Your personal experience as someone directly involved in the proceedings isn't surprising to me, but it might be to other participants in this thread.
Huh? MPC-HC is the best media player on Windows, and it's under active development.
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Tim Sweeney: MS plans to make Steam 'progressively worse' & buggy via Win10 updates
- Thread starter gofreak
- Start date
Why are some of you even defending Microsoft on this one? They have a long shady history of doing exactly what Tim talks about?
On the other hand I will never ever get surprised by people blindly and ignorantly defending corporations.
For being an enthusiast forum it is waaaay to filled to the brim with ignorant idiots...
On the other hand I will never ever get surprised by people blindly and ignorantly defending corporations.
For being an enthusiast forum it is waaaay to filled to the brim with ignorant idiots...
TBiddy
Member
There's a difference between defending Microsoft and pointing out that Tim Sweeney is going off on a tangent here. When was the last time Microsoft actively destroyed a competitors program via Windows Updates?
LordRaptor
Member
Step 1: you describe Win32 as 'legacy' support (has already happened)
Step 2: you do not provide features in newer API revisions for Win32 (has already happened)
Step 3: you make legacy code support a Pro only feature and remove access in Home editions of Windows (LOLLOLOLOLOLOL TINFOIL HATZ)
Linux is shining bright as a beacon of hope, let Vulkan be your guide. Lead the sheeple to the promised land, devs will follow in your wake.
More likely than you think if the adoption of UWP goes according to Microsoft projections.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
There is nothing to defend; this is not something Tim has discovered, it is something he is speculating about.
Valve saw this as a possibility during the Windows 8 launch - that's why they threw resources behind Steam OS and started the Steam Machine initiative. Sure, both have marginal traction right now, but if Microsoft ever tried this, invested PC gamers would migrate to Steam OS en masse.
Please. No way in the world every company is going to convert their programs.
LordRaptor
Member
They don't need to, they just need to purchase the more expensive Corporate Edition of Windows that they likely need to be purchasing anyway.
For gamers, they are then left with the choice of not having access to their library of games, not getting newer versions of windows and associated new revisions of things like directx, or having to buy corporate editions of Windows at the $200 price point.
e:
This is literally what happened with DOS game support from Win98SE onwards; luckily people that aren't MS created DOSBOX and we didn't just lose a generation of Pc games.
Gaben always said SteamOS and Linux is the industry "Break free from jail" card.
Valve already has the system in place, and most of their games ported. If they want to get serious with it, they will, but now they are letting it slowly gain steam (pun not intended).
I would love if the industry adopted Vulkan and moved to Linux en masse to be honest. And let DX9 and before get WINE bottled.
mitchman
Gold Member
The DoJ case was not restricted just to browsers, but to all middleware competing with software included with Windows. Browsers and media players are certainly the most popular competing middleware, sure.
deadscreensky
Member
Sweeney says MS is currently deliberately breaking Steam on Windows 10, and that these (probably illegal) actions are visible. I don't want to hear about MS's actions in the 90s, I lived through and am well aware of them, I don't want to argue about whether the MS of today should be able to advertise their other products to users, I want some sort of evidence backing up what Sweeney is claiming is happening right this minute. How is Steam being sabotaged in Windows 10?
Because this is the first I've heard of it, and I certainly haven't experienced it myself, and none of my friends or family have mentioned this happening to them either. None of this means it hasn't happened, this is just my personal experience, and perhaps those legendarily fast coders at Valve are just fixing Steam so fast we don't even notice (this is a joke). But when you make an extraordinary claim like Sweeney is doing here then any fair, technically-minded person is going to ask for some evidence before they start spreading the fear along.
I wonder if many of the more insulting GAF posts here are from people who didn't manage to make it past the (misleading) headline.
Real_Madrid
Member
Thanks I guess.
And what's your point?
Or is it just a childish 'all corporations are bad'?
And yes Sweeney is just embarrassing himself imo.
MaulerX
Member
I don't know how having the opinion that he's coming across as paranoid and having an agenda = you don't know or forgot MS's history. You can be fully aware of MS's history and still think Sweeney is coming across as being paranoid. There's nothing wrong with that Imo.
LordRaptor
Member
Trigger Rumble with the Xbox One controller is not supported by any win32 application, it is only available via DX12 in UWA format programs.
Therefore if you consider trigger rumble a desirable feature, you will never have that feature via Steam.
That's an example of a deliberate hamstringing of Win32.
Here's an example of a possibly accidental hamstringing of Steam in particular;
All Steam community features use overlays.
UWAs do not support overlays.
No Steam community features work anymore when playing a UWA title.
hooijdonk17
Member
It finds a corruption and does not prompt the user for a choice in what it wants to use for that file type. It automatically defaults to Microsoft's application. Pretty convenient, considering the aforementioned method of setting file type associations worked like a charm in Win7 and Win8x. If you buy this, lol to you.
GarthVaderUK
Banned
So in 5 years time Steam with be a buggy piece of crap, and if it isn't it's because Microsoft were too incompetent to sabotage it correctly?
Sounds a bit too conspiracy-theorist to me.
Sounds a bit too conspiracy-theorist to me.
I don't if they'd do it this way, but they have form for this kind of thing. Going back a long way (DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run) or the new Windows 10 warning that pops up if you're using Chrome or Firefox to say they're power inefficient and you should use Edge:
Yikes, I read about this but never saw the notification.
StereoVsn
Member
People are surprisingly blind to this shit. All MS needs to do is make DirectX progressively worse on Win10 for Win32 to enable a lot of the shit that is being discussed in the OP.
That doesn't mess with vast majority of their Corp customers but will make gaming on non UWP platforms (GoG, Steam, Origin, Ubisoft, etc...) progressively worse. And yes, MS can deprecate older APIs.
As far as competitors MS have done this to? There are many in the business line Netscape, Novell, etc... MS is notorious for taking public APIs and making them just enough different for 3rd party shit not to work or work badly. Heck, Kerberos is a good example that wasn't truly fixed till Server 2008 R2 I think. Even now they take SAML 2.0 and put some proprietary shit in their ADFS model.
So yeah, I can absolutely see MS trying to pull this one. It would really be targetting closed system Apple-Google like model with UWP. Gaming would be just a drive by.
Yeah, you make good points!
Only specualtion at this point. But still, given how shady everything about Windows 10 has been to this point and their corporate history this is nothing that would be below them.
The way they tried to force Windows 10 on me still makes my blood boil everytime i think about it.
8-Bit Sunset
Banned
Would you be so kind as to explain why exactly?
I'm genuinely curious as how you or other posters have more insight and experience on this matter than him?
Tim was there when PC gaming was becoming mainstream, and is still a pioneer all these years later with the new industry standard Unreal4, and when he has something to say I will listen as he has seen it all.
StereoVsn
Member
If you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't after you.
Sorry, I was off my meds for a second. Phew, you're right. The registry never gets goofed up by software devs.
Green Yoshi
Member
Will there be ever Steam on Xbox? No. Will Xbox and Windows merge one day? Yes.
Microsoft wants to earn money if people play on a Windows PC and they certainly don't want Valve to have that money.
Microsoft wants to earn money if people play on a Windows PC and they certainly don't want Valve to have that money.
TBiddy
Member
Well, Microsoft is a corporation, and as all other corporations, they seek to maximise profits. And while it's theoretically possible, that Microsoft would break Steam over the next five years, why would they?
As for Windows 10, I agree. It's was too much.
Oh, totally thought he was referring to the old-school WMP. Well that's just as shady.
It's one thing to say Microsoft COULD do something like this, its another thing entirely to say they ARE doing it, which is what Tim is saying.
Bony Manifesto
Member
I absolutely hate the 'supported method' of changing default apps in Win 10. All apps can do is open up the 'default apps' page of the settings, and from that point the user is on their own, and they have to manually search the list of media types and deselect the 'Recommended for Windows 10' option. Also funny how these are in alphabetical order, so 'Web Browser' - by far the most common default people are going to want to change - is at the bottom and so needs to be scrolled down to before you can see it.
Obviously, none of that is a problem for tech-savvy people like us, but for a company that is so big on friction-less UX, it's funny how a whole bunch of friction suddenly appears when you want to do something they don't approve of, and it's enough to scare a lot of people off.
SaucyJack
Member
Naive.
LordRaptor
Member
I literally just gave an example where playing titles from the W10 store breaks a major aspect of Steam.
Turin Turambar
Member
I'm starting to think there is some kind of fallout in the MS-Epic relationship we don't know about, some bad blood feud behind doors, and now Tim is trying to damage MS as retaliation.
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
The boogeyman is out to get you!
A bit of both, corporations are getting away with exactly everything these days. And blind defense of them from many users on this forum is scaring the living hell out of me, both in the "Game" and "Off-Topic" part of GAF.
And currently living in Germany the entire TTIP-Debate is all over the place. People over here are in general not very corporate-friendly atm.
And no i dont think Sweeney is embarassing himself! Bad choice of words perhaps, but at least he is vocal and voicing his concerns. And he still is in the forefront of the industry with Unreal Engine 4 so I wouldn´t swoosh his opionions away like a fly.
Quoted your post so I didnt have to do the googling. Thanks!
deadscreensky
Member
Again, he says they are breaking Steam right this minute through forced updates. Microsoft are currently making Steam progressively worse on Windows 10, that's his claim. Lack of trigger rumble support (because they never backported support to win32) or overlays not working on certain non-Steam games doesn't remotely qualify. (It's rare, but I own actual Steam games which haven't worked with the Steam overlay too.) For his argument to be true then in some way Steam has to be worse on Windows 10 right now, in July, then it was back in January.Sweeney said:
That hasn't been my experience, and I think if this has been happening to a bunch of other Steam users there would have been plenty of GAF talk about it already.
(Again, willing to admit I could be 100% wrong, but I want actual evidence first.)
Think the term "bug" is a little bit misleading. This implies crashes and so on.
A bug can be anything it just depends on the POV.
MS will try to make non UWP apps less convenient - that doesn't sound conspiracy theorist style, right?
UserDoesNotExist
Member
Well, now we know who on GAF was alive during the 90s.
As many have said before me, it is *completely* plausible, based on Microsoft's history, that they would want to do this. Once the aliens land on the White House lawn, you're no longer a tin foil nut for believing in them; you're the rational one.
The question is whether they're competent enough to pull it off in the gaming market. Based on Microsoft's history, my money is on no. Microsoft could get away with this with business/productivity software because their platforms in those markets are usually OK. Their PC gaming platform, however, will likely be so shitty that even kneecapped Steam will be preferable.
As many have said before me, it is *completely* plausible, based on Microsoft's history, that they would want to do this. Once the aliens land on the White House lawn, you're no longer a tin foil nut for believing in them; you're the rational one.
The question is whether they're competent enough to pull it off in the gaming market. Based on Microsoft's history, my money is on no. Microsoft could get away with this with business/productivity software because their platforms in those markets are usually OK. Their PC gaming platform, however, will likely be so shitty that even kneecapped Steam will be preferable.
Very insightful counter response. The evidence disagrees with you along with history.
LordRaptor
Member
You don't see a difference between overlays being bugged on some games, and overlays not working at all on any UWA title by design?
And I'm not talking about just the shift+tab overlay 'menu' screen - I am talking about all overlay features, like online notifications, achievement unlocks, game invites, etc.
They do not work anymore when playing a W10 store title.
Schweinehund
Member
Curious if this would encourage mass migration to Linux if this actually became a thing. Valve has already been putting more and more resources toward Linux/Open Source.
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