@mid_gen: I don’t think that people choose Android because it’s ‘free’. They do it, because of the wide and cheap product range. There are so many smartphone users which are only using the default apps, because they just want a phone.
BTT: is overreacting a bit. Of course Microsoft could do a lot of damage, but all they want is that people use Win10. By damaging Steam they would only damage themselves. And people would go back to Windows 7 or something.
The point is that smartphones were a niche product until the advent of the curated app store model. People were used to computing devices being flaky and something that ‘techie people’ sorted out for them when they got viruses or slowed to a crawl or otherwise failed on them.
With the advent of application delivery platforms on smartphones, people could easily browse, pay for, install, and update useful applications without it falling apart when it got infected with trojans etc. It was a major step forward for the usability of consumer computing devices, the user experience on smartphones for a non-technical person was so much better than a Windows PC they had to do something about it. I don’t really see how anyone can argue that a trusted application store and update mechanism isn’t better than the old wild west were people just downloaded .EXEs from random websites and prayed it was clean.
Yup, this ^.
They did it (tried) to Mozilla, and they failed big time, but all web developers until today suffer because of that incompatibility tactics from ms. they did succeed with direct3D, same tactics, but this time game devs and hardware producers choose directx over opengl. So it is nothing new from ms to do such stuff.
You’re missing the point entirely. Curated stores existing is one thing, curated stores being the only way to access content is another.
Going back to the original point; there has never really been a mobile phone ecosystem that did not actively prevent another storefront existing. There can be no ‘Steam’ on Android or Apple devices because their terms explicitly prevent it - however Android devices are certainly popular amongst certain groups of people based on their ability to easily install software from outside of the curated ecosystem.
I never mentioned curated stores being the only way to access content.
Microsoft will do what is best for Microsoft. I think that is most likely to be :
Continue to push the Windows Store as the primary means of accessing content for your average consumer, so that their Windows experience starts to compare favourably with the one they’ve got used to on their smartphones.
Continue supporting Win32 and allowing non-Store UWP installs to keep their ‘power user’ customers happy.
Not supporting Win32 and allowing UWP sideloading would kill the platform dead so fast I don’t see any of it ever happening. In the unlikely event it did happen they would lose all developer support and Linux might become a truly viable gaming platform at last and I’d happily switch at that point.
It’s a long game, not a short one; they aim to take away liberties one at a time and create a userbase that is dependent on their platforms. The first step is to start making the alternatives look nonviable - for games this means damaging Steam and converting users to the Windows Store, other types of application will follow (MS Office will also now deliberately screw up documents saved in older Office formats or open formats, where it worked fine in previous versions). The final step, perhaps 10 years down the line, is to remove access to anything outside of the store for the home edition of Windows. When that has been done, they have won and achieved their goals.
How have Microsoft damaged Steam?
There already is on Android - The Amazon store, the Humble Bundle App and probably many more!
Yes. They will break other apps, too.
Microsoft wants the Windows Store to be to Windows what the Google Play Store is to Android.
You “can” run non-Store apps on Android, so it’s not as closed as iOS. But, to the average user, it sure seems that way, and Google takes their cut of each sale. As will Microsoft.
Installing a non store app on Android is very similar to how you install a normal Win32 app on Windows. It is in fact a bit easier on Android. The average home user do not want the PC way of handling installs and that is one of the major reasons Windows is rapidly losing ground in the home market. Without success for UWP and the Windows Store it will be mostly gone in another decade.
An alternative theory: Valve gradually stops supporting Steam on Windows, which becomes worse and more broken.
Microsoft still gets the blame. Users flock to SteamOS because their games are tied to Steam and not the Windows Store. Game publishers flock to Steam because their users are tied to Steam and not the Windows Store, or if they do avoid Steam they will avoid Windows Store for the same reasons.
Microsoft is blind, and until they can see, perhaps more optimism (or pessimism, if you like Windows) is warranted?
edit: less op-ed
how will microsoft try to break steam within windows 10? how is that even possible?
isn’t that mozilla thing different? coz they tried to make websites with different plugins/stuff than mozilla. how can they do same stuff with steam vs windows store? because the way i see it windows store is way worse, vsync/sli etc etc.
You get bunch of reverse engineers, disassemble whole steam client, based on this guess how their servers work. Knowing that you can find areas that will hurt steam games most.
they can “improve” some parts of networking or directX and bloat that out of proportion. This will slow down everything that uses it. All they need to do is put more focus on some aspects of directX and networking, or instead some smart lead programmer put in charge some idiot.
What? All Androids by default come with “do not allow side-loading” and “do not install unsigned packages.”
On Windows, installing has been:
On Android, you need to dig through pretty obscure and (to the regular user) “scary” options to do that.
This is why there is approximately zero commercial products selling as side-loadable apk-s, even though by doing so, they would not have to pay the Google tax.
Microsoft just wants us to also have to pay a Microsoft tax. It’s totally logical, from their point of view.
is there ‘legit conspiracy theorem’ that microsoft did stuff like that before? changing their released windows network protocols and released(years old) direct x versions?
It depends. Some Windows 10 pre-install tablet computers now require you to flip a switch to allow installation of Win32 programs. And if your program/installer is not signed by a certificate that Microsoft recognizes, you will get some severe warnings when trying to install. It’s even worse for those who need hardware drivers – without code signing, it’s basically impossible to get normal users to use your things.
Similarly, when downloading, Microsoft (like the other browser vendors) will say “this is not a recognized binary; we recommend you don’t download it, to stay safe!” Currently, only for binaries that really aren’t often downloaded, but they can tighten that up as much as they want. And add requirements for what they allow in the Windows Defender tool suite.
The death blow they can deal is to create the default account as non-admin. At that point, you can’t elevate privileges to install new software. Meanwhile, software from the Store installs fine without elevation. Game over, for 95% of users! Meanwhile, they can still say “but users who want to can create an admin account.”
This whole controversy seems like a big what if. Microsoft already responded to saying they weren’t doing this. Gabe Newell started a similar argument when Windows 8 came out and we all know how that worked out. Can they do this? Sure. But will they? According to them, they won’t. Microsoft wants to expand their user base, they wouldn’t be doing that if they were to screw over a majority of their existing customers.
No, but there is blog from former microsoft employee describing that microsoft did all of this (in another parts of windows) out of incompetence and corporate politics between divisions.
I am just pointing out that sabotaging steam for microsoft would be extremely easy and impossible to proof malicious intentions, so they can do it without any risk.
Well I definitely agree with you on the forced updates, it’s one of the things keeping me away from windows 10.
Perhaps no legal risk sure, but don’t underestimate the power of a vast collective consumer mob.