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Epic Games founder says Microsoft's patches will make Steam progressively worse

115 points by carlosrg 10y ago

crummy 10y ago
There are so many "what ifs" to get to his feared state. It's hard for me to imagine Microsoft phasing out win32 (especially after the disastrous results on WinRT).
- pjc50 10y ago
  While Win32 is hard to phase out, DirectX is more flexible and crucially not critical to business users of Windows. There was already a mini-version of this fiasco when DX11 launched for 7 but not Vista. Microsoft could quite easily say that e.g. DX16 would require UWP, distribution through the Windows store, telemetry, ad insertion, whatever. (Let's not also forget the disaster that was Games For Windows Live)
  - animal531 10y ago
    Agreed, and it's still here; you can only get DX12 with Win10. That hasn't kicked up as many waves yet because the tech has been slow to adopt.
    - douche 10y ago
      Also because DX11 is still perfectly serviceable for most applications - and DX12 is considerably more complicated. There are still new games being developed on top of DX9 today.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        In any case, surely no game developer is going to make DX12 a hard requirement to run their PC games any time soon. Even today, Steam's hardware and software survey puts DX12-capable hardware at around 70% of their users but nearly half of those aren't running on Win10. That's after a year of Microsoft literally giving it away and it being the default OS you get preinstalled on most new PCs in stores. The pattern of adoption hasn't been entirely surprising either: a fairly rapid shift over the first six months or so after 10 came out, but then a much slower shift since then. It's going to be a long time before anyone running a modern GPU on Windows 7 can't run the latest PC games with decent results.
pjc50 10y ago
This is something that has long been feared. It's also rather like the Y2K problem in that as long as people make a noise about it, it can be prevented - but preventing it leaves all the complainers looking alarmist. It's also why Valve have invested in the Steam Machine. At the moment it's not a serious competitive prospect, but it's there ready as an escape valve. After all, only one company can get a 10-30% cut of games sold to run on Windows, and Microsoft don't see why it shouldn't be them. Microsoft do phase things out, but only slowly, with long migration times for business users.
- justaman 10y ago
  Not to mention supporting linux more aggressively.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  A Steam Machine is just as bad as a Microsoft Machine.
  - vlunkr 10y ago
    Not for Valve.
    - Sylos 10y ago
      Not for users either. It's by far less locked down than Windows, as it's pretty much just Debian with Steam pre-installed.
      - jasonkostempski 10y ago
        Locked is locked.
  - ferrari8608 10y ago
    Bad in what way(s) in particular?
    - 10y ago
Sacho 10y ago
Sweeney provides this as Microsoft's alleged strategy to get rid of Steam: "Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They’ll never completely break it, but will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seems like an ideal alternative. That’s exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they’re doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan, but they’re certainly trying." What previous competitors is he talking about?
- 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
  There used to be a saying "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" (although that's now largely regarded as apocryphal/inaccurate), and the memos around the "AARD code" [1] are fairly damning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
  - 13of40 10y ago
    That happened 25 years ago, and even the guy who wrote the code has been dead for eight. I don't think it's a solid data point for predicting what Microsoft is going to do tomorrow.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- osxrand 10y ago
  It could also be how they made QuickTime very (more?) unstable on Windows, or the IE extension in OS 9 that WOZ proved to cause the OS to crash.
  - Someone1234 10y ago
    QuickTime didn't need Microsoft's help. Apple didn't update it aside from security fixes for almost eight years. As an aside do you have any actual evidence that Microsoft made QuickTime more unstable on Windows? Or is that just supposition? PS - OS 9, like Windows 9x, lacked protected memory. So I have no doubt that a leak or other error in IE for Mac could cause the OS to crash. I hardly think that's really solid proof, just more proof that operating systems without memory protection are inherently a bad idea.
staticelf 10y ago
I don't really understand why it bothers game makers? Either it's Steam that takes a 30% cut or it's Microsoft? Sure you can sell your games standalone and I doubt that will never change but most games benefit on being on a platform like Steam or Microsoft Store. For me as a consumer, I like that there is competition.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  I think it boils down to Windows store being a bad marketplace implementation to start with and the fact that only universal apps are allowed which can be limiting to some developers. To be fair though Microsoft fixed many of the shortcomings already.
- carlosrg 10y ago
  The thing is that if one day Microsoft decides to phase out the Win32 platform and leave only UWP, right now the only official way to get UWP apps is through the Microsoft's Windows Store. So the competition you're talking about would disappear because there would be only one way to get Windows software, the Microsoft way. It would be impossible to have competing App Stores, similar to the situation right now on iOS. Seems far-fetched but I can see Microsoft slowly deprecating Win32. It would be similar to when Apple deprecated Carbon, only slower: they'll stop adding new features, they'll tell developers to avoid it for any new development, etc. Won't happen overnight though as they're too much legacy software out there, but it could happen in the span of several years, a decade or so. Right now what I'm saying is fiction but it's a possibility any store developer like Valve and customers too should have in mind.
  - maze-le 10y ago
    This will be the day I abandon Windows completeley. Right now, I only use it for games anyhow. But as you said, it will probably be a long way, with enough time to make alternative arrangements
  - perspectivep 10y ago
    You can install UWP apps from other sources. Side-loading is enabled by default since November.
rnernento 10y ago
I'm confused, can't Steam just release as a free Universal App? Also, with Steam's push towards Linux support this would be a dangerous strategy for Microsoft. Gaming is what drives a lot of people to Windows over other platforms. If Microsoft actively makes Steam unusable on Windows there's no reason to think people won't just seek out a better platform for Steam.
- cmiles74 10y ago
  I don't think MS will allow a Univeral App that installs other Universal Apps. Just like Apple, they'll have a list of restrictions on what these apps can do. After all, a sandbox app that can arbitrarily install any other app is not very sandboxy.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    There's nothing wrong with allowing one app to install another, but the key is, if you can't leave the sandbox, you request the OS do it for you. Android apps are sandboxed, and can install other apps, but you get an OS interstitial asking if you want to do it. Similarly, a UWP app could conceivably be allowed to trigger the install of another UWP app, but it would pop-up a Windows box, not unlike a UAC elevation prompt, showing the app name, publisher if properly signed, and requesting the user permission to go forward with the install.
    - cmiles74 10y ago
      You make a good point, in the Android world you can manually install the Amazon Underground application and grant it the ability to install it's own apps. I don't believe there's a similar side-loading method on iOS, however: Apple has take steps to prevent this. IMHO, I expect Microsoft to release a solution more like Apple's App Store and less like Google. Clearly, Epic Games' founder has the same concerns. He's also expressed concern with Microsoft only allowing something like Steam to be installed via side-loading, which he thinks provides a barrier to entry that is too high. I tend to agree, it's easy to slowly make side-loading more and more difficult as time goes on, or to make more and more critical APIs unavailable to non-UWP applications.
daxfohl 10y ago
Odd to see an article complaining about MS's "closed" ecosystem after all the work MS is doing to open source things, provide tight Linux integration, etc.
- ygra 10y ago
  Microsoft has over 100 kiloemployees in a myriad of different business divisions. Not all of them do things the same way. I'm not sure there is any corporation of that size that act completely coherent to the outside.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  This is a FUD article based on speculation that's being actively contested by Microsoft. The update to Windows 10 in less than a week makes third party install of UWP even easier... Which wouldn't make sense if Microsoft was trying to wall in Windows.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
This is completely unfounded and tinfoil hat levels of conspiracy. If they stripped Win32 out of Windows, it wouldn't only impact Steam, but Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop Suite, Chrome/Firefox, iTunes, their shiny new Linux tools, etc would also be out. This goes against the ethos of Microsoft. Criticise them all you wish, but they're absolutely obsessed with backwards compatibility and always have been. They know the ONLY reason Windows is popular is because you can throw in a piece of software you purchased in 1999 and it will "likely" still work. If they dropped Win32 entirely, then Windows is interchangeable with a Chromebook. Heck up until 64x one of their test cases was if Doom (released in 1993) still ran. They only stopped because 64x doesn't support 16 bit.
- animal531 10y ago
  But on the other hand Microsoft is quite a large company. The one development side is pulling heavily toward open source and freedom, but some of the other angles such as the store seem to be constricting. I imagine it all depends which side (internally) will come out on top.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  "Project Centennial: Bringing Existing Desktop Applications to the Universal Windows Platform" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829 https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829
  - RGamma 10y ago
    In that video they also say that sideloading can be done via double-click (no PowerShell cmdlets or whatever necessary like in Win8; not sure how certification/signing will play into this), and they also state that it'll be fine to monetize an UWP app on other stores than the Windows one. If they're actually honest with this and I haven't missed anything, UWP might well be the best thing that's ever happened to Windows.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      I agree. On top of that I really like that WinRT is basically COM+ Runtime reborn and that Visual C++ finally feels like C++ Builder for GUI RAD tooling. And that .NET Native also got developed in the process.
jackmott 10y ago
Sorta like how the web gets progressively worse with each modal pop up ad.
- majewsky 10y ago
  Not quite. You can block ads, but you can't block broken APIs. ;)
whack 10y ago
I rarely hear complaints about the closed-platform monopolies enjoyed by the App Store and Google Play, on their respective iOS/Android platforms. Can someone make a case for why a similar app-store monopoly on Windows is any worse?
- islon 10y ago
  Well, you are looking in the wrong places then, there's plenty of complaints about apple/google walled gardens and people don't want windows to be the next one.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Apparently everything is allowed as long as it isn't Microsoft.
- talmand 10y ago
  Just because it's perceived as good for A doesn't mean it's automatically good for B.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  There exists no obvious monopoly for app stores on Windows. Windows is a somewhat open platform not locked down like phones, and making it one means we've lost something. There's the "official" Microsoft app store, but hardly anyone uses it. There's several ones that aren't run by Microsoft, and they seem OK, and the big ones stand on their own merits. Not to mention that ~20 years ago, Microsoft got in trouble with the government[0], and was almost forced to break up for forcing their own software on PC manufacturers, and on top of Windows. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- majewsky 10y ago
  Google technically does not have an app-store monopoly on Android. A sizable chunk of apps on my phone are from F-Droid. Google just makes sure that most Androids have the Play Store, and then it's just the network effect: bigger audience -> more attractive to developers -> more apps -> more users.
perspectivep 10y ago
Apparently Microsoft isn't allowed to evolve Windows with objectively better API's. Have fun with your GetLastError, fifteen parameter functions, and poorly documented flags. But hey, at least it doesn't have much security, so I can download game mods from some unknown source that have full access to everything on my PC.
- talmand 10y ago
  >> so I can download game mods from some unknown source that have full access to everything on my PC I think that's more on you than the OS.
  - perspectivep 10y ago
    Once you connect your box to the Internet, installing malware affects everyone.
  - legulere 10y ago
    Rule 1 of software development should be: Never blame the user, when the situation could have been avoided through code. Especially in this case. Isolation has been one of the main drivers of operating systems. Isolation between users, so they can't change each other's files etc. maliciously . Isolation between processes, so they don't accidentally corrupt each other. At least since the first computer virus in the wild in 1982 it should have been clear that software can also potentially be malicious and needs to be isolated from having the same rights as the user executing it. The only reason why executing arbitrary x86 code in ring 3 is dangerous are the syscall interfaces the operating systems offer.
    - perspectivep 10y ago
      Which is why UWP has a capabilities-based sandbox.
    - talmand 10y ago
      Sometimes you do have to blame the user though. As an extreme example; if I take a hammer to my computer and when it eventually fails can I blame the faulty hardware?
cwyers 10y ago
This is nonsense on stilts. There aren't UWP versions of half of Office, and the ones with UWP versions aren't as full-featured as the Win32 versions. There's no UWP version of Visual Studio. Look at the revenue from those two things, look at Microsoft's gaming revenue, look at Valve's revenue... what is the evidence that Microsoft is willing to sabotage their Windows, Office and Visual Studio product lines all to get a rounding error's worth of additional profit?
- gant 10y ago
  It's a very long term thing. It'll probably happen because new APIs will be on UWP and not on Win32. I think VR might be the "next thing" that'll only get in-OS support in UWP.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    If the UWP-only APIs are "too interesting", a way will be found around this. For example, you could funnel API calls from a Win32 app into a UWP-app receiver via a local TCP connection.
    - gant 10y ago
      DX13. Now what? And aren't UWP apps a walled garden (apps need to be signed unless you enable developer mode, which has all kinds of side effects, requires a Microsoft account and can be revoked?)?
      - majewsky 10y ago
        > DX13. Now what? Vulkan.
      - WorldMaker 10y ago
        Apps can be sideloaded by default since last November. It takes a one-line PowerShell command and that's it (no Settings changes, nothing). They do need to be signed, but the signatures aren't much different than any prior "Authenticode" signing options: find a CA that sells code signing certificates and buy a certificate. (Certificates can be revoked by your CA, yes, but your CA doesn't have to be Microsoft.) If you are selling games on PC outside of Steam (MSI/NSIS/et al installers), you should already have code signing certificates and there's nothing really new there on that front. At some point (I don't recall if it will make it into the Anniversary Update or not), the install process for a UWP app won't even need the one line of PowerShell and will support just double-clicking the .appx package, and will have suitable UAC-like install prompts. Microsoft has already told Steam they should encourage UWP app installs, and supposedly the Play Anywhere stream of games from Microsoft in the next few months will also be sold via Steam as UWP installs under the hood as an option to game buyers that prefer Steam (but the expectation is that buying from Steam will not count for multi-platform cross-buy, as opposed to buying from the Windows Store). (Microsoft does provide to verified developer Microsoft accounts short term keys for developer testing, but you wouldn't want to use those for sideloading simply because they are so short term. The Windows Store also handles long term code signing for you at no additional cost ["in the cloud"], and yes that can be revoked if they kick your app out of the Store, but that shouldn't be surprising.) (Developer Mode doesn't really have "side effects" and I don't think you need a Microsoft Account to switch to Developer Mode, but I still wouldn't recommend it to non-technical friends.)
moron4hire 10y ago
> That’s exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Are we to take this to mean that Tim Sweeney is admitting that Steam uses undocumented Windows APIs? Because that's the only way Windows patches have broken existing software before.
brudgers 10y ago
over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. Linkedin lists Valve as having between 200 and 500 employees. Putting a team of engineers to work on removing the dependency on Windows32 seems like a reasonable alternative to a course of inaction dedicated to letting Steam full into suck. My intuition is that Microsoft is even likely to work with a partial potential competitor like Valve when it comes to something like this because anyone who is using Steam on Windows...well they're using Windows and Microsoft has an substantial interest in not having Windows suck for the people who use it. To me, this kinda' sounds like Valve announcing that it's not really going to spend any more money on evolving the Steam code base.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  The non-Win32 apps are signed and distributed by MS through their own store. All apps delivered that way pay a toll to MAS. That's what Steam wishes to avoid, since they collect the toll right now.
  - GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
    >The non-Win32 apps are signed and distributed by MS through their own store. All apps delivered that way pay a toll to MAS. False. With Windows 10, app sideloading is permitted by default.
  - brudgers 10y ago
    Universal apps can be sideloaded. [1] There may be a market for a service that skins the process in an end user friendly way. That market is probably larger than just games. An analog might be Github over Git. Whether Valve should invest in developing technologies to keep Steam relevant is a business decision. This appears to be announcement of Valve's intent. I would not be surprised if paying off the technical debt incurred by Steam does not meet the investment model of Valve's controlling interests. The Windows ecosystem is littered with technically obsolescent cash-cows: e.g. Laplink. [1]:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/packaging/packaging-uwp-apps#sideload-your-app-package https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/packaging/packa...
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Note that at the last Build conference, Microsoft made a specific point to demonstrate a UWP app with SteamWorks compatibility on stage. But, you know, clearly they're actively using UWP to kill Steam. http://www.develop-online.net/news/universal-windows-platform-adds-support-for-mods-and-steamworks/0218598 http://www.develop-online.net/news/universal-windows-platfor... I'm rate-limited, so to respond to the person who commented here: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish": You might notice if you read the linked Wikipedia article, this is from 1995. Also known as 20 years ago, when almost everyone involved has since retired. Or died. I was in elementary school when this strategy was used by Microsoft. The person who said the phrase in a meeting, Paul Maritz, left Microsoft 16 years ago. Babies born during that meeting are legal adults today.
- ctrl-j 10y ago
  Microsoft has been known to use Embrace-Extend-Extinguish as a strategy. So this means nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
  - pluma 10y ago
    The most recent examples on that page are nearly ten years old. I was a "Micro$oft" hater in school, too, but I don't see any other indication that they're relapsing apart from the accusations made in this news article -- certainly not any more than Google or Apple.
wavefunction 10y ago
Steam and games are the only reason I'm going to build a brand new VR capable Windows rig. Without that I don't really need Windows in my life.
Mithaldu 10y ago
> Now they’re doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. {{citation}} That is a bold fucking claim. Exactly how has this happened to Steam already? They don't bother to provide any reference or clue.
ksk 10y ago
It is hard to get through the speculation here. Does anyone have actual evidence that this is happening? (i.e. not some memo that one person wrote to some other person 20 years ago)
vinnyp 10y ago
Former Softie, worked in Windows for 9 years from Vista to Win8, mostly on the Shell and UI platform teams. For Vista and half of Win7 development, I was the PM owner for our UI platform (comctl32, DirectUI, Visual Styling, and High DPI). This is my opinion, I don't speak for the company - During my time there, I did not see any anti-competitive practices the author is speaking of. Those days are long gone. I know first hand we were committed to compatibility and growth of the platform, new and old. That being said, it's clear that building on Win32 is painful and not cheap. Win32 is great if you want direct system access and complete control over everything, up and down the stack. This works well for large enterprise applications and games. The tradeoff here is that you must roll your own everything and work hard not to do stupid shit. During the Vista days, we saw that the Windows app ecosystem was struggling because we didn't have a good platform story. You had to choose between Win32 and .NET. If you're a native developer, it was Win32. Win32 didn't provide a great app and UI framework (have you ever tried to owner draw a control or do fluid layout?). This is why many app developers during that time built their own app and UI framework, used MFC or leveraged a 3rd party framework. I was only familiar with the app platform so I can't speak to the options for building a game. I'm sure it was limited as well. Microsoft introduced many platforms since Vista - WPF, Silverlight, XNA, Win8 Apps (Windows XAML and WinJS), and UWP. I'm sure there are more :) Even with all of those new platforms in the mix, Win32 is still alive and well. I believe UWP is a huge win for developers. You don't need to roll your own everything. For the companies that want complete control, Win32 is still there. It is true that certain things are only available to UWP developers. There is no malicious intent, it's really only about priorities. The new thing comes first. The developer community needs to speak up if they want something. Microsoft will listen.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  While i don't believe a word Sweeney says until he sources his claims, your post has a few self delusions as well. > Microsoft introduced many platforms since Vista - WPF, Silverlight, XNA, Win8 Apps (Windows XAML and WinJS), and UWP. I'm sure there are more :) Even with all of those new platforms in the mix, Win32 is still alive and well. Not "Even with". More like "thanks to this chaos and the uselessness of those platforms". > I believe UWP is a huge win for developers. Without specifying which developers, that is meaningless. Last i heard a game dev can't even control vsync. > The developer community needs to speak up if they want something. Microsoft will listen. This is the worst part. Speak up WHERE? Speak up HOW? "Listening" is not "reacting when a blogpost gets reposted everywhere". Listening is taking the time and place out of your day to make sure that the person has your undivided attention.
dogma1138 10y ago
Oddly enough Steam isn't that great for developers either. It takes a huge cut, it takes cut of all microtransactions, it bullies developers into price fixing and sales, and it abuses it's de facto monopoly to ransom developers that want to publish on Steam. For consumers it ain't that great either, the curation process on steam is non existent, it does not force developers to maintain compatibility, the search option is very bad and you can not filter games based on release year (you can only see the year they released on steam and I've seen people buying 15 year old games by mistake). Steam ties you into their DRM (you can also use a 3rd party DRM if you want) and their API's. Saying that Steam is somehow the champion of open gaming on Windows is silly, it's a monolithic monopoly that does pretty much my way or the highway moves all the time. So far I haven't seen any evidence that MSFT has any interest in killing Win32, but maybe it should, if UWP can become a better platform at the end I don't see any reason to stick to Win32 when developing applications. All our mobile platforms have a single store, Apple has it's own store, based on the few UWP games that have been pirated you can install UWP applications without using the store, MSFT can in the end support 3rd party distributors. And if it doesn't well TBH considering that Steam hasn't been a champion for consumers for a long time, I don't really see it as being a "bad" thing, and if Microsoft makes them worry maybe they'll get their shit together again.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  How does it ransom developers? That's a bold claim.

115 points by carlosrg 10y ago

There are so many "what ifs" to get to his feared state. It's hard for me to imagine Microsoft phasing out win32 (especially after the disastrous results on WinRT).

pjc50 10y ago
While Win32 is hard to phase out, DirectX is more flexible and crucially not critical to business users of Windows. There was already a mini-version of this fiasco when DX11 launched for 7 but not Vista. Microsoft could quite easily say that e.g. DX16 would require UWP, distribution through the Windows store, telemetry, ad insertion, whatever. (Let's not also forget the disaster that was Games For Windows Live)
- animal531 10y ago
  Agreed, and it's still here; you can only get DX12 with Win10. That hasn't kicked up as many waves yet because the tech has been slow to adopt.
  - douche 10y ago
    Also because DX11 is still perfectly serviceable for most applications - and DX12 is considerably more complicated. There are still new games being developed on top of DX9 today.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      In any case, surely no game developer is going to make DX12 a hard requirement to run their PC games any time soon. Even today, Steam's hardware and software survey puts DX12-capable hardware at around 70% of their users but nearly half of those aren't running on Win10. That's after a year of Microsoft literally giving it away and it being the default OS you get preinstalled on most new PCs in stores. The pattern of adoption hasn't been entirely surprising either: a fairly rapid shift over the first six months or so after 10 came out, but then a much slower shift since then. It's going to be a long time before anyone running a modern GPU on Windows 7 can't run the latest PC games with decent results.

pjc50 10y ago

This is something that has long been feared. It's also rather like the Y2K problem in that as long as people make a noise about it, it can be prevented - but preventing it leaves all the complainers looking alarmist. It's also why Valve have invested in the Steam Machine. At the moment it's not a serious competitive prospect, but it's there ready as an escape valve. After all, only one company can get a 10-30% cut of games sold to run on Windows, and Microsoft don't see why it shouldn't be them. Microsoft do phase things out, but only slowly, with long migration times for business users.

justaman 10y ago
Not to mention supporting linux more aggressively.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
A Steam Machine is just as bad as a Microsoft Machine.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  Not for Valve.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    Not for users either. It's by far less locked down than Windows, as it's pretty much just Debian with Steam pre-installed.
    - jasonkostempski 10y ago
      Locked is locked.
- ferrari8608 10y ago
  Bad in what way(s) in particular?
  - 10y ago

Sacho 10y ago

Sweeney provides this as Microsoft's alleged strategy to get rid of Steam: "Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They’ll never completely break it, but will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seems like an ideal alternative. That’s exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they’re doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan, but they’re certainly trying." What previous competitors is he talking about?

0xcde4c3db 10y ago
There used to be a saying "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" (although that's now largely regarded as apocryphal/inaccurate), and the memos around the "AARD code" [1] are fairly damning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
- 13of40 10y ago
  That happened 25 years ago, and even the guy who wrote the code has been dead for eight. I don't think it's a solid data point for predicting what Microsoft is going to do tomorrow.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
osxrand 10y ago
It could also be how they made QuickTime very (more?) unstable on Windows, or the IE extension in OS 9 that WOZ proved to cause the OS to crash.
- Someone1234 10y ago
  QuickTime didn't need Microsoft's help. Apple didn't update it aside from security fixes for almost eight years. As an aside do you have any actual evidence that Microsoft made QuickTime more unstable on Windows? Or is that just supposition? PS - OS 9, like Windows 9x, lacked protected memory. So I have no doubt that a leak or other error in IE for Mac could cause the OS to crash. I hardly think that's really solid proof, just more proof that operating systems without memory protection are inherently a bad idea.

staticelf 10y ago

I don't really understand why it bothers game makers? Either it's Steam that takes a 30% cut or it's Microsoft? Sure you can sell your games standalone and I doubt that will never change but most games benefit on being on a platform like Steam or Microsoft Store. For me as a consumer, I like that there is competition.

kyriakos 10y ago
I think it boils down to Windows store being a bad marketplace implementation to start with and the fact that only universal apps are allowed which can be limiting to some developers. To be fair though Microsoft fixed many of the shortcomings already.
carlosrg 10y ago
The thing is that if one day Microsoft decides to phase out the Win32 platform and leave only UWP, right now the only official way to get UWP apps is through the Microsoft's Windows Store. So the competition you're talking about would disappear because there would be only one way to get Windows software, the Microsoft way. It would be impossible to have competing App Stores, similar to the situation right now on iOS. Seems far-fetched but I can see Microsoft slowly deprecating Win32. It would be similar to when Apple deprecated Carbon, only slower: they'll stop adding new features, they'll tell developers to avoid it for any new development, etc. Won't happen overnight though as they're too much legacy software out there, but it could happen in the span of several years, a decade or so. Right now what I'm saying is fiction but it's a possibility any store developer like Valve and customers too should have in mind.
- maze-le 10y ago
  This will be the day I abandon Windows completeley. Right now, I only use it for games anyhow. But as you said, it will probably be a long way, with enough time to make alternative arrangements
- perspectivep 10y ago
  You can install UWP apps from other sources. Side-loading is enabled by default since November.

rnernento 10y ago

I'm confused, can't Steam just release as a free Universal App? Also, with Steam's push towards Linux support this would be a dangerous strategy for Microsoft. Gaming is what drives a lot of people to Windows over other platforms. If Microsoft actively makes Steam unusable on Windows there's no reason to think people won't just seek out a better platform for Steam.

cmiles74 10y ago
I don't think MS will allow a Univeral App that installs other Universal Apps. Just like Apple, they'll have a list of restrictions on what these apps can do. After all, a sandbox app that can arbitrarily install any other app is not very sandboxy.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  There's nothing wrong with allowing one app to install another, but the key is, if you can't leave the sandbox, you request the OS do it for you. Android apps are sandboxed, and can install other apps, but you get an OS interstitial asking if you want to do it. Similarly, a UWP app could conceivably be allowed to trigger the install of another UWP app, but it would pop-up a Windows box, not unlike a UAC elevation prompt, showing the app name, publisher if properly signed, and requesting the user permission to go forward with the install.
  - cmiles74 10y ago
    You make a good point, in the Android world you can manually install the Amazon Underground application and grant it the ability to install it's own apps. I don't believe there's a similar side-loading method on iOS, however: Apple has take steps to prevent this. IMHO, I expect Microsoft to release a solution more like Apple's App Store and less like Google. Clearly, Epic Games' founder has the same concerns. He's also expressed concern with Microsoft only allowing something like Steam to be installed via side-loading, which he thinks provides a barrier to entry that is too high. I tend to agree, it's easy to slowly make side-loading more and more difficult as time goes on, or to make more and more critical APIs unavailable to non-UWP applications.

daxfohl 10y ago

Odd to see an article complaining about MS's "closed" ecosystem after all the work MS is doing to open source things, provide tight Linux integration, etc.

ygra 10y ago
Microsoft has over 100 kiloemployees in a myriad of different business divisions. Not all of them do things the same way. I'm not sure there is any corporation of that size that act completely coherent to the outside.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
This is a FUD article based on speculation that's being actively contested by Microsoft. The update to Windows 10 in less than a week makes third party install of UWP even easier... Which wouldn't make sense if Microsoft was trying to wall in Windows.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

This is completely unfounded and tinfoil hat levels of conspiracy. If they stripped Win32 out of Windows, it wouldn't only impact Steam, but Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop Suite, Chrome/Firefox, iTunes, their shiny new Linux tools, etc would also be out. This goes against the ethos of Microsoft. Criticise them all you wish, but they're absolutely obsessed with backwards compatibility and always have been. They know the ONLY reason Windows is popular is because you can throw in a piece of software you purchased in 1999 and it will "likely" still work. If they dropped Win32 entirely, then Windows is interchangeable with a Chromebook. Heck up until 64x one of their test cases was if Doom (released in 1993) still ran. They only stopped because 64x doesn't support 16 bit.

animal531 10y ago
But on the other hand Microsoft is quite a large company. The one development side is pulling heavily toward open source and freedom, but some of the other angles such as the store seem to be constricting. I imagine it all depends which side (internally) will come out on top.
pjmlp 10y ago
"Project Centennial: Bringing Existing Desktop Applications to the Universal Windows Platform" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829 https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829
- RGamma 10y ago
  In that video they also say that sideloading can be done via double-click (no PowerShell cmdlets or whatever necessary like in Win8; not sure how certification/signing will play into this), and they also state that it'll be fine to monetize an UWP app on other stores than the Windows one. If they're actually honest with this and I haven't missed anything, UWP might well be the best thing that's ever happened to Windows.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I agree. On top of that I really like that WinRT is basically COM+ Runtime reborn and that Visual C++ finally feels like C++ Builder for GUI RAD tooling. And that .NET Native also got developed in the process.

jackmott 10y ago

Sorta like how the web gets progressively worse with each modal pop up ad.

majewsky 10y ago
Not quite. You can block ads, but you can't block broken APIs. ;)

whack 10y ago

I rarely hear complaints about the closed-platform monopolies enjoyed by the App Store and Google Play, on their respective iOS/Android platforms. Can someone make a case for why a similar app-store monopoly on Windows is any worse?

islon 10y ago
Well, you are looking in the wrong places then, there's plenty of complaints about apple/google walled gardens and people don't want windows to be the next one.
pjmlp 10y ago
Apparently everything is allowed as long as it isn't Microsoft.
talmand 10y ago
Just because it's perceived as good for A doesn't mean it's automatically good for B.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
There exists no obvious monopoly for app stores on Windows. Windows is a somewhat open platform not locked down like phones, and making it one means we've lost something. There's the "official" Microsoft app store, but hardly anyone uses it. There's several ones that aren't run by Microsoft, and they seem OK, and the big ones stand on their own merits. Not to mention that ~20 years ago, Microsoft got in trouble with the government[0], and was almost forced to break up for forcing their own software on PC manufacturers, and on top of Windows. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
majewsky 10y ago
Google technically does not have an app-store monopoly on Android. A sizable chunk of apps on my phone are from F-Droid. Google just makes sure that most Androids have the Play Store, and then it's just the network effect: bigger audience -> more attractive to developers -> more apps -> more users.

perspectivep 10y ago

Apparently Microsoft isn't allowed to evolve Windows with objectively better API's. Have fun with your GetLastError, fifteen parameter functions, and poorly documented flags. But hey, at least it doesn't have much security, so I can download game mods from some unknown source that have full access to everything on my PC.

talmand 10y ago
>> so I can download game mods from some unknown source that have full access to everything on my PC I think that's more on you than the OS.
- perspectivep 10y ago
  Once you connect your box to the Internet, installing malware affects everyone.
- legulere 10y ago
  Rule 1 of software development should be: Never blame the user, when the situation could have been avoided through code. Especially in this case. Isolation has been one of the main drivers of operating systems. Isolation between users, so they can't change each other's files etc. maliciously . Isolation between processes, so they don't accidentally corrupt each other. At least since the first computer virus in the wild in 1982 it should have been clear that software can also potentially be malicious and needs to be isolated from having the same rights as the user executing it. The only reason why executing arbitrary x86 code in ring 3 is dangerous are the syscall interfaces the operating systems offer.
  - perspectivep 10y ago
    Which is why UWP has a capabilities-based sandbox.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Sometimes you do have to blame the user though. As an extreme example; if I take a hammer to my computer and when it eventually fails can I blame the faulty hardware?

cwyers 10y ago

This is nonsense on stilts. There aren't UWP versions of half of Office, and the ones with UWP versions aren't as full-featured as the Win32 versions. There's no UWP version of Visual Studio. Look at the revenue from those two things, look at Microsoft's gaming revenue, look at Valve's revenue... what is the evidence that Microsoft is willing to sabotage their Windows, Office and Visual Studio product lines all to get a rounding error's worth of additional profit?

gant 10y ago
It's a very long term thing. It'll probably happen because new APIs will be on UWP and not on Win32. I think VR might be the "next thing" that'll only get in-OS support in UWP.
- majewsky 10y ago
  If the UWP-only APIs are "too interesting", a way will be found around this. For example, you could funnel API calls from a Win32 app into a UWP-app receiver via a local TCP connection.
  - gant 10y ago
    DX13. Now what? And aren't UWP apps a walled garden (apps need to be signed unless you enable developer mode, which has all kinds of side effects, requires a Microsoft account and can be revoked?)?
    - majewsky 10y ago
      > DX13. Now what? Vulkan.
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      Apps can be sideloaded by default since last November. It takes a one-line PowerShell command and that's it (no Settings changes, nothing). They do need to be signed, but the signatures aren't much different than any prior "Authenticode" signing options: find a CA that sells code signing certificates and buy a certificate. (Certificates can be revoked by your CA, yes, but your CA doesn't have to be Microsoft.) If you are selling games on PC outside of Steam (MSI/NSIS/et al installers), you should already have code signing certificates and there's nothing really new there on that front. At some point (I don't recall if it will make it into the Anniversary Update or not), the install process for a UWP app won't even need the one line of PowerShell and will support just double-clicking the .appx package, and will have suitable UAC-like install prompts. Microsoft has already told Steam they should encourage UWP app installs, and supposedly the Play Anywhere stream of games from Microsoft in the next few months will also be sold via Steam as UWP installs under the hood as an option to game buyers that prefer Steam (but the expectation is that buying from Steam will not count for multi-platform cross-buy, as opposed to buying from the Windows Store). (Microsoft does provide to verified developer Microsoft accounts short term keys for developer testing, but you wouldn't want to use those for sideloading simply because they are so short term. The Windows Store also handles long term code signing for you at no additional cost ["in the cloud"], and yes that can be revoked if they kick your app out of the Store, but that shouldn't be surprising.) (Developer Mode doesn't really have "side effects" and I don't think you need a Microsoft Account to switch to Developer Mode, but I still wouldn't recommend it to non-technical friends.)

moron4hire 10y ago

> That’s exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Are we to take this to mean that Tim Sweeney is admitting that Steam uses undocumented Windows APIs? Because that's the only way Windows patches have broken existing software before.

brudgers 10y ago

over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. Linkedin lists Valve as having between 200 and 500 employees. Putting a team of engineers to work on removing the dependency on Windows32 seems like a reasonable alternative to a course of inaction dedicated to letting Steam full into suck. My intuition is that Microsoft is even likely to work with a partial potential competitor like Valve when it comes to something like this because anyone who is using Steam on Windows...well they're using Windows and Microsoft has an substantial interest in not having Windows suck for the people who use it. To me, this kinda' sounds like Valve announcing that it's not really going to spend any more money on evolving the Steam code base.

robotresearcher 10y ago
The non-Win32 apps are signed and distributed by MS through their own store. All apps delivered that way pay a toll to MAS. That's what Steam wishes to avoid, since they collect the toll right now.
- GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
  >The non-Win32 apps are signed and distributed by MS through their own store. All apps delivered that way pay a toll to MAS. False. With Windows 10, app sideloading is permitted by default.
- brudgers 10y ago
  Universal apps can be sideloaded. [1] There may be a market for a service that skins the process in an end user friendly way. That market is probably larger than just games. An analog might be Github over Git. Whether Valve should invest in developing technologies to keep Steam relevant is a business decision. This appears to be announcement of Valve's intent. I would not be surprised if paying off the technical debt incurred by Steam does not meet the investment model of Valve's controlling interests. The Windows ecosystem is littered with technically obsolescent cash-cows: e.g. Laplink. [1]:https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/packaging/packaging-uwp-apps#sideload-your-app-package https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/packaging/packa...

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Note that at the last Build conference, Microsoft made a specific point to demonstrate a UWP app with SteamWorks compatibility on stage. But, you know, clearly they're actively using UWP to kill Steam. http://www.develop-online.net/news/universal-windows-platform-adds-support-for-mods-and-steamworks/0218598 http://www.develop-online.net/news/universal-windows-platfor... I'm rate-limited, so to respond to the person who commented here: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish": You might notice if you read the linked Wikipedia article, this is from 1995. Also known as 20 years ago, when almost everyone involved has since retired. Or died. I was in elementary school when this strategy was used by Microsoft. The person who said the phrase in a meeting, Paul Maritz, left Microsoft 16 years ago. Babies born during that meeting are legal adults today.

ctrl-j 10y ago
Microsoft has been known to use Embrace-Extend-Extinguish as a strategy. So this means nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
- pluma 10y ago
  The most recent examples on that page are nearly ten years old. I was a "Micro$oft" hater in school, too, but I don't see any other indication that they're relapsing apart from the accusations made in this news article -- certainly not any more than Google or Apple.

wavefunction 10y ago

Steam and games are the only reason I'm going to build a brand new VR capable Windows rig. Without that I don't really need Windows in my life.

Mithaldu 10y ago

> Now they’re doing it to Steam. It’s only just starting to become visible. {{citation}} That is a bold fucking claim. Exactly how has this happened to Steam already? They don't bother to provide any reference or clue.

ksk 10y ago

It is hard to get through the speculation here. Does anyone have actual evidence that this is happening? (i.e. not some memo that one person wrote to some other person 20 years ago)

vinnyp 10y ago

Former Softie, worked in Windows for 9 years from Vista to Win8, mostly on the Shell and UI platform teams. For Vista and half of Win7 development, I was the PM owner for our UI platform (comctl32, DirectUI, Visual Styling, and High DPI). This is my opinion, I don't speak for the company - During my time there, I did not see any anti-competitive practices the author is speaking of. Those days are long gone. I know first hand we were committed to compatibility and growth of the platform, new and old. That being said, it's clear that building on Win32 is painful and not cheap. Win32 is great if you want direct system access and complete control over everything, up and down the stack. This works well for large enterprise applications and games. The tradeoff here is that you must roll your own everything and work hard not to do stupid shit. During the Vista days, we saw that the Windows app ecosystem was struggling because we didn't have a good platform story. You had to choose between Win32 and .NET. If you're a native developer, it was Win32. Win32 didn't provide a great app and UI framework (have you ever tried to owner draw a control or do fluid layout?). This is why many app developers during that time built their own app and UI framework, used MFC or leveraged a 3rd party framework. I was only familiar with the app platform so I can't speak to the options for building a game. I'm sure it was limited as well. Microsoft introduced many platforms since Vista - WPF, Silverlight, XNA, Win8 Apps (Windows XAML and WinJS), and UWP. I'm sure there are more :) Even with all of those new platforms in the mix, Win32 is still alive and well. I believe UWP is a huge win for developers. You don't need to roll your own everything. For the companies that want complete control, Win32 is still there. It is true that certain things are only available to UWP developers. There is no malicious intent, it's really only about priorities. The new thing comes first. The developer community needs to speak up if they want something. Microsoft will listen.

Mithaldu 10y ago
While i don't believe a word Sweeney says until he sources his claims, your post has a few self delusions as well. > Microsoft introduced many platforms since Vista - WPF, Silverlight, XNA, Win8 Apps (Windows XAML and WinJS), and UWP. I'm sure there are more :) Even with all of those new platforms in the mix, Win32 is still alive and well. Not "Even with". More like "thanks to this chaos and the uselessness of those platforms". > I believe UWP is a huge win for developers. Without specifying which developers, that is meaningless. Last i heard a game dev can't even control vsync. > The developer community needs to speak up if they want something. Microsoft will listen. This is the worst part. Speak up WHERE? Speak up HOW? "Listening" is not "reacting when a blogpost gets reposted everywhere". Listening is taking the time and place out of your day to make sure that the person has your undivided attention.

dogma1138 10y ago

Oddly enough Steam isn't that great for developers either. It takes a huge cut, it takes cut of all microtransactions, it bullies developers into price fixing and sales, and it abuses it's de facto monopoly to ransom developers that want to publish on Steam. For consumers it ain't that great either, the curation process on steam is non existent, it does not force developers to maintain compatibility, the search option is very bad and you can not filter games based on release year (you can only see the year they released on steam and I've seen people buying 15 year old games by mistake). Steam ties you into their DRM (you can also use a 3rd party DRM if you want) and their API's. Saying that Steam is somehow the champion of open gaming on Windows is silly, it's a monolithic monopoly that does pretty much my way or the highway moves all the time. So far I haven't seen any evidence that MSFT has any interest in killing Win32, but maybe it should, if UWP can become a better platform at the end I don't see any reason to stick to Win32 when developing applications. All our mobile platforms have a single store, Apple has it's own store, based on the few UWP games that have been pirated you can install UWP applications without using the store, MSFT can in the end support 3rd party distributors. And if it doesn't well TBH considering that Steam hasn't been a champion for consumers for a long time, I don't really see it as being a "bad" thing, and if Microsoft makes them worry maybe they'll get their shit together again.

whamlastxmas 10y ago
How does it ransom developers? That's a bold claim.