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GamingOnLinux reports
Gabe Newell from Valve was quite right to fear about the future when he starting talking up Linux, and now it looks like Microsoft will be trying to push their own store even more.
Microsoft are moving to combine Windows 10 and Xbox One into one platform, and with that the Windows Store will become a bigger thing for them. This is something Gabe Newell of Valve feared, and it looks like it really is starting to become true. While there's nothing wrong with having universal games that work on W10 and XBone, making sure developers have to stick to their store is a problem.
The problem here, is that Microsoft are using their money and their exclusivity deals to keep certain games only on the Windows Store which locks out Steam in the process. There may not be too many doing it yet, but you can be sure over time Microsoft will sign more of these Windows 10 exclusive deals like they have with Quantum Break. Ars [Technica] actually put it quite well in their article here:
Unfortunately for Spencer, not only has the PC as gaming platform seen little improvement from Microsoft--bar DirectX 12--but the company's one-platform-fits-all approach simply isn't going to fly on PC. The PC community has its own rules and expectations. Forcing console-like restrictions on a group that values freedom was never going to end well. And now, with those people backed into a corner with Quantum Break--one of this year's most highly anticipated games--the backlash is only going to get bigger.
On this same theme (different kingpin), El Reg reports:
[Continues.]
Microsoft wants to lock everyone into its store via universal Windows apps, says game kingpin
The founder of Epic Games says that Microsoft is trying to lock Windows developers into using its app store for all their products.
Tim Sweeney reckons the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is a power-grab from Redmond to force software companies into selling their work applications solely through the Windows Store.
"Here, Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry--including consumers (and gamers in particular), software developers such as Epic Games, publishers like EA and Activision, and distributors like Valve and Good Old Games", Sweeney writes.
[...] While Microsoft says that the aim of the platform is to simplify software development and compatibility, Sweeney charges that UWP, and the unique Windows features it gives access to, will also kill off third-party software stores and developers who want to directly sell their software without paying Microsoft a 30 per cent cut.
"The ultimate danger here is that Microsoft continually improves UWP while neglecting and even degrading win32, over time making it harder for developers and publishers to escape from Microsoft's new UWP commerce monopoly", he said.
"Ultimately, the open win32 Windows experience could be relegated to Enterprise and Developer editions of Windows."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 07 2016, @11:57AM
The games I buy are also proprietary.
There's your problem. Saying that Steam's DRM is less bad than other DRM doesn't mean that Steam's DRM is not bad. If only the software respected your freedoms, none of this would be an issue.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Monday March 07 2016, @03:18PM
The games I buy are also proprietary.
There's your problem.
The traditional means of funding development of free software, such as selling support or being sponsored by businesses that themselves use the software, don't apply nearly as well to games as they do to libraries or tools. What means of funding development of professional-quality free games did you have in mind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2016, @04:49AM
What means of funding development of professional-quality free games did you have in mind?
Shop the idea to the public. Make an arrangement to get paid for the good ideas. Do the work. Get paid ONCE. Release the game "for free" because the work to create it has already been paid for. Basically just Kickstarter, except you fund the whole damn thing (not just a "kickstart"). This works. As more devs do so they're able to ask for more up front and sell copies for less and less, and even nothing (free). Then you eliminate piracy, because you can't pirate what isn't created, and the more players, the more noteriety you have -- it's free advertising for your next work. This is how some FLOSS devs also make money... They contract to have a needed software or a feature added to a project, and then give the output to the community since the work was paid for.
In other words: Where have you been for the past 5 years?!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 08 2016, @04:23PM
Shop the idea to the public.
I imagine that the public is unlikely to be willing to contribute if they can't get a trustworthy sense of what the finished product is likely to look like and how it will function. This goes double for a studio that has not already built a reputation. When people pay for proprietary video games, they're paying for assurance that the product will resemble a video of playing the completed game.
Basically just Kickstarter, except you fund the whole damn thing (not just a "kickstart"). This works.
Where has the model of crowdfunding a professional-quality game from concept to completion been seen to work, so I can try to answer these objections myself?
Besides, a lot of popular video gaming platforms ban copylefted software. There was a case about the Wii version of Pajama Sam using ScummVM, and Nintendo objected to the legally required release of complete corersponding source code. One could just skip these and just target GNU/Linux and Replicant OS, but when people pay for proprietary video games, they're paying for an assurance of compatibility with the computing hardware and game-focused input devices that they already own.