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[dLMN8R]

Does Valve sell their games digitally on any other storefront?

I don't understand why people are just flatly answering "yes" to this question.


Yes, technically, you can buy Valve games from other Storefronts. But that simple fact misses the forest for the trees. The relevant detail to this particular thread is that it's impossible to actually play those Valve games anywhere but through Steam.

It's not like you can fire up Origin or uPlay and run Valve's games through it. Obviously you wouldn't want to, but still that's the right context to the question of whether Microsoft should or shouldn't sell their games anywhere but the Windows Store.

 

[diaspora]

I don't understand why people are just flatly answering "yes" to this question.


Yes, technically, you can buy Valve games from other Storefronts. But that simple fact misses the forest for the trees. The relevant detail to this particular thread is that it's impossible to actually play those Valve games anywhere but through Steam.

It's not like you can fire up Origin or uPlay and run Valve's games through it. Obviously you wouldn't want to, but still that's the right context to the question of whether Microsoft should or shouldn't sell their games anywhere but the Windows Store.

Either way, I think the main point of contention is the UWA nature of the games anyway.

 

[Ricky_R]

Don't believe the hype, it's totally not so rosy as you make it out to be, on the contrary. Even apps using WPF/Xaml today can't be ported over 1:1 to UWP, work is needed, api's are limited and therefore you need to create 2 versions, and potentially a lot of work is needed to make code that runs already on win32 to run on UWP as you can't use all the api's you're used to. The other way around is as worse as that: you can't re-use your UWP code 'just on windows', you need to add code to make it work, api's aren't a complete subset. In theory the framework is OK, in practice it's just another island and as there are way better platforms to make money on, why bother? So no, what you're implying is erm... bollocks

So there's enough work to be done thus there's money to be spent which could potentially make the investment to "port" unjustifiable depending on how well they perform.

I was led to believe that it was as simple as using the same code with minor tweaks.

Only time will tell.

 

[Deleted member 144138]

Meh...I hope it will be time exclusive though...that Steam userbase is just too tempting for MS

 

[charlequin]

With a dev hat on it's a really nice API to produce modern apps that you'd really struggle to do on win32, which is a big plus for the user in terms of consistency and quality of a modern ui and ability to use loads of devices seamlessly (e.g. Ones with/without location services, with/without camera, etc etc). It's disingenuous to say there's no consumer benefit to what the winrt/win10/uap model enables for developers.

Developers confusing what makes their job easier with actual benefit for the end user is exactly why awful platforms like this exist. As an end user, I don't care what the developer had to do to create a piece of software, I care about what I myself can do with it.

Now, yes, it's true that if something is too hard for a dev to do, it doesn't get done and the customer doesn't get it. That's pretty relevant to things like mobile apps, where this kind of API is addressing relevant problems and doesn't have any inherent downside. But it contributes nothing whatsoever to the development of actual, honest-to-goodness Windows desktop applications.

Well, evidently it's providing something, else I wouldn't be using it to gain access to apps that have no proper desktop equivalent

Not really, since it would be trivial for desktop Windows to support Microsoft's own mobile APIs without requiring their storefront to package everything entirely inside a mobile-oriented app containment structure.

I really don't think people are opposed to buying things from the Windows store if they're done right.

Right. My irritation here isn't that the game is exclusive to a Microsoft store -- I don't actually particularly care about that, and I own PC games on five or six platforms anyway so this would hardly be the backbreaking straw. What irritates me is that these games are innately wrapped in a broken, customer-hostile form that makes them fundamentally unlike (and objectively worse than) other PC games.

 

[Synth]

Not really, since it would be trivial for desktop Windows to support Microsoft's own mobile APIs without requiring their storefront to package everything entirely inside a mobile-oriented app containment structure.

That's not really the point though is it? Sure, they could provide it in that way... but they don't, and Windows has never had that prior. So this is providing options and functionality that weren't there before. There's other, potentially better ways they could have offered it... but that's not at all the same thing as offering nothing.

If someone provides me with a coffee, I don't claim they're not actually providing anything, simply because they didn't prepare it the way I'd prefer, even if doing so would have been simple.

 

[dLMN8R]

Either way, I think the main point of contention is the UWA nature of the games anyway.

Sure, but irrelevant to what I was replying to.

The "UWA nature" is a fixable problem, anyway.

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

how much did the win10 port cost?

No idea, but it cant have been gratis! If a AAA title can cost anywhere between $20 million up to $50 million I would say a realistic guess would be anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million dollars. Which came first though? Was it developed for PC and ported to the Xbox or vice versa?

Microsoft's bottom line won't be hurt by Quantum Break flopping on PC, and the potential reward is well worth the risk for them.

Lol it's not going to happen. Grabbed from the Windows 10 store today.

What incentive is there for other developers to put their games on the Windows 10 store over Steam? This is going the way of the Zune store.
From Engadget:
"Alan Wake was a critical success but its sales -- 4.5 million as of March 2015 -- weren't enough to green-light Alan Wake 2. (Some of Remedy's ideas ended up in American Nightmare, however.) Quantum Break is, therefore, a crucial game for Remedy to prove it can play in the big leagues."

So it would appear that Quantum Break taking one for the team. I really hope that the low sales are going to stop them from developing Alan Wake 2 or indeed laying off staff and becoming Microsoft's lackeys like Rare. Also I don't believe that this is the game they should've chosen to launch an assault on Steam. Hell even MCC or GoW would have been a better choice. On a side note, Gears is destined to never come to Steam is it.

This is the company that lost billions on Bing before finally turning a profit last quarter. Why did they spend year after year losing billions? Because they were thinking long term about a very important market for them. Same here with Windows Store. If successful, it potentially represents 30% of ALL PC software sold. That's a huge payoff, and I don't think Microsoft minds sacrificing a few PC ports to help them get there.

This isn't the 90's anymore and I don't think that Microsoft is in the position to make such a huge gamble on something that (lets be 100% honest here) no one wants. Steam which is already well established and has the earned the trust of gamer's. Whereas Microsoft's history in this arena is a lot less favorable. And that's putting it kindly!
They need to focus on the task at hand (Windows 10) and not trying to get as many grubby fingers in the pie as possible.
On a side note who in their right mind uses Bing over Firefox or Chrome? ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[tuna_love]

you might need to google what bing is ¯_(&#12484_/¯

 

[Synth]

Bing isn't a browser.

 

[charlequin]

That's not really the point though is it? Sure, they could provide it in that way... but they don't, and Windows has never had that prior. So this is providing options and functionality that weren't there before.

"We added this entirely redundant, objectively worse way of doing things to what you already had" is not "new functionality" for the customer.

 

[JaseC]

I don't understand why people are just flatly answering "yes" to this question.


Yes, technically, you can buy Valve games from other Storefronts. But that simple fact misses the forest for the trees. The relevant detail to this particular thread is that it's impossible to actually play those Valve games anywhere but through Steam.

It's not like you can fire up Origin or uPlay and run Valve's games through it. Obviously you wouldn't want to, but still that's the right context to the question of whether Microsoft should or shouldn't sell their games anywhere but the Windows Store.

Microsoft making a "Win32" version of the Xbox app that essentially acts as a middle-man client a la Uplay would be an agreeable compromise for many if not most people who'd rather see Quantum Break on Steam. It obviously wouldn't resolve the concern surrounding the WinStore and the nature of "UWP" apps, but nobody is claiming otherwise.

 

[justsomeguy]

This isn't the 90's anymore and I don't think that Microsoft is in the position to make such a huge gamble on something that (lets be 100% honest here) no one wants. Steam which is already well established and has the earned the trust of gamer's.

Steam isn't perfect... Just look at valve's customer service. It does the selling/procuring part brilliantly but let's not kid ourselves that gaben is the messiah and that steam is perfection.

 

[JaseC]

Steam isn't perfect... Just look at valve's customer service. It does the selling/procuring part brilliantly but let's not kid ourselves that gaben is the messiah and that steam is perfection.

Nothing he said so much as suggests "omg gaben rulez liek omg" or Steam is perfect. Steam is well-established and Valve has earned trust -- the platform, while not without its flaws, has only improved over the ~12 years it's been operational.

 

[justsomeguy]

Nothing he said so much as suggests "omg gaben rulez liek omg" or Steam is perfect. Steam is well-established and Valve has earned trust -- the platform, while not without its flaws, has only improved over the ~12 years it's been operational.

It was his implication that nobody would ever want anything other than steam.

Don't get me wrong, I love Steam (although philosophically I don't like the "I'll wait for a sale" mentality that has developed), I'm not particularly bashing it just making an observation.

 

[Nzyme32]

It was his implication that nobody would ever want anything other than steam.

Don't get me wrong, I love Steam (although philosophically I don't like the "I'll wait for a sale" mentality that has developed), I'm not particularly bashing it just making an observation.

But a false observation. There are so many people here using PC but not exclusively Steam, and is why they are successful. I myself use GoG, Humble and Battlenet, only a little less frequently than Steam. The issue, as has been pointed out so frequently already, is not to do with people wanting some sort of exclusivity to Steam

 

[JaseC]

It was his implication that nobody would ever want anything other than steam.

You're in a thread regarding Quantum Break not releasing on Steam. It was his implication that Microsoft should release the game (in Win32 form) on Steam because the WinStore isn't something gamers want.

 

[justsomeguy]

You're in a thread regarding Quantum Break not releasing on Steam. It was his implication that Microsoft should release the game (in Win32 form) on Steam because the WinStore isn't something gamers want.

Yes, and i disagreed with that (to an extent). I think we are going in a circle now? ☺

 

[JaseC]

Yes, and i disagreed with that (to an extent). I think we are going in a circle now? ☺

Well, this post marks the sixth of our back-and-forth, so let's leave off here and say we went in a hexagon.

 

[Durante]

Yes, technically, you can buy Valve games from other Storefronts. But that simple fact misses the forest for the trees. The relevant detail to this particular thread is that it's impossible to actually play those Valve games anywhere but through Steam.

That whole aside misses the forest for the burnt-out husk of a tree that is UWA.

Games you buy on Steam or other storefronts are actual PC programs.

The "UWA nature" is a fixable problem, anyway.

It's a fixable problem, but not one Microsoft is interested in fixing. (No, adding another option to run virtualized apps does not fix it)

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

you might need to google what bing is ¯_(&#12484_/¯

Lol my bad.
When I used it on 360 I always assumed that it was a browser. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ It was so terrible that I just pushed it to the back of my mind. Thanks for pointing that out.

Steam isn't perfect... Just look at valve's customer service. It does the selling/procuring part brilliantly but let's not kid ourselves that gaben is the messiah and that steam is perfection.

Your quite right, but it sure is the best at what it does. And I personally don't want/need any more experiences like GFWL coming around the mountain again after all the ruckus it caused last time, and lets not kid ourselves that Microsoft deserve one more chance because of that! They are not bringing anything positive to the table, only bringing potential grief and problems, that needn't be there in the first place.

It was his implication that nobody would ever want anything other than steam

Well there's no beating around the bush, I kind of am. Xbox has the Microsoft store, Playstation has the PSN and PC has Steam. GOG serves it purpose for old titles as well. Steam if not entirely single-handedly, sure helped the resurgence of PC gaming, and is constantly evolving with Steam OS, Source 2, and VR. Windows store will offer nothing of any benefit to anyone. Simple as.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Revolutionary DX12 game Quantum Break which won't support exclusive fullscreen, FRAPs, Shadowplay, or SLI.

Everything Microsoft does is 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Windows 10 Store is literally fucking stupid and the UWA application design is literally fucking stupid. I thought it was funny when Rise of the Tomb Raider W10 version couldn't support exclusive fullscreen and SLI because you could just buy the Steam version to get the actual PC version of the game. But QB exclusively on W10 Store means there's no alternative. I guess we could expect no less from the company that initially thought always online DRM on Xbox One was a brilliant idea.

W10 Store is going to crash and burn more spectacularly than Games for Windows Live did, and it deserves to die a painful death.

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

Good points from The Lowdown:

The problem is that exclusives exist on PC too. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s a statement of fact. Some games are exclusive to Steam, Origin, GOG or Uplay. Most games are purchased or unlocked on Steam but they’re still Steam exclusives if that’s the only place you can buy or play them, though that’s exceedingly rare now. Really, EA and Origin is the only home to PC exclusives and that’s for EA’s PC releases.

Granted, it’s not like locking the game to Windows 10 is directly Microsoft’s doing. The PC version of the game is built on DirectX 12 which is only on Windows 10. I’m sure possible for Microsoft to ask Remedy to make the game DirectX 11 compatible but I’m also not a programmer. How ingrained DirectX 12 is in the final product for console isn’t my field of expertise. Mine is financial and business analysis.

Putting Quantum Break only on the Microsoft Store is another matter. How hard would it have been to put it on Steam with a caveat that the game is only compatible with Windows 10? It would be like Fallout 3’s store page saying it’s not compatible with Windows 7. Apparently, that’s not in the cards for Microsoft for Quantum Break.

So how is Microsoft trying to launch Quantum Break on their store a bad idea? Well, they’re cutting out a large portion of the potential user base by trying to force people onto their new operating system. They’ve tried this before and it failed. For the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft pushed Halo 2 as an operating system exclusive. VG Chartz estimates less than 100,000 copies were sold on PC compared to 8.5 million on Xbox. Suffice to say, Halo 2 on PC was a flop.

http://lowdownblog.com/2016/02/18/is-microsoft-making-a-mistake-pushing-the-microsoft-store-on-pc-gamers/

 

[LukasTaves]

Revolutionary DX12 game Quantum Break which won't support exclusive fullscreen, FRAPs, Shadowplay, or SLI.

Everything Microsoft does is 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Windows 10 Store is literally fucking stupid and the UWA application design is literally fucking stupid. I thought it was funny when Rise of the Tomb Raider W10 version couldn't support exclusive fullscreen and SLI because you could just buy the Steam version to get the actual PC version of the game. But QB exclusively on W10 Store means there's no alternative. I guess we could expect no less from the company that initially thought always online DRM on Xbox One was a brilliant idea.

W10 Store is going to crash and burn more spectacularly than Games for Windows Live did, and it deserves to die a painful death.

The game is Dx12 so it's a big chance it will have better multi gpu support than sli, and at that point I don't think lack of exclusive fullscreen matters that much, specially when there's evidence in RoTTR that it provides no performance penalty.

 

[Auto-Reply]

Good points from The Lowdown:


http://lowdownblog.com/2016/02/18/is-microsoft-making-a-mistake-pushing-the-microsoft-store-on-pc-gamers/

He doesn't seem to understand the important part of it though:

The other problem is that anecdotal evidence suggests that the Microsoft Store isn’t quite up to snuff yet. Customer reviews indicate that there are some issues with resolution, various NVIDIA functions and some peripherals. While every new service will inevitably go through teething problems, nobody wants to be the guinea pig for the Microsoft Store as a gaming client. Origin is only now starting to win support back after its early issues.

+ not even mentioning past and failed attempts fom Microsoft (GFWL) to put this new Windows 10 store into perspective.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The game is Dx12 so it's a big chance it will have better multi gpu support than sli, and at that point I don't think lack of exclusive fullscreen matters that much, specially when there's evidence in RoTTR that it provides no performance penalty.

Well as an owner of the Steam version I can say that's bollocks and yes exclusive fullscreen offers a performance improvement, albeit a small one, over windowed fullscreen. I have a 980 Ti.

 

[LukasTaves]

Well as an owner of the Steam version I can say that's bollocks and yes exclusive fullscreen offers a performance improvement, albeit a small one, over windowed fullscreen. I have a 980 Ti.

My point was that there were reports of RoTTR running better on the store version than on steam.

 

[Dictator93]

Well as an owner of the Steam version I can say that's bollocks and yes exclusive fullscreen offers a performance improvement, albeit a small one, over windowed fullscreen. I have a 980 Ti.

My personal experience has always been that exclusive fullscreen does give better VRAM numbers. I am not sure tbh about performance.

My point was that there were reports of RoTTR running better on the store version than on steam.

Is that so? I never saw any conclusive benches displaying that behaviour.

BTW, DX12 allows for direct control. So you could easily have multi-GPU with windowed fullscreen: you can see this for example in Mantle Frostbite games which support CFX in windowed fullscreen. Pretty cool. Whether this will be the case is a whole other question. I do not put my dfaith in an MS product: remedy on the other hand do hardware justice historically.

 

[Pantaghana]

Steam isn't perfect... Just look at valve's customer service. It does the selling/procuring part brilliantly but let's not kid ourselves that gaben is the messiah and that steam is perfection.

Steam doesn't need to be perfect. No storefront does. What it does need is to be better than the alternatives.
At the moment Steam is the best because of publisher and developer support while also having the most features.

The Windows Store has the downsides of console gaming, while having none of the benefits of PC gaming. While I see some people "biting the bullet" and buying the occasional exclusive game there, I really doubt it will ever take of as a gaming platform.

 

[Smokey]

people aren't upset that the game is in another store

people are upset that their expensive multi-GPU configurations aren't supported
people are upset that hardware/framerate monitors don't work
people are upset that game files are nearly impossible to modify/inject

it's more than "just another store"

Wait what? Is this true?

 

[Ninja Sharingan]

Wait what? Is this true?

Those issues all sound like something that can be fixed. That's a good thing. Enough poeple make noise and MS will fix them all. Steam wasn't built in a day

 

[Mohasus]

Serious question, are their ANY benefits for the gamer of this coming to Microsoft's store over Steam? Any?

Impulse triggers.
Xbox achievements.

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

Impulse triggers.
Xbox achievements.

Is that the best you got?


Seriously though, I can't think of one!

 

[Dictator93]

Wait what? Is this true?

Yes.

Those issues all sound like something that can be fixed. That's a good thing. Enough poeple make noise and MS will fix them all. Steam wasn't built in a day

This is not a proven statement regarding 9/10 microsoft PC ventures. People made lots and lots of noise about GFWL and they let it rot and eventually vomit its bloated innards all over the user.

 

[riflen]

The game is Dx12 so it's a big chance it will have better multi gpu support than sli, and at that point I don't think lack of exclusive fullscreen matters that much, specially when there's evidence in RoTTR that it provides no performance penalty.

Lack of exclusive fullscreen mode, where the GPU controls what's drawn, means no FreeSync support either. Of course, this can change if AMD choose to do the work, but it does not excuse the arbitrary (from the user's perspective) removal of features that have been available on this platform for 20 years.

Anything is possible in software, so conceivably all these issues could be fixed by Microsoft. We don't even know for certain which problems are caused by UWA and which are caused by the Tomb Raider build itself. We just dont have enough data yet to say conclusively.
However, the indication at this point in time is that the goals of the UWA format do not align with those who want their games to work as they always have done until now.

Many people are simply saying that Microsoft's track record here does not win them the benefit of the doubt. I agree that we should loudly object when the flexibility of the PC platform is being threatened. Personally I think that the approach some take in this thread "I don't care about X so removal of X doesn't bother me" is at best irrelevant and at worst irresponsible.

 

[Havik]

Is that the best you got?


Seriously though, I can't think of one!

Crossplay (not for QB tho since it doesnt have multiplayer)
Crossbuy

 

[Mohasus]

Is that the best you got?


Seriously though, I can't think of one!

Regional pricing as well.

Sadly, impulse triggers are great for shooters, but it doesn't matter as much when most people are going to use KB/M. At least it'll be awesome on Forza.

 

[8-Bit Sunset]

Crossplay (not for QB tho since it doesnt have multiplayer)
Crossbuy

As long as your friends have a bone or a capable PC and Windows 10

Regional pricing as well.

I honestly can't recall the last time GFWL had a proper sale?
Apart from Age of Empires III for $0.10.
GFWL was always vastly more expensive than any other game store.

 

[Mohasus]

I honestly can't recall the last time GFWL had a proper sale?

I mean, you can actually change the region of your PC to take advantage of regional pricing. I bought ROTR for 9~ dollars.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Crossplay (not for QB tho since it doesnt have multiplayer)
Crossbuy

Cross-play is also available in Rocket League between PS4 and PC, and Portal 2 between PS3 and PC. It's up to the developer to implement that, although they will have to make a choice between Xbox and Playstation - and Playstation will likely win because they don't require the PC game to be in UWA form.

 

[LukasTaves]

Impulse triggers.
Xbox achievements.

10 device installs from a single purchase.

 

[LordRaptor]

Yes, technically, you can buy Valve games from other Storefronts. But that simple fact misses the forest for the trees. The relevant detail to this particular thread is that it's impossible to actually play those Valve games anywhere but through Steam.

It's not like you can fire up Origin or uPlay and run Valve's games through it. Obviously you wouldn't want to, but still that's the right context to the question of whether Microsoft should or shouldn't sell their games anywhere but the Windows Store.

You're (deliberately?) missing an important point with regards to the Steam store versus the Windows Store.

If you consider Steam to be;
- a DRM account system that stores purchases made and allows access to those purchasers
- a suite of useful game and community applications bundled as one client
- a digital storefront

then you need to compare Windows Store functionality against all three of those aspects instead of just saying "oh, well, windows store does x, so does steam, therefore no difference between Windows Store and Steam".

For the record, if you put a game on steam, there are zero obligations for you to sell that game through the steam storefront.
You can generate as many codes for your game as many times as you want, and can sell them anywhere you want.
The only revenue cost to you as a developer where valve explcitly benefit is for sales made directly through the steam storefront.
Selling your game - your game for Steam - via GMG, Humble, eBay, Amazon, your own website, a forum giveaway, your twitch stream, wherever is not prohibited by steam. Steam receives no revenue from those outlets.

Those outlets are all in direct price competition with each other and consumers benefit accordingly outside of a cartel scenario even if "technically have to have steam though!".

Conversely, putting a game as a UWA on the Windows Store makes the Windows Store the only place that title can be purchased.
You are permitted to generate up to 200 promotional codes once every 6 months (IIRC), and you are explicitly forbidden from selling or reselling any of those promo codes or attempting to bypass MS taking a revenue cut in any manner.

 

[LukasTaves]

Lack of exclusive fullscreen mode, where the GPU controls what's drawn, means no FreeSync support either. Of course, this can change if AMD choose to do the work, but it does not excuse the arbitrary (from the user's perspective) removal of features that have been available on this platform for 20 years.

Actually they did have an excuse, according to them there have been improvements on the memory management on win10, so they can have non exclusive full screen with minimal impact, and offer the benefits of easy alt tabbing.

They also reduced the OS footprint and file page size so compared to win7/8 win10 should have more memory available to games.

Anything is possible in software, so conceivably all these issues could be fixed by Microsoft. We don't even know for certain which problems are caused by UWA and which are caused by the Tomb Raider build itself. We just dont have enough data yet to say conclusively.
However, the indication at this point in time is that the goals of the UWA format do not align with those who want their games to work as they always have done until now.

While it's all true, do we know for certain that this level of control over the games is something the market as a whole. I mean, not that catering to the hardcore market doesn't matter, but if they can achieve some success even with some of the limitations.

We do have to keep in mind for the platform as a whole what the pros and cons are. Even for consumers and developers there are some benefits, so it's up to them into capitalizing those benefits and on the other side work hard to reduce their shortcomings.

Just to name a few of the benefits.

For developers:
- Single development and deployment process to reach many devices families at once.
- Xbox Live infrastructure, they have all the backend so devs doesn't have to cope with these costs, and I'm assuming the benefits from using azure on xbone will apply here too.
- Ability to use their own payment methods. This allow f2p and subscription based games where the developer already has the payment method in place to reach a higher base without having to pay ms any money


For consumers:
- Having a single profile on all the games you own. You can game on pc, console, phone, tablet, Vr and whatnot all using a single profile for it. No other platform has that reach.
- Related to the first, but being able to play with friends no matter the platform. That will obviously will only work within Ms own platforms, but if all your friends are on it that becomes a plus.
- Same for buying purposes.
- Modern package management. With auto updates, notifications, live tiles and so on.

Many people are simply saying that Microsoft's track record here does not win them the benefit of the doubt. I agree that we should loudly object when the flexibility of the PC platform is being threatened. Personally I think that the approach some take in this thread "I don't care about X so removal of X doesn't bother me" is at best irrelevant and at worst irresponsible.

They may not have the benefit of the doubt regarding their digital store availability, but flexibility of the Pc platform is just not at a risk. At all. Ms depends on that for the windows success, and it knows it. Even if they'd like to change that, they just know they can't.

 

[MaLDo]

For the record, if you put a game on steam, there are zero obligations for you to sell that game through the steam storefront.
You can generate as many codes for your game as many times as you want, and can sell them anywhere you want.
The only revenue cost to you as a developer where valve explcitly benefit is for sales made directly through the steam storefront.
Selling your game - your game for Steam - via GMG, Humble, eBay, Amazon, your own website, a forum giveaway, your twitch stream, wherever is not prohibited by steam. Steam receives no revenue from those outlets.

Those outlets are all in direct price competition with each other and consumers benefit accordingly outside of a cartel scenario even if "technically have to have steam though!".

Conversely, putting a game as a UWA on the Windows Store makes the Windows Store the only place that title can be purchased.
You are permitted to generate up to 200 promotional codes once every 6 months (IIRC), and you are explicitly forbidden from selling or reselling any of those promo codes or attempting to bypass MS taking a revenue cut in any manner.

But, but.... think of the children.

 

[LordRaptor]

For consumers:
- Having a single profile on all the games you own. You can game on pc, console, phone, tablet, Vr and whatnot all using a single profile for it. No other platform has that reach.
- Related to the first, but being able to play with friends no matter the platform. That will obviously will only work within Ms own platforms, but if all your friends are on it that becomes a plus.
- Same for buying purposes.
- Modern package management. With auto updates, notifications, live tiles and so on.

These are highly questionable benefits for someone who is already a PC gamer and has been for any length of time, not people who are currently Xbox gamers and are thinking about picking up a PC as well.
- I already have a single profile for all my games. Its my Steam account. I've had it for over a decade now. Because the PC is super open as a platform I can even play my EA and Blizzard games through their own launchers while still using my Steam profile.
- All my Mac and Linux friends can play with me too. I can even cross play with IOS and Android friends on some titles.
- All my games auto update and offer notifications, and those communications carry over to the steam phone app

 

[Zedox]

These are highly questionable benefits for someone who is already a PC gamer and has been for any length of time, not people who are currently Xbox gamers and are thinking about picking up a PC as well.
- I already have a single profile for all my games. Its my Steam account. I've had it for over a decade now. Because the PC is super open as a platform I can even play my EA and Blizzard games through their own launchers while still using my Steam profile.
- All my Mac and Linux friends can play with me too. I can even cross play with IOS and Android friends on some titles.
- All my games auto update and offer notifications, and those communications carry over to the steam phone app

I think what he's trying to say is that you may (or may not) have friends who have an Xbox and you can now play with them.

But I would like to see the actual RotR dev say what's the benefits and negatives of UWA in a performance way. That would be interesting.

 

[JaggedSac]

Everything Microsoft does is 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Windows 10 Store is literally fucking stupid and the UWA application design is literally fucking stupid. I thought it was funny when Rise of the Tomb Raider W10 version couldn't support exclusive fullscreen and SLI because you could just buy the Steam version to get the actual PC version of the game. But QB exclusively on W10 Store means there's no alternative. I guess we could expect no less from the company that initially thought always online DRM on Xbox One was a brilliant idea.

This tickled me. Is stupid one of the seven dwarves and why is everyone fucking him?

 

[LordRaptor]

I think what he's trying to say is that you may (or may not) have friends who have an Xbox and you can now play with them.

Sure, but if you don't know anyone who owns a Windows Phone or an Xbox One, there is no real benefit to any system allowing you access to those people.

If you are a regular Pc gamer, I think it is vastly more likely that you have a friends list made up of Steam users so releasing a game that explicitly locks you out of that existing friends list is a net loss, not a net gain.

 

[OtisInf]

Fair enough, I'll assume what you're saying is true as I haven't really looked into it myself. So from what you're saying you'd neither be able to easily wrap a Win32 application to provide it as UWP, or take a UWP app and send it off as Win32 later. How does this work in regards to having a UWP run on the Xbox and vice-versa, if you happen to know?

UWP defines 'device families', so an app targeting a device family X has access to all the APIs provided by X. You have 'Universal' (can't do much, but is on all devices) and inheriting from that e.g. desktop, xbox, iot etc. So if you want to target xbox, you select that device family and if the app also has to run on desktop, you need to do some extra work if the api you're using isn't available on the other device family. Depending on what language you use, if it's a .NET language, it is the same code running on both, if it's C++, you'll have multiple compilation targets (x86, arm etc.). All outputs are packaged into the same package, the device will pick the one it can run.

UWP offers some win32 api's, but that's a minor subset.

If you write an UWP app, you thus target the UWP api provided by the device family of choice. This means that if you want to ship it as a normal win32 app, you have to redo all code which utilizes UWP api's as UWP isn't a wrapper around win32, it's an 'alternative'. Also, if you have a win32 app and want to ship it as a UWP, you have to redo all code that utilizes Win32 APIs that are not available in the UWP api provided by the device family of choice.

In practice this means that a lot of code can be re-used (as it's general purpose code, e.g. in the context of games, the scene graph of the 3D engine, data structures libraries, game logic etc.) and some parts have to be re-done, like user interfaces, code that utilizes the device's screen / input etc, or in the context of games: render pipelines, rasterization, I/O etc.

So it's not 'build for UWP' and it runs everywhere. The marketing wants you to believe that, the small print tells otherwise.

 

[Ninja Sharingan]

Yes.


This is not a proven statement regarding 9/10 microsoft PC ventures. People made lots and lots of noise about GFWL and they let it rot and eventually vomit its bloated innards all over the user.

Good point. I totally agree. Lets see how serious microsoft are. I'm betting they give it a small go, realise they are happier selling smaller apps and let games goto steam and just forget about the store