Escapist says UWP is worse than uPlay

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...soft-s-UWP-Will-be-Games-for-Windows-Live-2-0

Or as article title says UWP is nothing but GFWL 2.0.
Revamped garbage from Microsoft under the new name.

And why is it worse than uPlay? Just some of it's "features" answer on that question:

1.You can only get UWP apps through the Windows store, which puts Microsoft in charge of all data delivery. Microsoft will get a 30% cut of all sales. Sure, that's the same bite Valve takes from games sold on Steam. The difference is that developers can also choose to offer their software elsewhere. They can put their games on GoG, GamersGate, Itch.io, Humble Bundle, or even directly through their website. A UWP app works only within Microsoft's system.

2.UWP games are locked down. So no mods. Which is one of the major benefits of PC gaming.

3.UWP games don't work with capture software. You can't grab footage with Fraps, Bandicam, or streaming clients. In this day of YouTube videos, live streaming, and screenshot sharing, this is unthinkable. It's a deal breaker for anyone who writes about games for a living, which makes me wonder how much Microsoft thought this through.

4.No overlay software. You can't launch it through Steam, which means no Steam controller support.

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This is horrible. While I don't mod most of my games, don't take screenshots, couldn't care less about youtube vids - Microsoft forgot this is PC. This is not a bloody phone.

I'm not buying anything that appears in that rubbish store.

You know, I have absolutely no problem with multiple clients for "buying" (renting would be the more correct term) and downloading games. Steam, Origin, GOG, uPlay, Battle.net, RSC, no problem (almost). It is what it is. Digital distribution in this form is not going away anymore.

But Microsoft can go right ahead and fuck themselves and their Windows store. Seriously. The way they have treated GFWL by simply pulling the plug and not giving a shit about people's games (like making them DRM-free etc.) was abysmal. I have personally lost my digital copy of Age of Empires III in the process.
This is the only online service that has simply "lost" my game. Another German portal (Gamesload.de where I owned three games or so) that went out of business a few years ago at least had the decency to warn people in advance and provided download links so you could save a DRM-free copy of the games you owned.

Not Microsoft, of course. While they announced the shutdown of GFWL, they never made the affected games DRM-free, provided patches or made sure people would be able to access their games after they pulled the plug.

And that is why I will never own a Windows store game/product. Microsoft can not be trusted to value their customers' digital property so I can not be bothered to own anything other than Windows and Office from them (which are both very unfortunate, "necessary" evils).

You should be annoyed, Joxer. This is indeed an attempt by MS to turn the PC into a locked-down appliance, with a walled-garden under their control. This is the reason a lot of studios are publishing to Linux now - they're not making any money off it yet, but they saw this coming, and they know where it leads.

joxer said:

1.You can only get UWP apps through the Windows store, which puts Microsoft in charge of all data delivery. Microsoft will get a 30% cut of all sales. Sure, that's the same bite Valve takes from games sold on Steam. The difference is that developers can also choose to offer their software elsewhere. They can put their games on GoG, GamersGate, Itch.io, Humble Bundle, or even directly through their website. A UWP app works only within Microsoft's system.

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Am I reading this right? Are you saying if they put thier game on windows store they can't also put it on any other digital distribution services?

This doesn't even make sense. No dev/publisher in their right mind would exclude steam, GOG, etc, just to have their game on Windows store.

sakichop said:

Am I reading this right? Are you saying if they put thier game on windows store they can't also put it on any other digital distribution services?

This doesn't even make sense. No dev/publisher in their right mind would exclude steam, GOG, etc, just to have their game on Windows store.

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I don't think that's the case. Tomb Raider is already on Windows Store and Steam, and I know this from seeing a pile of headlines warning to us buy the Steam version, because the UWP version is gimped.

EDIT

I think what they're getting at is that a UWP application is actually fundamentally different from traditional Win32 application. MS can choose to make certain features (in theory, even DX itself) only accessible through UWP, and if developers want to make use of UWP, Microsoft will control the store.

Exactly. UWP games are forced into M$ store exclusivity.

Urgh. I don't object to clients generally (steam and origin are ok; uplay is a bit grim but I managed to bear it for a run through of M&MX). But yeah, this sounds absolutely woeful. Those features are eye-wateringly bad.

Bill Gates is giving away all his money. You would think some of that compassion would filter down to his old company. This is like when the magazine Computer Gaming World was changed to Games for Windows. It lasted about six months then was gone forever.

Hastar said:

Bill Gates is giving away all his money. You would think some of that compassion would filter down to his old company. This is like when the magazine Computer Gaming World was changed to Games for Windows. It lasted about six months then was gone forever.

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Bill Gates hasnt been 'active' in MS products for years.

Ripper said:

I don't think that's the case. Tomb Raider is already on Windows Store and Steam, and I know this from seeing a pile of headlines warning to us buy the Steam version, because the UWP version is gimped.

EDIT

I think what they're getting at is that a UWP application is actually fundamentally different from traditional Win32 application. MS can choose to make certain features (in theory, even DX itself) only accessible through UWP, and if developers want to make use of UWP, Microsoft will control the store.

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If the games will be available on other clients then I don't see how Microsoft can compete with thier current limitations unless they stoop to limiting future dx to only Windows games. I don't think even Microsoft would go there though.

I know personally as some one who mods extensively I wouldn't purchase a modable game on Windows store and won't be purchasing any other games on Windows store out of principle until some of these limitations are lifted.

Ripper said:

I don't think that's the case. Tomb Raider is already on Windows Store and Steam, and I know this from seeing a pile of headlines warning to us buy the Steam version, because the UWP version is gimped.

EDIT

I think what they're getting at is that a UWP application is actually fundamentally different from traditional Win32 application. MS can choose to make certain features (in theory, even DX itself) only accessible through UWP, and if developers want to make use of UWP, Microsoft will control the store.

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Why would developers use it though? If MS made DX UWP only, all major engines would move to Vulcan.. so it'd be a horrible move... I don't see anything else MS could do to make devs use their store.

sakichop said:

If the games will be available on other clients then I don't see how Microsoft can compete with thier current limitations unless they stoop to limiting future dx to only Windows games. I don't think even Microsoft would go there though.

I know personally as some one who mods extensively I wouldn't purchase a modable game on Windows store and won't be purchasing any other games on Windows store out of principle until some of these limitations are lifted.

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I think you're right - I don't see Microsoft taking this to the extreme scenario. Apart from anything else, they wouldn't get away with on anti-competitive grounds, particularly in the EU.

But, they have tipped their hand and let us know what they are trying to do. They've even talked explicitly about how the console and phone systems offer a better and more reliable consumer experience, and that they want to achieve something similar on Windows. They tend not to emphasise the facts that those platforms are completely locked down, with monopoly app stores from the platform vendors.

Taking the long view, I think it's great - they're pushing a huge section of the market to confront the danger of having a monopoly OS in PC space.

Well, I wouldn't put too much faith in Microsoft not pulling off some of those more sinister scenarios. If you think back to the mid 1990s then you might remember that Microsoft was once known for being pretty damn ruthless.
If I look at the way how they are more and more desperately forcing Windows 10 migration then I can't help but fear that they do in fact have some pretty drastic plans for locking down the Windows platform.

I have a bad feeling about this...

The good thing is developers are taking notice. Hopefully, ms will make Direct X a part of it, and that will drive more widespread adoption of Vulcan. In turn, that will make abandoning the Windows platform easier to do. The sooner there is real competition in the desktop OS market, the better.

azraelck said:

The good thing is developers are taking notice. Hopefully, ms will make Direct X a part of it, and that will drive more widespread adoption of Vulcan. In turn, that will make abandoning the Windows platform easier to do. The sooner there is real competition in the desktop OS market, the better.

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I've been hoping for an alternative gaming OS for so long, I've pretty much givin up hope of seeing it in my life time.

I thought valve might rescue me but steam OS is a joke compared to just running steam on Windows. I don't really follow Linux but it seems like an OS that will always be crawling and never learn to walk much less run, at least in terms of being a gaming OS.

GothicGothicness said:

I don't see anything else MS could do to make devs use their store.

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We could argue the same thing about GFWL.
Back then, MS used - their checquebook. And will do the same thing again.

Moriendor said:

If I look at the way how they are more and more desperately forcing Windows 10 migration then I can't help but fear that they do in fact have some pretty drastic plans for locking down the Windows platform.

I have a bad feeling about this…

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The thing with windows and why some people want windows and not iOS or unix/linux or OS2 or something other is exactly what makes windows different.
The freedom.

You can do anything with OS, kick it, crash it, hack it up, destroy and ruin completely - if you want. Not much loss there except you learned stuff and now you just reinstall it. But you can also leave it intact, and go "paranoic" with getting too protective over it, basically parenting a child.
The core beauty of windows was always the same thing PC games also have - it's moddable.

I'm not sure what is Microsoft planning to do exactly. But the audience already said no to the first attempt of smuggling a phoneOS onto PC named windows 8. If the plan is to force it up on that same audience in small steps like noone will ever notice - it'll fail again. And then in 10 years we'll be playing PC games on PC with some new OS, let's call it doors, that remains open.
Old windows games? Nothing to worry. Any open OS can emulate any closed one. Any.

sakichop said:

I've been hoping for an alternative gaming OS for so long, I've pretty much givin up hope of seeing it in my life time.

I thought valve might rescue me but steam OS is a joke compared to just running steam on Windows. I don't really follow Linux but it seems like an OS that will always be crawling and never learn to walk much less run, at least in terms of being a gaming OS.

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The thing is, there's nothing fundamental that makes Windows or Linux more suitable as a gaming OS. The PS4, for instance, runs on a custom version of FreeBSD, which itself is essentially a variant of Linux. The two things that make an OS viable for gaming are the drivers and the API. In the past, Linux has been weak on both those fronts. That has completely changed in the last couple of years - it now has solid drivers and an excellent API. In that regard, Linux gaming has now learned to walk.

As far as SteamOS goes, I think there is a public perception of it as a flop, but that's not the whole picture. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't suggest anybody think of using it right now. But it didn't so much flop, it's more that it was never really launched. Valve did almost zero marketing, because they knew that the time was not right - all the pieces weren't yet in place. I suspect that if there weren't deals with hardware vendors involved, it would still be unreleased.

But, if you listen to the industry talk, Valve is still heavily invested in making Linux work. Things are just moving in what is jokingly called "Valve Time". What they realised was that the challenge wasn't building a custom distro - it was the lack of an API to match DirectX. They've dedicated tremendous resources to the development of Vulkan and its drivers over the last couple of years, whereas SteamOS has, by comparison, been put on ice. Now they've got Vulkan and Linux support in all the major game engines, and porting from DX12 to Vulkan is relatively trivial, because the concepts are virtually identical. Linux drivers are now easily competing with Windows in some games.

How it will all play out, of course I can't say. What I would say, is to hold judgement on the situation for now - things are just getting started.