Microsoft's latest tactics show Gabe Newell of Valve was right to worry

I doubt I will ever give a cent to the Windows Store. I tolerate Steam when a game is on Linux, is less than $5 and can't be found elsewhere but the Windows Store won't have Linux and I highly doubt Quantum Break will be less than $5. DRM free is my big checkbox for games to hit, even more so than Linux.

I agree that this move is worrying; It gets a bit philosophical though -- is it better to get access to XBox games through the store which otherwise wouldn't have come to PC at all, or not to have those games at all?

There is a realistic risk that developers will go "oh hey, I can make an XBox version and get the PC port for free!" (or vice versa). Considering that mobile gaming is a huge market, and those users are used to locked-down apps, Windows store games may cause an influx of mobile gamers to PC that skews the perceived tastes of our market...

If a company make a lot of moves to make linux grow by increasing the available games to it, and also make good games discounts putting games at 1.49 dollars (I purchased half life 2 episode 2 for this price in the last sales), then is not evil to me.

Honestly, for all the money I have potentially saved by Steam sales, I wouldn't exactly list them in the "not evil" category. Its simply a marketing method. It is also at fault for my large [Steam pile of shame](http://www.pcgamer.com/the-pile-of-shame-an-unconquerable-mountain/).

1) Not only do you not own the games on the Windows 10 Store but you never receive the full binary package.

What does Steam say about that anyway? Anything with DRM is bound to the underlying service just as much as "ownership" of a Windows store game is bound to the store account. DRM-free games probably have better licensing, but even then resale is probably prohibited; That concept simply doesn't translate well to digital content.

@Mountain Man: They can't say such thing - it would be an anti-trust violation.

Microsoft has managed to con their way out of every anti-trust lawsuit to date. Remember the one where their "punishment" was to donate computers and software to schools where impressionable children would become familiar with all things Microsoft?

I think Microsoft is unscrupulous enough that they'd gladly weather a lawsuit if it meant hamstringing their competition in there process.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 2 Mar 2016 at 4:50 pm UTC

Valve is making games exclusive to their "platform", which is Steam, the same way Microsoft is making games exclusive to their Xbox/Windows store

If you're referring to the Source 2 engine, to my knowledge, Valve is not saying that games made using that engine cannot be sold outside of Steam; Valve is simply saying that, the Source 2 engine games must be sold in either Steam alone or Steam in addition to any other store.

I think it was about Steamworks. Steam isn't new to the lock-in game. Developers which use Steamworks and make it mandatory can't distribute their games outside of Steam. It's a nasty tactics to use developer tools for lock-in.

Anyways, I remember myself signing online petitions which asked for Blizzard native Linux ports (I believe it was diablo3 and hearth stone).

Lemme guess. They answered by banning you from d3 for using wine. :D

Actually, Blizzard has no problem with people using Wine. I've read that at least one of the Diablo 3 programmers uses Linux exclusively at home.

What does Steam say about that anyway? Anything with DRM is bound to the underlying service just as much as "ownership" of a Windows store game is bound to the store account. DRM-free games probably have better licensing, but even then resale is probably prohibited; That concept simply doesn't translate well to digital content.

While you may not technically own what you buy on Steam there is a guarantee of access and some consumer protections. Additionally not all games distributed via Steam require Steam to be present, and because you have access to all of a game's files it's possible to modify the game in any way including circumventing DRM, giving you the ability to archive your games.

Hei hei! What is all this hate for Steam?

Closed source games? Seriously? You think this is Steam fault? Even assuming open source is good and closed source is evil (which is not, they are two different model that make sense for different domains... and gaming is hardly an open source friendly domain), it's a developer choice to take one or the other route.

DRM? Are you trolling? Steam actually solved the whole DRM problem by actually making the damn thing sensible and working as intended. No more always on requirement, no more crappy servers to prevent you play your game on day one (and day X,Y,Z too I'd say). Yes you have to be on line once. But we're talking about an online market place. If Internet is your problem you don't buy on an online store. All right, true. You're not free to pirate a steam game. Is this your concern?

Exclusives? What are we talking about? Steam is the only vendor who actually encourage developers to sell their games on all the platforms and all the markets they want. There are no Steam exclusives and there will never be. Unless Gaben sells the company or make it public that is. This is their philosophy and it's a damn good philosophy. Exclusives are the worst possible thing for consumers, be they halo junkies or game of thrones fanatics. If we had better governments (or smarter voters) this practice would be forbidden by law. But it's not so to have a big player like Steam rejecting them as a core value is actually a wonderful thing.

Then hei! I'm not saying Steam has to become the only marketplace. Monopoly is never good and I'm not a Steam fanboy myself. I'm an opportunist and I actually buy games where they are cheaper, not necessarily on Steam. What I'm saying is that from a ideological point of view there is no moral superiority between markets like Steam and GOG. Being without DRM is not "good". Bad is ruining a game by making it unplayable with crappy DRM.
But then between Steam and GOG, Steam actually adds a lot of value to games with the Valve infrastructure (patching client, friends, community forums, stream, etc). So it re-invests the money you pay to make your games even better (and more importantly, convenient to port on linux). A game in your steam library is actually a better game. Can you say the same of GOG?

Half-Life 3. Linux exclusive. Game over.

In all seriousness, I see this going over about as well as Games for Windows Live. Microsoft will be all gung-ho for about a year and then get bored and wander off.

Valve is making games exclusive to their "platform", which is Steam, the same way Microsoft is making games exclusive to their Xbox/Windows store

If you're referring to the Source 2 engine, to my knowledge, Valve is not saying that games made using that engine cannot be sold outside of Steam; Valve is simply saying that, the Source 2 engine games must be sold in either Steam alone or Steam in addition to any other store.

I think it was about Steamworks. Steam isn't new to the lock-in game. Developers which use Steamworks and make it mandatory can't distribute their games outside of Steam. It's a nasty tactics to use developer tools for lock-in.

Steamworks is an optional feature. It's up to the developer whether or not they want to use it, so it's hard to argue that as a case of vendor lock in.

Valve is making games exclusive to their "platform", which is Steam, the same way Microsoft is making games exclusive to their Xbox/Windows store

If you're referring to the Source 2 engine, to my knowledge, Valve is not saying that games made using that engine cannot be sold outside of Steam; Valve is simply saying that, the Source 2 engine games must be sold in either Steam alone or Steam in addition to any other store.

I think it was about Steamworks. Steam isn't new to the lock-in game. Developers which use Steamworks and make it mandatory can't distribute their games outside of Steam. It's a nasty tactics to use developer tools for lock-in.

Steamworks is an optional feature. It's up to the developer whether or not they want to use it, so it's hard to argue that as a case of vendor lock in.

Optional or not that's not the point. It's just not a [lock in](https://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/retailsupport.php).

Edit: Aaagh. After reading a bit further, I realized my comment here was utterly wrong and based on a complete misunderstanding of the situation I was commenting on. Nothing to see here, move along.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 Mar 2016 at 7:46 pm UTC

Valve is making games exclusive to their "platform", which is Steam, the same way Microsoft is making games exclusive to their Xbox/Windows store

If you're referring to the Source 2 engine, to my knowledge, Valve is not saying that games made using that engine cannot be sold outside of Steam; Valve is simply saying that, the Source 2 engine games must be sold in either Steam alone or Steam in addition to any other store.

I think it was about Steamworks. Steam isn't new to the lock-in game. Developers which use Steamworks and make it mandatory can't distribute their games outside of Steam. It's a nasty tactics to use developer tools for lock-in.

Steamworks is an optional feature. It's up to the developer whether or not they want to use it, so it's hard to argue that as a case of vendor lock in.

Optional or not that's not the point. It's just not a [lock in](https://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/retailsupport.php).

Actually that is the point. You can't start a Steamworks game without Steam. So saying that it's not lock-in, when you can only access it from inside the steam-client is kind of bullshit, don't you think?

Of course you can make it optional, but if you use Steamworks, the client has to be present, up and running ;)

Really, you can defend Steam all you want. It was and is DRM.

It's the only DRM I accept, but that doesn't magically turn it into "No-DRM" ;)

Really, such defenses are stupid if the terms we are talking about are well defined (and yes, they are, no matter how hard some people try to soften them up - most of them being sales-people ;))

Actually that is the point. You can't start a Steamworks game without Steam. So saying that it's not lock-in, when you can only access it from inside the steam-client is kind of bullshit, don't you think?

Of course you can make it optional, but if you use Steamworks, the client has to be present, up and running ;)

Wut? The whole point of Steamworks is to allow you to leverage the features that are built in the steam client. That's like arguing that buying an orange juice bottle locks you in consuming orange juice. If you don't want it you don't buy it. If you want something different you buy something different or make it yourself.

Really, you can defend Steam all you want. It was and is DRM.

Steam is not DRM. Steam has DRM. Among many other things. Composition over inheritance.

And the fact that it offers DRM is a very good thing. Before DRM came in PC gaming was on the brink of extinction. Piracy swallowed it completely. DRM ressed it but then, thanks to crappy "money over quality" companies like Ubisoft, PC gaming became a miserable experience because of the deadly combo "always on line requirement" + "always down DRM server".

Software, including games, is not religion. It's not about absolutes but it's about improving the quality of life of people. If it doesn't make your life better it's bad software. It's just that.

Steam is good because it improves the quality of life of gamers. In fact one has only advantages in having a game in the Steam library. Including a well made DRM: they don't call this time "the golden age of gaming" for nothing. The only thing piracy ever brought was the "dark age of the consoles".

The Windows store is even more restrictive than just no cross-buy. Apparently at least currently there's
* no SLI support
* Vsync is always on, g-sync/freesync doesn't work
* no overlays
* no .exe files, thus also no modding
* no overlays
* always borderless fullscreen
* no controllers other than the x-box controller
I just hope even many Windows gamers will draw the line at this point and not buy into this. At least a lot of people still remember GFWL and are skeptical.

Very succinct summary. I think in particular the no modding won't go over well. I wonder how PC gamers will take the controller thing.
And the screen thing suggests a question: How does this work with multiple monitors?

I haven’t checked exactly what this is all about and I don’t care really since I don’t use Windows and don’t own a Xbox console.


So, Microsoft is developing their own distribution software and store. What’s to worry about that? Just one more player in the market. They may tie some titles to their own distribution software and store and release them there exclusively. So? That has become the norm in the gaming industry when we talk about AAA titles and their developers for years already!

Arstechnica:
“Forcing console-like restrictions on a group that values freedom was never going to end well.”

Yeah, that really made me laugh-hard. There may be a hand full of PC gamers that still value freedom when it comes to gaming. But those are certainly not the people arstechnica had in mind when they said that. PC gamers, like all others, have long accepted that there is no real freedom anymore and that their games are tied to one platform or another.

Besides, except some indie titles, games are no longer developed for PC anymore but for consoles and only then ported to PC. Because consoles and all the mobile devices is where the money is these days.

Yeah, that really made me laugh-hard. There may be a hand full of PC gamers that still value freedom when it comes to gaming. But those are certainly not the people arstechnica had in mind when they said that. PC gamers, like all others, have long accepted that there is no real freedom anymore and that their games are tied to one platform or another.

Wait man, not too fast.

There are different degrees of freedom.
I'm pretty sure arstechnica was refering to the freedom the PC platform and gamers have to spin things up. Let's not forget that mods are a HUGE in the PC platform AND Microsoft store is taking it away. The freedom they've talked about are the ones Microsoft will take away with the Store restrictions.

When it comes to the freedom killed by platform lockups then you're 100% right: gamers just don't care about it.


Last edited by amonobeax on 2 Mar 2016 at 9:39 pm UTC

I found it hilarious that Microsoft responded not long ago that they would fix the vsync/60fps AND SLI problems so that they would work in their Windowed environment..... YEAH RIGHT....


Last edited by TheRiddick on 2 Mar 2016 at 10:23 pm UTC

Valve is making games exclusive to their "platform", which is Steam, the same way Microsoft is making games exclusive to their Xbox/Windows store

If you're referring to the Source 2 engine, to my knowledge, Valve is not saying that games made using that engine cannot be sold outside of Steam; Valve is simply saying that, the Source 2 engine games must be sold in either Steam alone or Steam in addition to any other store.

Oh no, I just mean that PC versions of Valve games (Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Dota 2, Portal) are only playable on Steam, even if you buy a physical copy.

Edit: Same goes for EA and Ubisoft. EA games require Origin and Ubisoft games require Uplay

Oh, now I see what you meant. You and tony1ab both make valid points. :) While Valve is not making third-party games be exclusively sold on Steam, it's still restrictive (but to a lesser extent) to have their (first-party) games sold only on Steam, because it encourages vendor lock-in to some extent (unless you're willing to play those games outside of the PC ecosystem).

I'm not worried even though they're buying exclusives. Vulkan, open source philosophy, Windows frustrations abound, and HTC Vive have entered the fray. Need I say more?

Oh God. You gotta read [this](https://twitter.com/The_CrapGamer/status/697814501119361024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw).

My already low respect for consoletards got even lower. :O

Anyway, a Pearl among this moronic nonsense galore:

I've said it over and over, we're focused on the best place to play for gamers, not about creating walls.

Phil Spencer