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I wouldn't be so sure of those things A few years ago, I worked on a video game published by Microsoft. We ran game servers in Azure, and on Windows for obviou

I wouldn't be so sure of those things A few years ago, I worked on a video game published by Microsoft. We ran game servers in Azure, and on Windows for obvious reasons. The project had to pay for the windows licenses from MS, despite being entirely funded by them, partially developed by an internal studio, on aMS first party IP. I don't recall how much it cost exactly, but the cost of the per-core windows server license hourly is not far off the cost of a core on AWS these days.

benbristow 3y ago
Microsoft seem to be pushing Linux in Azure quite heavily nowadays. Surprised about the Windows thing. Especially for game servers where Linux is in it's element.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- maccard 3y ago
  This was neither today, nor yesterday. Also, my experience of working in games is that the developers are exclusively windows. The backend services might use other OS's, but all the game development happens on Windows. When this was going on, I don't think a single developer in our room would have know the first thing about Linux. > Especially for game servers where Linux is in it's element. I think you'd be surprised at just how many games use Windows servers :)
  - totaa 3y ago
    usually video game servers, need a like-for-like copy of the engine for sync purposes and to make sure the clients aren't lying about physics calculations. up until recently there hasn't been an incentive for game developers to use/work on linux support - so game servers use good old windows.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
What difference does that make? Surely, any business decisions would take into account that it is all still Microsoft’s money. “Paying” for accounting purposes, and “paying” where the payer loses access to the funds has different consequences. For example, Apple and Alphabet can account for YouTube and Apple Music paying App Store fees, but leadership can ignore the fees for the purposes of selling a loss leader. Spotify cannot ignore the fees, since it would run out of money to pay other bills (or negatively effect net income).
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Amazon definitely didn’t ignore internal costs when deciding to axe its gaming studio https://www.protocol.com/amp/amazon-bad-at-games-2646952917 https://www.protocol.com/amp/amazon-bad-at-games-2646952917 Neither is Disney ignoring transfer cost between Disney Studios and Disney+. Management accounting takes into account opportunity costs.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The difference is they can choose to ignore it if it is accomplishing some purpose, such as being a loss leader to gain marketshare.
    - maccard 3y ago
      Have you any examples of this happening? Because every experience I've seen points to sweetheart deals (such as android + spotify) but internal teams have to play by the normal rules.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ais-costly-buildup-could-make-early-products-a-hard-sell-bdd29b9f https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ais-costly-buildup-could-make-ea... >Individuals pay $10 a month for the AI assistant. In the first few months of this year, the company [Microsoft] was losing on average more than $20 a month per user, according to a person familiar with the figures, who said some users were costing the company as much as $80 a month. Who knows if Apple is earning a profit on its Music + Classical Music apps or whatever else it bundles into its products. Maybe they consider it to be a small enough loss to offset the chance that a customer buys an Apple One bundle, which then makes up for the loss because the margins on cloud storage are much higher.
fomine3 3y ago
It's fortunate that your company doesn't have an incentive to use Windows than Linux by subsidy.

benbristow 3y ago

Microsoft seem to be pushing Linux in Azure quite heavily nowadays. Surprised about the Windows thing. Especially for game servers where Linux is in it's element.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
maccard 3y ago
This was neither today, nor yesterday. Also, my experience of working in games is that the developers are exclusively windows. The backend services might use other OS's, but all the game development happens on Windows. When this was going on, I don't think a single developer in our room would have know the first thing about Linux. > Especially for game servers where Linux is in it's element. I think you'd be surprised at just how many games use Windows servers :)
- totaa 3y ago
  usually video game servers, need a like-for-like copy of the engine for sync purposes and to make sure the clients aren't lying about physics calculations. up until recently there hasn't been an incentive for game developers to use/work on linux support - so game servers use good old windows.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

What difference does that make? Surely, any business decisions would take into account that it is all still Microsoft’s money. “Paying” for accounting purposes, and “paying” where the payer loses access to the funds has different consequences. For example, Apple and Alphabet can account for YouTube and Apple Music paying App Store fees, but leadership can ignore the fees for the purposes of selling a loss leader. Spotify cannot ignore the fees, since it would run out of money to pay other bills (or negatively effect net income).

scarface_74 3y ago
Amazon definitely didn’t ignore internal costs when deciding to axe its gaming studio https://www.protocol.com/amp/amazon-bad-at-games-2646952917 https://www.protocol.com/amp/amazon-bad-at-games-2646952917 Neither is Disney ignoring transfer cost between Disney Studios and Disney+. Management accounting takes into account opportunity costs.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The difference is they can choose to ignore it if it is accomplishing some purpose, such as being a loss leader to gain marketshare.
  - maccard 3y ago
    Have you any examples of this happening? Because every experience I've seen points to sweetheart deals (such as android + spotify) but internal teams have to play by the normal rules.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ais-costly-buildup-could-make-early-products-a-hard-sell-bdd29b9f https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ais-costly-buildup-could-make-ea... >Individuals pay $10 a month for the AI assistant. In the first few months of this year, the company [Microsoft] was losing on average more than $20 a month per user, according to a person familiar with the figures, who said some users were costing the company as much as $80 a month. Who knows if Apple is earning a profit on its Music + Classical Music apps or whatever else it bundles into its products. Maybe they consider it to be a small enough loss to offset the chance that a customer buys an Apple One bundle, which then makes up for the loss because the margins on cloud storage are much higher.

fomine3 3y ago

It's fortunate that your company doesn't have an incentive to use Windows than Linux by subsidy.