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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

Newell's comments are from 2012. Sweeney's comments have been pretty much directly invalidated by Microsoft's actions. Note that this year Microsoft made a point to address Sweeney's comments by demonstrating Steamworks in a UWP app, and the Windows 10 update releasing today makes it easier to install UWP apps without the Windows Store. They've repetitively reiterated that UWP apps can be sold through third party stores, the difference is primarily a technical one: That UWP apps are sandboxed (like Android and iOS apps) and therefore less able to act maliciously.

To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming. FUD articles are abound though.

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> That UWP apps are sandboxed (like Android and iOS apps) and therefore less able to act maliciously.

Many people don't want Console/phone like restriction on PC. Sweeney feared that MS will try to force everybody to use UWP, and later MS will change UWP policies. But then it will be late for everybody move away from UWP.

How many people you know downloads the apk on their android phone to get the app running? Do you have any say on the Google Play policy changes? MS will certainly repeat how convenient UWP is, but people are reluctant to trust MS because they don't know how MS will behave in the future.

That's what Tim Sweeney fears. Phasing out the open nature of the ecosystem, and replacing it with a locked down one where MS controls everything.

And that's a lock down. Maybe it's not for malicious reason, but people have enough reason to hold on onto the open nature that drove the growth of PC gaming(and malware). Secondly, when they don't know if MS will keep their words.

There is nothing inherently "open" about the current system. Windows is a closed source platform and Microsoft can write it to block whatever they want to. If they wanted to block Win32 apps, they could. (SmartScreen, by default, DOES, if they're not appropriately signed or commonly downloaded.) The idea that encouraging user level apps to use UWP because it is safer does not inherently mean some draconian lockdown is coming.

If Microsoft is going to lock the platform down, they're going to lock the platform down. There's nothing you can do about it. But Microsoft choosing to use competent security in app design has nothing to do with it.

> There's nothing you can do about it.

Indeed. Except switching to open platform.

I didn't mean 'open' or 'close'. I meant 'less restrictive' or 'more restrictive'. Win32 is less restrictive, and UWP is more restrictive.

> The idea that encouraging user level apps to use UWP because it is safer does not inherently mean some draconian lockdown is coming.

All market places (google play, steam, apple app store) has restrictions. I haven't made app for any one of them, but I am certain there are policies people disagree with, and policies that has lead an app to be removed from the store or some app not getting past the the screening process.

On Win32 you don't have that. You can build something, post it anywhere, anybody can download and run it without any hiccup. This fluidity has made PC where it is today.

Also there are trust issues. Sweeney said, "The risk here is that, if Microsoft convinces everybody to use UWP, then they phase out Win32 apps. 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."

> If Microsoft is going to lock the platform down, they're going to lock the platform down. There's nothing you can do about it.

Yes there is. In fact that's why this thread exists. MS has added UWP feature because Epic games won't do it. Steam has also released SteamOS.

It's more users that MS wants. Security comes later. And as long as the developers are taking a stand against restrictive UWP, MS will leave UWP behind. And hopefully next time they will take a different route.

Least restrictive nature is the hallmark of PC. I can't stress it enough.

So what you're saying is, Windows should not strive to meet any sort of basic security capability? Because that's all UWP is: A more secure design.

Win32 is only "less restrictive" than UWP in one particular way: It allows any application to mess with almost anything in your system without warning or user permission.

Anyone can download and run UWP without any hiccup. In actuality, Win32 does have hiccups: UAC elevation, SmartScreen filtering, etc.

Steam can sell UWP apps if they want. Epic Games can merge Microsoft's fork if they want. (Bear in mind, pull requests start as forks.)

Microsoft has the users, it needs the security so it doesn't lose those users. Tim Sweeney is paranoid in the wrong ways, he's suggesting that you have to leave a poorly secured operating system in order to protect user freedom. That's false.

> So what you're saying is, Windows should not strive to meet any sort of basic security capability? Because that's all UWP is: A more secure design.

Its development is rather weird though. If I understood correctly, part of the build process is out of developers' hands, and is supposed to be performed by distributor which supports UWP (especially for different architectures). Is UWP backend toolchain and implementation even available for other distributors besides Windows Store? If yes, then it's not a distributor lock-in. But if no, then Tim Sweeney was perfectly right criticizing it.

I think you may be misinformed. You can build an app and install it using VS. You don't even need VS, apps are just exe's in zip files. Compile and lay it out right and you're done. The Store isn't required to do any of that, so I don't know what the "UWP backend" is. You might look at Hockey app (pre acquisition) for evidence of an app distributor that wasn't Microsoft.

How does UWP achieve architecture agnostic releases then? They claimed it's part of the UWP design.

You compile it to each architecture before you send it to the Store. There's a compilation option to create a .appxbundle, which contains the bits for each arch. It's basically the same as iOS fat binaries.

OK, that makes more sense.

> So what you're saying is, Windows should not strive to meet any sort of basic security capability?

It should, but at this cost.

> Epic Games can merge Microsoft's fork if they want. (Bear in mind, pull requests start as forks.)

Epic games won't. In fact, our conversation starts following the article interviewing Tim Sweeney. I highly doubt if MS will ever be able to convince Epic games to do that.

Also in the future what's stopping MS from forcing developers to use Microsoft store, followed by restriction on the type of content, followed by...more restrictions. The trust issue is very big here.

It's also true that MS have changed their attitude recently after Satya Nadella became the CEO, but when both Tim Sweeney and Gabe Newell is worried about something - I think the issue deserves more attention.

> Tim Sweeney is paranoid in the wrong ways, he's suggesting that you have to leave a poorly secured operating system in order to protect user freedom. That's false.

He is saying it will be wiser for the community at large to choose user freedom over poorly implemented security policies.

> He is saying it will be wiser for the community at large to choose user freedom over poorly implemented security policies.

To be honest, he ignores the elephant in the room. Despite his criticism of MS, all his talks assume Windows and MS everywhere. To promote user freedom, he should do more for people to ditch MS for good and to switch to Linux for example. While UE is one of the best engines that support Linux today, it's done as an afterthought, more by contribution of UE community, not so much as a big focus by Epic.

Using Windows and complaining that MS can mess things up at any time is somewhat incoherent. Because MS indeed can do it. Make something to reduce relying on MS, that's a fix for it.

> it's done as an afterthought, more by contribution of UE community, not so much as a big focus by Epic.

I think that's wrong. Linux support was on the road map, but since the engine was open source, the community(done by one person if I remember correctly) beat them to it. And today Linux is a fully supported platform.

> Using Windows and complaining that MS can mess things up at any time is somewhat incoherent.

Very true. Our only hope is to talk about it, and hoping that MS would listen.

> Our only hope is to talk about it, and hoping that MS would listen.

I don't really care much whether MS will listen. What even if they won't? The only proper solution is not to depend on them altogether.

> Linux support was on the road map, but since the engine was open source, the community(done by one person if I remember correctly) beat them to it. And today Linux is a fully supported platform.

I red somewhere, that many merge requests were ignored for a long time, and Linux wasn't really much of a priority for Epic to begin with. They should focus on Linux more IMHO, including in such public statements. Otherwise these criticisms by Tim Sweeney seem more like rants, than any practical proposals on how to improve the situation.

Agreed. But it's not just about games, or about Unreal engine. Its about all user level applications.

And he is just pointing out this general problem.

> Gabe Newell

I'm sure his attitude has nothing at all to do with owning steam and worrying that Microsoft might actually become a viable competitor. Oh, and unlike EA he can't rely on a customer base that has rabid hatred for MS.

> How many people you know downloads the apk on their android phone to get the app running?

Most of the PC gamers I know (maybe all) did this on the day Pokemon GO was available in NZ/Aus but not NA. Probably few of them had done it before.

I understand what you're saying, but PC gamers are a different crowd than the average Windows user. We'll do what we have to in order to get control of our own PCs back.

I guess on the one hand the lock down is a rational fear, because it's something MS would attempt. But I'm not actually scared that it would be achievable.

This is only because Pokemon GO made the decision not to roll out in all countries but somehow still work in those countries. i'd like to see the business logic behind that implementation. i had to help tons of people side load apps on their phones because they were turned off by the malicious warning that most manufacturers place by default now on activating sideloading functionality

> To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming.

DX12 is a form of lock-in.

Unless you are writing your own, all the major game engines support multiple graphics apis anyway.

It doesn't contradict what I said above. Supporting multiple APIs is a burden, whether it falls on those who write their own engines, or those who write those engines for others to use. You can view it as a tax which increases costs and reduces efficiency. The point of lock-in is exactly such tax, which will deter some from using anything else, or at the very least make it more expensive for those who will use something else. This tax is passed to the end user either way, in the form of slower progress, higher prices, unavailability on other platforms and so on.

i would argue that having only one universal graphics api would hurt innovation and progress, so it's not perfect either. MS is not even the worst anyway, Apple is even forcing Vulkan do use Metal under the hood.

> i would argue that having only one universal graphics api would hurt innovation and progress, so it's not perfect either.

In general, you could argue that more competition helps progress, yes. But it's not even the case here, since walled gardens (Xbox, PS, iOS, etc.) prevent competing APIs like Vulkan from being used on them. I.e. they don't compete on merit (which could boost progress), they are anti-competitive. So they only slow down progress in this case.

To Windows? Sure. But not remotely in the way Newell and Sweeney are suggesting it'll lock you into the Windows Store. They're primarily concerned with Steam being viable on Windows.

And DirectX 12 is not any more a lock-in than any other version of DirectX since the beginning of DirectX, as far as I'm aware. (And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.)

Responses going forward heavily delayed because I'm rate-limited. If you want to talk elsewhere at any point, I am @ocdtrekkie

> To Windows? Sure. But not remotely in the way Newell and Sweeney are suggesting it'll lock you into the Windows Store.

Yes, they were focused more on distributor lock-in, but lock-in has different forms. Since you were talking about PC gaming in general, saying that MS did nothing to lock it, I pointed out that it's not so. System lock-in is still a lock-in, which MS uses to put competition at a disadvantage.

I singled out DX12 more specifically, because some argued that OpenGL was too much behind / not really moving forward, and so on. Vulkan isn't any of that, and MS not backing the effort instead of making NIH DX12 can't use any of the above excuses. They clearly made DX12 for lock-in purposes.

> And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.

On Xbox developers have no choice, but to use DX.

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