I] were victims."
"When somebody invited me to betray all my colleagues in that way, I remembered how angry I was when somebody else had done that to me and my whole lab," Stallman says. "So I said, `Thank you very much for offering me this nice software package, but I can't accept it on the conditions that you're asking for, so I'm going to do without it.'"
How long before the [Windows Store] UWP becomes the principle method to get Microsoft Office and Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, Intuit, iTunes, Lotus Notes,, AutoCAD and roughly 10m more programs?
How long before 100m in-house business programs are only available in UWP versions?
You really think that Microsoft could block the Win32 API when the vast majority of Windows programs -- including its own programs -- depend on it?
Note: don't confuse "Windows Store" with UWP. Windows Store is just a download site, not an API.
Currently you can buy most games on Steam, and there's really no reason to buy the UWP version if it is also available on the Windows store - but if Microsoft continues to add UWP only features to Windows, then it might not be long before we see games where the UWP version has features that makes it superior to the version available on Steam - or they aren't released on Steam at all.
I agree with Sweeney that that is a worrying prospect.
UWP is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, and can be supported by any store. Broad range of tools http://bit.ly/1QIHTf0
It is interesting if true, but the devil is in the details, and Sweeney points out the similarities to Android, where you can technically side-load applications, but it is a pain in the ass, and I'm sure 99% of users couldn't be bothered to do so. Look at how much trouble Amazon has had getting people to use their app store on anything but 'Fire' devices.
I agree.
There are basically three tiers of OS application openness in recent years:
At the top, you have old Windows, GNU/Linux, and older versions of Mac OS. You can download and run programs all you want.
Down a level, the OS by default stops you from installing anything you want, but there is a settings option to disable this feature. This is done for security, because you would much rather non-tech users be restricted to only installing from your curated appstore than from random downloads off the Internet. This is the modern OSX / Android model.
At the bottom, we have iOS. You can only install and run programs through the system appstore, without option.
Of all these platforms, iOS makes by far the most revenue per user for developers, and since with walled garden restricted appstores you rent seek a large portion of app sales, as the platform owner you also make the most money when developers make the most revenue - 30%.
So you are Microsoft's board in a nice executive suite in Redmond. You look down the coast and see those Cupertino guys making tremendous amounts of effectively free money because they don't have to lift a finger - their army of third party developers are making software they get to profit off of. This revenue made Apple the most valuable company in the world for over a year. Your company is losing market share on every front. You want that money.
Apple themselves are already moving OSX towards their iOS model, because of its profitability. Microsoft naturally will want to do so the same. They will be cautious, but it is the optimization of their revenue models if they can pull it off successfully - they just have to maintain "business" editions and contracts of their OS for companies currently using their computers because large corporate entities are much less likely to put up with usurping rent seeking app stores - so you just keep giving them versions with unlocked program installation, while the consumers can all be stuck using your store for everything without recourse, all the while you rake in wonderful 30% per sale.
This is not even really speculation, because legally the Microsoft board must act in the interests of their shareholders. All it is is a question of when, when you can flip that switch and take that last island of user freedom, the moment when the loss of users to open platforms (which would, even today, be extremely tiny) poses no threat to the dramatic revenue you could extract from the platform taking that sweet sweet 30% of all software sales. Because the writing is on the wall, and the evidence is hundreds of billions of dollars in your face that this model creates an infinite money machine. You just have to properly soothe the leprechaun into letting you steal the pot of gold.
I dispute this claim heavily, especially as free versions of games tend to dominate, whereas on other platforms $60 games being bought but tons of users is the norm.
Does the average ios user of a free app really spend $60 on Itchy and Scratchy money? Doubtful, whereas every user of $AAA_GAME here does.
Note, even making the "whales" argument where some users dump inordinate amount of cash on things isn't very convincing because there are similar situations going on with say valve games and hats.
Won't we always have the "option" of going the Linux way?
I think it's really telling that Valve has been investing heavily in developing it's Linux gaming econsystem, they saw this comming a mile away.
The difference between mobile and PC is that if hardware maker has their own closed system, what they have is basically an appliance. PC's are generic item build from standards and Microsoft has produced an open operating system with large markets for software running on their OS. They can't just close it on a whim and abuse their monopoly power position [1].
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[1.] Findings of Fact in U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation, Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ) and State of New York, ex re. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer et al., v. Microsoft Corporation, Civil Action No. 98-1233 (TPJ), November 5, 1999.
"Monopoly power" is not the same as monopoly. One must always point this out when saying it or discussion is derailed.
Several of these other platforms are already closed to one degree on another, with iOS probably being the most restrictive, so I'm not sure I see Microsoft as being dominent enough to warrant a claim of monopoly power any more
reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...
Can you provide any citations for the assertion that Microsoft are currently (2016) forcing hardware companies to tie their products to Windows?
Such devices come with a locked down UEFI, the "legacy" BIOS is deactivated and often hidden behind shortcuts that one has to press during boot. Also it depends if you bought a business or consumer hardware.
Reinstalling an os is a technical task, which requires some knowledge to do effectively. Having been doing this for 25 years or so, I can safely say it's easier now than it used to be...
And no, it was easier before Microsoft introduced Windows 8 and 10. It was very easy, just insert a CD/DVD with a boot-image. Read about UEFI and "secure boot" came along with Windows 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...
Might I suggest you take a break from the keyboard, perhaps go for a nice walk in the fresh air:)
My favourite OS is Fedora.
First thing, is I find out that all manufacturers only were selling non-Windows machines at a significant markup, the only way this made sense to me is if Microsoft is actively bribing them (ie: "selling" windows for a negative price).
So I thought, I would just buy this cool Windows 8 laptop, and remove Windows 8, since it is crap anyway.
Well... no, I am still using that Windows 8 (now 8.1, after it forcefully upgraded itself), because for some reason (maybe a UEFI bug) I can't make anything that ins't Windows that came installed to boot, not even Windows install discs boot, much less Linux discs, and yes, I did disabled SecureBoot, but it still blocks everything except Windows 8 itself from booting (this mean I can't use Memtestx86 either)
If that ins't closed, I dunno what is.
The main problem here is that Windows is such a monopoly that the PC manufacturer didn't care to make sure anything else worked.
In other words, this manufacturer probably didn't care because the % of users who would use it for something other than the standard config is too small to justify the time spent outside that standard.
I don't think this specific case can be called monopoly. You can install Linux and other stuff fine in most laptops, this looks like an isolated case. I mean, you can even install Ubuntu on a Surface Pro and Surface Book (proprietary MS hardware).
It's not Microsoft bribing them, it's the crapware vendors.
It actually does cost more to make and sell a non-Windows PC. You have extra work to install and validate the different OS for hardware and drivers, plus extra stock-keeping, accounting and distribution costs, and then extra advertising and support costs.
And you don't get a kickback from installing crapware ;-)
If you do all that, most of your buyers will complain that you've installed one version of Linux and they would have preferred a different version....
Seems a bit harsh to me... if Microsoft still occupied the same kind of dominent position they did 15 years ago it would be a different story, but now there are a lot more viable alternatives
Is there a legal difference between a "PC" and a tablet or phone? They all seem like general purpose computers to me. From that perspective, MS definitely doesn't have a monopoly.
Only a very small fraction of those employees use any OS on these laptops and desktops except for Windows, and that small fraction is concentrated in the computer industry, e.g., Google and Oracle (if they are in fact mostly non-Windows; I don't know for sure) which means that the monopoly is even stronger in the industries other than the computer industry than the global numbers would suggest.
"Investing heavily"? They only have a handful of developers working on the system!
Indeed, it's the only option that will remain really. And luckily things are improving for Linux gaming now.
For what it's worth, a lot of us don't think it's "OK" on a mobile OS either.
https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/705795213709561857
UWP is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, and can be supported by any store. Broad range of tools http://bit.ly/1QIHTf0
I don't see the hypocrisy here.
After all Epic is also profiting from them.
Or it is only bad when the size of the pie isn't as big as one wishes for?
The primary key of the issue here is the loss of something that actually existed. The iOS App Store has never been open. You can dislike the lack of openness but there has never been an event that removed the openness, as it has never existed. The same goes for Epic's games. The console exclusive Gears of War 3 never had a PC version released and then subsequently taken away and buried ATARI style. It has always been console exclusive.
Tim sees Microsoft's actions as a force that will reduce the openness of the Windows platform.
If he is such a knight of openess, then Epic should only have targeted open platforms.
Yet they happily took the money those bad closed platforms brought them.
It is not a matter of consoles always being closed, rather a duality of principles when money speaks.
My only issue is about a person that has a company which earned lots of money from closed platforms, arguing about the openness of another platform.
I don't know him, nor have any reason attack him other than stating that his actions don't follow his words.
This is a classical case of loss aversion. [1] Tim would be at least equally mad if Microsoft decided to redirect all its efforts from win32 to cow milking. Would you then claim that Tim is a hypocrite for having drunk milk instead of actively boycotting the dairy industry?
Yes, you could make the argument that extremely black & white attitude is necessary, and that if you like some open system then thus follows that you need to fight against every closed system. Some people like Richard Stallman do this. However most people, like Tim, belive that a more gray world can exist, and tend to fight when visible threats manifest and otherwise spend their time on other things.
Except that, at this point, there's no evidence that it's being threatened.
Microsoft currently makes almost all its revenues from traditional Win32 programs (including Office) and practically nothing from UWP apps.
Same is true for Adobe, IBM, and practically every other major software publisher.
The transition of users from computers to closed devices like tablets and phones means now most people are only consumers and can't create anything on their devices. Except for selfies, that is.
All PC platforms should be actively protected from this closure.
If you think only a GPL OS deserves to keep that openness then you are ignoring the 98% of computers that don't run Linux, for IMO silly ideological reasons.
[1] The primary open property in question is the ability to build, distribute & run apps on Windows without even notifying Microsoft. The opposite of a walled garden.
Sweeney is alleging that Microsoft' current tactics are intended to stop Windows being an open platform, which, if true, will be very jarring for a lot of users and developers.
Windows has never been open source software. That's a discussion for another time.
Does it answer your question?
However, with the history of PlaysForSure, Zune, Games for Windows, Windows Phone, and the Windows Store, I don't have much confidence that Microsoft will win the hearts and minds of users or developers this time around.
It might start open-ish. But then some PM will notice that users can post content that is objectionable, or that there are such things as "porn mods" for Skyrim, or whatever, and then the lid will come down.
Xbox Live Arcade started out as a way for indie developers to get their games into the Xbox market. Over time XBLA reached the point where only deep pockets could successfully navigate the TCRs and multiple verification passes needed to ship. Indies got frozen out.
Let's not even talk about XNA, or Games for Windows Live (shudder).
Whatever hardware Microsoft offers a gaming platform on, it won't be left uncontrolled for long.
Valve and Steam on the other hand (though still not perfect) have only grown and gotten better in the meantime.
I am not sure why you say that. There is significantly more Indie games being released for Xbox One right now than it was for Xbox 360 and XBLA. There are also early preview releases similar to Steam EAPs, etc.
Maybe it's time for game developers like Epic to support Linux and make gamers choose linux as their desktop, that would probably create a surge of new users and contributions to the linux desktop development and maybe finally provide a "real" alternative.
Why I am running Windows is mostly because I can't stand all the issues with Linux desktops and that graphic drivers and games barely exist on the platform, I am loving Valves support though.
In the current market, this assumes a few things that simply don't work. Platform adoption drives game software development on the PC side of things. Though some of us do, most people do not purchase a high-end PC exclusively for games. They purchase it to do something they need and might add a high-end graphics adapter to allow them to play games. This often means buying a Windows box. If a game developer released a great game exclusive to Linux, that game would be played by very few people (and would be screwed by all of those graphics issues you mention). It's possible if Steam OS and Valve's platform gains wide adoption that game developers will focus more on Linux, though.
The economics of game development seem positively scary to me as a software developer. For major titles, they throw millions of dollars into development in hopes that a game, costing around $50 (and widely pirated) will generate revenue for about a year. And the success of a game is largely determined by factors that are risky, similar to other visual art-forms. Maybe the topic isn't one anyone cares about? That money is flushed down the toilet. Contrasting that with business software which can cost well over $50 and have a lifetime of several years, it doesn't surprise me that game companies look to subscription MMORPGs, paid DLC to existing content and in-game (effectively "paid-for cheats") to make money. Getting them to be willing to spend more to support a one-off platform with existing difficulties supporting high-end graphics scenarios is unlikely. Consider that a business case for an expensive piece of software like Adobe's Creative Cloud could be made far more easily. The software even has native support for Mac OS and Windows, yet they are unwilling to support Linux. That makes me a lot less hopeful we'll ever see great games running in Ubuntu without Wine.
No one is using linux if they want to play games and game developers do not publish to linux because there is no gamers on the platform.
Plus, it'd be very hard to accurately determine "correct" usage. You don't have to have a dev center account to develop for Windows. You just need it to distribute your apps. I've made plenty of apps without distributing them and haven't needed to touch dev center. I do believe you need VS to create the apps, but only because the tooling is only available there. There's nothing technically limiting that, though, and simply having VS installed does not indicate you are developing Windows apps. You could be writing Python, for example, or even writing stuff for Arduino using 3rd party extensions.
Cause anything short of not getting the latest drivers or something or anything that affects performance or existing feature sets isn't the worst thing ever. Ok it's lame to try to close a system that's been open forever. But this is exactly what Apple is doing with their App Store, minus I believe preventing any serious Platform APIs from being called.
One of the actual facts in this case is that Microsoft makes the vast majority of its income from Win32 programs, including Office 2016, not UWP apps.
Another actual fact is that Apple, Adobe, Google, IBM, Oracle and other large software companies also make their money from Win32 programs, not UWP apps.
Another actual fact is that all these leading companies are quite happy to launch lawsuits and/or to approach the US DoJ with accusations that Microsoft has done something anti-competitive.
All of this means that Microsoft cannot possibly close off access to the Win32 API, and even limiting DirectX could be a big risk.
It also seems to me that the PC games industry could quite easily be delusional about its significance in today's software industry, and that it's not aware of the full picture ;-)
Personally, I couldn't give a shit if my games ran on Microsoft's shiny new platform if I tried. As long as we can distribute and run executables I don't really see this having much of an effect, and if Microsoft really starts trying to lock devs out of features they need, well, there's always Ubuntu.
I feel like this is a really bone headed move, when Valve is pushing the bounds of gaming on Linux Microsoft is doubling down on more "exclusive" platforming, because that went so bloody well last time. coughgamesforwindowscough
[1] http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/4/11159584/tim-sweeney-windows...
>Ok, so run the program. Yeah, I know it says your computer is protecting you, just ignore that. Look for a little button that says "More info". No, "More info". No, don't click OK. Ugh. Re-open the file. Ok, under that scary sentence that you should ignore, there's a button that says "More info". Click that. Ok, good. Click run anyway. Yes, I know it says it could be unsafe, click it anyway.
You get the picture. It makes distributing little side projects you make a huge headache, which frankly is not something I see microsoft solving any time soon.
I won't pretend I'm across the whole doomsday prophesy implied, but... a lot of the reason (not 100%, but a lot of the reason) why many gamers own a Windows PC is for Steam.
Okay, so I have no data to back that up except... lots of my younger cousins and nephews and their friends who beg their parents (and me) for a new graphics card so they can run this or that game. They are ALL on Steam, it's in their blood. They might do a bit of homework and multimedia stuff on their Windows boxes, but Steam is a major application, not least of because the social integration and features that run very deep within the Steam network.
Microsoft trying to ruin that party will be like Google trying to convince everyone Google Buzz is the social platform of the future. Barely a pebble in the pond rippled from that attempt, and Microsoft are no strangers to the art of pebble-throwing.
Universal Windows Platform, however, is an API that is strictly better and safer in many cases. It means an app can run on phone and PC, be sandboxed, offers power and lifecycle management features which the Win32 API does not, and a generally saner API.
Minecraft is developed by Swedish company Mojang.
Will future games be developed now that Microsoft is closing its borders?
(MCPE, based in C++, appears to be intended to eventually take over as "the" Minecraft. It's behind feature-wise the Java version, but advancing relatively quickly lately.)
Search for Project Centennial.
They could have signing certificates that automatically timeout and force publishers to update often and then charge for the certification. Publishers can always get a little extra by paying for the "editor's pick" feature. Oh, and also, because users despise long downloads why not have a normal and premium download rate for both publishers and end users.
And leaving an off switch in there... I think someone got a chair in the head.
It's not just about games. It's about control of the app business. Apple won't let you sell an IOS app that competes with an Apple product. In time, neither will Microsoft.
I see the MS Office suite on my iPhone, there are iMovie alternatives too. Are you talking about private API access?
One could make a conspiracy in restraint of trade argument that Apple, Google, and Microsoft are acting collectively to control the app industry.
Guess that was before someone at Microsoft came up with this UWP idea and somehow roped gaming into it.
I wish Microsoft never entered the video game industry in the first place. They made it worse for everyone for their own profit.
Easy solution - don't develop games for Windows or Xbox!
Although if you're a Free/OSS zealot, you might not want to use the closed drivers. But if your alternative is the equally closed drivers on Windows, then what's the difference?
Oh, wait... Valve is trying that. ;)
And as for OSX... if you express this concern about Microsoft's app platform but not Apple's encroachment on their (poorly managed) app platform? You're being unfair and letting prejudices and populism blind you to the issue.
And all of this ignores that the most important computing platforms, the ones on mobile handsets? They're impossibly locked down and no one seems to care.
And it's laughable that you think Windows 10 is even remotely comparable to Linux for "portable applications". How are Win32 executables portable at all? They don't even work between versions of Windows. Win32 API is still a mess and pretty much everything about Windows is not standards compliant.
Apple has this exact same facility in the Mac app store. And has an even tighter lockdown on the iOS store which we all mysteriously pretend is different somehow because reasons and 30somethings nostalgia.
Linux on portable devices such as laptops is a comedy of errors, failed device driver support, excuses, and politics breaking battery life.
If you say otherwise, you have much lower standards than I do for a modern laptop.
> How are Win32 executables portable at all? They don't even work between versions of Windows
... Wait. Wait... I just read this. What? I have DOS executables that still work in windows, let alone very old win32 api executables. Do Linux executables work somewhere else besides Linux without someone bending over backwards to support them (e.g., FreeBSD?).
It's more the absurd claim that Win32 as an API hasn't made good nods towards backwards compatibility. It has.
That being said, Linux can run old binaries just fine. You just need the libraries. Windows does not have a stable syscall API, so that cannot as easily be done with Windows. As for win32, Sun tried to standardize the Windows API during the DOS days to ensure backward compatibility, but Microsoft killed it.
From what I can tell, you're executing a playbook based on prejudices and not an actual argument. Is OSX less arbitrary in its UI or less locked down? Could it be that developers HAVE to accept Apple's locked down game environment for iOS because it's the only platform that does a good job of combating game piracy? Is the Android App Store actually any better in this regard?
Maybe. Maybe not. But all I see here is a very biased set of standards. Windows 10's App store is far less important to the industry than the iOS store in the large, as far more software moves through it.
I'm actually hoping for a good discussion of why people are comfortable with the iOS store beyond, "I have historical reasons to hate Microsoft but not Apple." I clearly will not get that from you.
Windows has always been a mediocre platform. I was really happy when I got off it because I no longer had to deal with reboots for updates, disk fragmentation, viruses/malware, micro-managing software updates, yearly reinstalls to get cruft off the system, everything I install thinking it is so important it should autostart (which is really a problem of being able to execute code during the installation process), etcetera. Prople who suffer from Stockholm syndrome over the abuse they have from running Windows think such things are a normal part of having a computer, but they are not. Sane platforms do not have such problems and Windows is just not a sane platform.
As for "I have historical reasons to hate Microsoft and not Apple", it is the opposite. By the time that I obtained my first computer (running Windows), Apple's colorful iMacs looked like children's toys and before that time, I had been traumatized by parents who tried to pass off children's toys as computers. Apple's ridiculous hardware designs combined with my experience of my parents' outright lies lead me to believe that Apple was trying to replace actual computers with inferior substitutes that looked pretty. Until Mac OS X, that was not far from the truth, but I did not know that at the time and developed a deep seated hatred of them. Things slowly changed over the years as I began to see the technical merit in what Apple had done, first with iOS after I found Android to be s terrible OS design and then with Mac OS X fr it being a POSIX system like Linux and being Darwin like iOS. That being said, hatred just is not a healthy thing and any dislike I have for any vendor's software is not worth harming my health by doing something as silly as hating them. I already went down that path once with Apple for irrational reasons. There really is no reason for me to go down that path again.
As for iOS, you are trying to get a discussion over iOS from the wrong person. The right person should be yourself, but if you cannot see what is wrong with the other options on the market, then there probably is no one who can explain it to you. iOS design is great (e.g. no garbage collection outside JavaScript, no annoying app drawer, no noticeable UI lag that gives me headaches, consistent UI design, etcetera). It is an excellent stand-in for WebOS until the day that I get a sane Linux distribution (i.e. proper package management, no Java, X Windows, etcetera) running on smartphone hardware that I like. Given that I have my hands full with non-mobile platforms (laptops excluded), that will probably be a very long time.
Citation, please. Sweeney's tweets implied this was the hypothetical. So either Tim is under NDA and being coy, or something else.
But the simply fact is: I do not disagree with Apple & Microsoft & Google doing this to their platforms, so long as a reasonably accessible side-loading option exists and there's always the opportunity for a third party store and appropriate facilities for developers.
We're at a point where there are no more options to protect people's computers other than code signing. We've tried a lot of things, and we've reached a point where we must concede that education and simple restrictions on binary execution cannot overcome the basic difficulties users have. All the app sandboxing in the world won't help us if users are fooled by sub-optimal UX into running malware.
And Malware exists on every major platform. Even OSX. Even iOS.
> The reason they are not upset about anything Apple is doing is that Apple does not restrict APIs to its Mac OS X App Store.
This is absolutely false. Apple not only labels several APIs as "private" and non-accessible, but it also creates rules for entire types of software. They even stop arbtirary updating mechanisms because of their review path, which then impacts users! What's more, there is no untrusted general distribution path for iOS. I don't know why you said this, as I can't find any way to interpret it.
And don't even get me started on how Apple mandates how you transact with users. I'm amazed its legal, but in the US vendors have always had ice water dumped on them by every new technology. It's about our contempt for creatives, a cultural norm Apple has expressed for a long time.
And don't say the desktop OS is a dodge. The situation with Apple's store and Microsoft's store is absolutely identical, except that on OSX, so many developers are unhappy with the store they've decided to take the risk and ask users to disable that protection.
So, Apple locks its entire API set to its store on iOS. Unless you're going to ask customers to jailbreak their phone, you have no options other than setting up a developer environment.
I was going to go through your second two paragraphs of value judgements and fisk them a bit, but honestly I don't see the point. You're dismissing a lot of accomplishments of a lot of people out of what looks to me like pure preference and not an informed assessment of the situation. It doesn't take much research to find out that Apple's iOS is generally considered the worst of the 3 mobile platforms for modern mobile UX, with its only saving grave being a slightly superior accessibility story over Android.
Which is natural and fine, but maybe couching your argument in terms of technical reasoning is not the best way to express your point.
I do not care about Microsoft's attempt to invent an App Store, but Apple's App Store is not annoying game developers while Microsoft's is. If they are upset about it, they should break the status quo by developing for other platforms, many of which are simply better than Windows by virtue of being designed with open standards. in the long term, if they stopped developing for Windows, gamers would abandon it for platforms that do get their attention and the publishers would not need to worry about Microsoft ever again.
As for mobile devices, they were always locked down. iOS and Android have managed to open them up with standardized POSIX APIs and ways to run third party software on them. Apple even has made updates no longer carrier dependent. There are ways that they could improve (e.g. Android could get rid of Java and its blobs, iOS could become OSS, etcetera).
I do happen to have worked in healthcare IT though.
In the light of: https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsof...
1. Statically link everything.
2. Bundle the shared libraries you depend upon.
Long-term solutions:
1. Distributions should allow parallel installation of different library versions. so-files are already versioned, so this shouldn't really be all that difficult. That said, this doesn't help if you depend on specific versions of non-library files, like executables or headers.
2. Use docker, or something like docker, to formalize binding a binary to a particular version of a particular distro.
As far as distribution is concerned, Steam provides a way to get the files to the computer, but doesn't provide a consistent environment for them to run in. To pick two random examples, Portal 2 on Linux links against 20 system libraries, whilst Shadowrun Hong Kong links against 39. Even the Unity-based SUPERHOT links against 38.
Obviously, Steam OS is a different beast.
Some important libraries not included include libGL(X), libpthread, libm, libdl, and libc. The reason for not bundling GL(X) is obvious - you have to use the GL libraries that match the graphics drivers you're using. I'm not sure about the rest, though. libc does sometimes have breaking changes.
The bundles are maintained by Steam rather than by individual games. I'm not sure what happens if game A requires one version of a library and game B requires an incompatible version. It doesn't look like that would work out well.
As for the incompatible versions being required, that would be handled by SONAME versioning, so it should work out fine. If there are somehow conflicts within a SONAME version due to poor planning, there is always the option of putting them in different paths and telling the ELF interpreter to look at paths based on what the game needs.
edit: really 4 downvotes? Care to tell me what is wrong in my comment. Are you guys really defending Win10 and Nadella here? This is his vision - iOS-like system on the desktop and that 30% app revenue. Being cognizant of that should be a positive.
I do agree, the time to complain about this was 7 years ago when Apple did it (as I did at the time). The horse has now long bolted and we might as well consign ourselves to living in a world where making money from software consists of assigning 30% of revenue to a rent seeking landlord. We can expect the opportunities to do otherwise to narrow down to zero over the next 10 years. It's not good, but it's a decision everyone made collectively 7 years ago while drooling over iPads and iPhones.
They could do that in a lot of ways without creating a locked down OS with all software distribution centralised through microsoft with a mandatory fixed cut. They just happened to choose the way that eventually puts them in the position to take a 30% slice out of the entire software industry revenue.
It's rent seeking.