Why do you say that? I don’t see anything that says the game couldn’t be on Steam also?
What in this says that the game can’t be on Steam also? What am I missing?
JoshV
6132
Two big issues. One is that the windows store is crap. Worse than Steam by a long shot. There are lots of games on the Windows Phone store who I really doubt the legitimacy of. Final Fantasy Tactics for free you say? Hmm… why that’s really generous of Squaresof-- published by Baymax you say? In general they’ve been in starving for decent apps on the app store that they just let anything in to make their numbers look good, and it’s full of crap, some of it dangerously so.
Second thing is that the only ones that really get to take advantage of Universal appness are games being planned for the Xbone from the outset, as it’s a pain in the ass to deal with the current windows app store garbage as a PC developer*, most PC indies are likely to not bother and continue with Steam.
*For example, have you ever tried to install an app made from the appstore on a machine, like say for testing purposes without putting it up on the appstore first? PITA.
Why would they have to port them twice? The game is a PC game, why would it need to be “ported” to Steam. There are games on Steam, Origin, GOG, etc. Doesn’t seem to be a problem to have the same game on multiple stores. Why is this an issue?
Along those lines, the games most affected by this are going to be Xbone exclusives, in theory. Not being in the industry I don’t know the tools well but my understanding is that we’re moving towards tools that make it easy to simultaneously develop for Xbone/PS4/PC meaning an easy Xbone->Windows port is of limited usefulness (please correct me if I’m wrong). How many exclusive titles is Microsoft going to realistically put on the Windows Store and how much of a release delay will they have in order to protect the Xbone?
Did you read even this single page of the thread?
Yes, I read this page and the MS announcement that was linked to. Sorry.
That said, I was referencing your quote of MS above where you said that certain statement meant that Steam was screwed. Sorry but there was nothing in that quote that made it plain to me that Steam was screwed so I asked you to explain why you thought that statement meant that was so. If that’s too much bother don’t worry about it.
RickH
6137
Well, Steam is already flagging people who have memory-resident mods like Flawless Widescreen, so it’s not like they are hands-off on this issue.
mono
6138
This vision of an MS dominated future assumes an awful lot of execution on MS’s behalf that they historically cannot pull off.
Sure, I would’ve played Red Dead Redemption back in the day, but if it retained the crappy Xbox screen resolution, textures and low poly models that it sported on console, it would’ve been the last Universal app I’d buy unless it was on a fire sale. Just cause it’s playable on PC doesn’t mean it’ll be accepted by the PC consumer crowd. The people who play games on PC are the people that actually care about freedom to tinker and demonstrated hardware advantages. Otherwise, they’d just play on consoles. Hey, most people do that exclusively. Why buy a gaming rig in the first place when a console is so much cheaper? Because you can do crazy shit with it, and developers who succeed on PC take advantage of the benefits.
Steam Workshop provides a nice easy delivery system, but most mods wouldn’t exist if the creators couldn’t get in and mod the game manually in the first place. Going through an MS submission process pulls the rug out from under the mod scene. It’ll just create a new PC only market space for people who don’t want to deal w/ Win 10 limitations.
I think the Win 10 initiative can be great, in that it might get me a few games I’d not otherwise play, but I don’t see the Win 10 game store accruing domination in the PC field.
You really didn’t. I’ll quote one of my posts on this page for a second time on the same page in reply to you. I’m not looking to fight with you, seriously. Do us the courtesy of reading the current page before replying. Nobody expects you to read from page 1, but expecting participants to read the current page is not unreasonable.
@mono: Exactly right. MS needs to execute properly to be a threat to Steam, and that’s usually where they drop off track.
Yes, I read that and it doesn’t explain a thing. PC games that work on Windows 7 are sold on Steam, so why couldn’t PC games that work on Windows 10 be sold on Steam. That’s why you aren’t explaining. You just keep repeating the same thing as if it should be obvious to me. Sorry, but it’s not. I don’t see the difference between the two when it comes to being sold on Steam.
Programs written to be “universal windows apps” can only be sold on the windows store.
Win32/win64 programs can of course still be sold through steam, but my earlier posts cover that.
Thank you, that’s the info I was needing. Appreciated.
No problem, didn’t realize that wasn’t widely known.
It might be, I could just be that “one” :)
jsnell
6145
No, can’t say that choice looks obvious to me at least in the direction you’re suggesting. Spend 10% extra effort so that you can trade Steam users for the users of an also-ran console? (And note it’s not just losing out on Steam sales during the launch window, but also on the long tail of being in the back catalog).
Nobody particularly wants to buy from MS. But if a game is only available on the windows store, you will not have a choice.
There’s always a choice; namely not buying the game. And that’s actually the default choice. Most people will not buy most games. Hell, most people will not even buy most games that they’re interested in (who has time to play everything?). It’s up to the seller to get the product in front of as many people as possible. A very high profile franchise can probably count on enough exposure from elsewhere to give up on major sales channels. And a company like EA can pay the strategy tax, trading off a bit of sales potential on their games in exchange for propping up their e-commerce/distribution side. But it seems like an insane risk for a midlist developer or publisher.
Sorry, just not seeing it.
Who cares about “steam users”? They’re just gamers running windows. If they’re running windows10, they can get your game from the windows store. Key questions are whether they’re running win10 and whether MS screws this sweet setup up.
jsnell
6147
Anyone not publishing GTA V will care.
You’re totally discounting the value (to the publishers and developers) of digital storefronts as a place that sell something to people who weren’t actively looking to buy that thing. Sure, the die-hard fans of the game will know exactly when a game is released and where to buy it from. But selling to just that core audience is bad business, you also need to get the game in front of the people who are interested in it on a more casual level. You’re only going to have that Steam front-page slot if your game is actually going to be on Steam… (“Oh, I read about that game a few months ago, it’s out now?”, or “Hey, that game everyone was talking of six months ago that I thought was kind of interesting is now 50% off, guess I should give it a try”).
Of course none of this matters if your game happens to catch the zeitgeist just perfectly and goes viral, or if you’ve got a $200 million advertising budget for the launch. And it wouldn’t matter too much if Windows Store rather than Steam was the place with the most eyeballs. For this plan to work Windows Store would first need to be the place to buy PC games. Only then could it force exclusivity in exchange for the XBox One portability carrot.
I disagree, the portability carrot is sufficient if windows10 gets strong market penetration and MS doesn’t screw it up.
