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Windows 10's Game Mode exclusive to UWP

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Except, you know, the stuff that won't end up back-ported to Win32, and will require, sooner or later, UWP as a minimum target for implementation., Win32's time may not be done for several years, but there was a time they said the same about Win16 stuff, that's gone, the same will happen with Win32 one day, that's progress.
That's because MS wants to kill Win32, not because it's necessary to release those games as UWAs. And no, removing my freedom to fully mod my games and choose their installation path isn't progress to me.
 

nynt9

Member
Fanboyism against anything that MS does with UWP/Store. It's my opinion of how some users act towards it. Any news about it, good or bad...is always the same.

Maybe it's because the store is bad, and it represents practices that are bad for the open environment of PC gaming, and Microsoft's moves with it range from malicious to incompetent?

Nah, clearly people are just fanboys.
 

GRaider81

Member
Fanboyism against anything that MS does with UWP/Store. It's my opinion of how some users act towards it. Any news about it, good or bad...is always the same.

Guess that comes with general anti consumer practices that have plagued MS for years.

You are probably right some people do act that way but I personally can't blame anyone for it.
 

hawk2025

Member
For the people still not understanding why people take issue with Microsoft leveraging their OS to push their other products, please read the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

It's only one of the most important competition cases ever.


?

I'm not sure I agree here.


They are leveraging the OS and bundling to push their proprietary products over competitors.
 
If that was the goal, then why can't I sign my own UWA's with a user able to easily add me as a trusted source? Why can't I personally give specific applications the ability to hook into others? Why can't I look at and manipulate the data files residing on my own computer?

Microsoft doesn't appear to be wanting to make computing safer for me.
They appear to want to make my own computer "safe" from me. That is utterly unacceptable.

I don't know if there's anything new to uwp that prevents it, but you can create your custom certificate and other users are able to trust you and install your certificate to add you as a trusted source.

As for dll injection, a few google searches show that people got this working without any issues. People are even getting a hold to port mods and add ons to minecraft win10.

And as for modifying the files, there's nothing preventing it either, even on the new packages people are managing to mess with the app files. I couldn't find anything yet on they changing the executable, but even if they can't that's a extra security the store offers the developers, if you publish your own app you could allow executable modifications as far as I'm aware.
 

KageMaru

Member
Maybe it's because the store is bad, and it represents practices that are bad for the open environment of PC gaming, and Microsoft's moves with it range from malicious to incompetent?

Nah, clearly people are just fanboys.

Problem is this has nothing to do with the store.
 
I used to think that, but to be honest, with a lot of the OSS moves Microsoft has made (.Net Core, VS Code on Linux), the cultural changes and shift Satya Nadella has moved Microsoft in I truly think it's more "Microsoft want to offer a curated, safe computing environment" as an alternative.


Except, you know, the stuff that won't end up back-ported to Win32, and will require, sooner or later, UWP as a minimum target for implementation., Win32's time may not be done for several years, but there was a time they said the same about Win16 stuff, that's gone, the same will happen with Win32 one day, that's progress.

That's not the kind of progress most of us want though.
 
For the people still not understanding why people take issue with Microsoft leveraging their OS to push their other products, please read the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

It's only one of the most important competition cases ever.

I'd agree with you if UWA/UWP was exclusive to MS's store. I was under the impression that any storefront could use it.

I'm not sure this is an exact apples-to-apples analogy.
 
Fanboyism for what? Our own PCs?

Yeah if you want to keep control over expensive hardware you paid for instead of conceding it to Microsoft you are obviously fanboy :D

Funny thing is that most of uwp defenders aren't even pc gamers when you check their post history.
 

cakely

Member
Bingo. ;)



Easy: It's Windows Store thread. Even when people have reasonable objections to what MS is doing (which there was a lot, the list is dwindling but a lot of work for them to do), you get people who have no reason to be mad but fanboyism (in my opinion at least) occurs in threads like this.

Fanboyism?

Are you claiming people that don't like the Windows Store are Win32 fanboys?
 

hawk2025

Member
I'd agree with you if UWA/UWP was exclusive to MS's store. I was under the impression that any storefront could use it.

I'm not sure this is an exact apples-to-apples analogy.

It's not.

Hence why it's inching closer -- but the store and UWP are closely linked. They are going about it differently because they are not dumb to create the exact same anti-trust scenario again, but the spirit is the same: Leverage vertical integration to gain a competitive edge.
 
If someone can't find a particular bundle of a game on the Win10 Store they're doing something very, very wrong.



And if they're installing things via the store pages, they're literally just making things harder for themselves, since there's a full list of everything you own, with one-click install available, in your Library.
It says right there: This bundle contains and proceeds to list the version of the game you own.
 

nynt9

Member
Problem is this has nothing to do with the store.

The store and UWP are intertwined and people usually refer to them as the same problem because a lot of their issues are caused by each other, and the same policies and vision fuel both.
 
For the people still not understanding why people take issue with Microsoft leveraging their OS to push their other products, please read the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

It's only one of the most important competition cases ever.





They are leveraging the OS and bundling to push their proprietary products over competitors.
That makes no sense. Win32 is also their product, not something hacked into Windows that Ms is trying to get rid of it.
 
It's not.

Hence why it's inching closer.

OK - I see your point. Sure, I agree we should be skeptical of MS's moves here. That said, I also doubt that UWA/UWP is going to be very successful in its current form, either. Just look at the comments here...

MS is a company interested in making money after all, and if no one wants to buy this stuff, it'll crash and burn.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Except from what we have seen so far is that it is a simplified task manager so not a OS level feature.

It depends what it is. If it's an automatic process - an application being able to shut down other apps is not an application-land privilege, it's something the OS has to do for the app. That it's being marketed as a 'game mode' leaves scope for it to expand beyond that one feature too I think.

Sweeney's problem was with the Store. This has nothing to do with the Store.

Well his concern was two-fold - that on the one hand MS would try to obsolete or disadvantage Win32 apps, and then thereafter/separately, tie UWP to the windows store.

If the latter has been solved (?) then I guess his concern about the former might be offset. But the type of thing in the OP could be right along the tracks of the first part of his concerns, if it's the first part of a segregation of capabilities or OS performance for UWP vs non-UWP apps. If UWP apps are irrevocably deployable and distributable outside the windows store and without MS approval, though, then I guess that concern is now moot.
 

hawk2025

Member
That makes no sense. Win32 is also their product, not something hacked into Windows that Ms is trying to get rid of it.


The margins on Win32 for gaming no longer exist for Microsoft.

Planned obsolence and competition with a previous version is a well-known phenomenon, and most certainly makes sense. Any durable goods seller deals with this.

Let me make a simpler point:

Madden 16 is also EA's product, but they want you to buy Madden 17.
 

nynt9

Member
It depends what it is. If it's an automatic process - an application being able to shut down other apps is not an application-land privilege, it's something the OS has to do for the app. That it's being marketed as a 'game mode' leaves scope for it to expand beyond that one feature too I think.



Well his concern was two-fold - that on the one hand MS would try to obsolete or disadvantage Win32 apps, and then thereafter/separately, tie UWP to the windows store.

If the latter has been solved (?) then I guess his concern about the former might be offset. But the type of thing in the OP could be right along the tracks of the first part of his concerns, if it's the first part of a segregation of capabilities or OS performance for UWP vs non-UWP apps. If UWP apps are irrevocably deployable and distributable outside the windows store and without MS approval, though, then I guess that concern is now moot.

Other concerns for UWP include the lack of moddability, lack of multi-gpu support without DX12 code, lack of ability to inject/overlay stuff and more.
 

GHG

Gold Member
As I said in the previous thread:



And people tried to argue, lmao.

I giggle every time in this threads reading those trying to defend MS, so funny.

What's even more funny is the fact that some of the same people who were saying it won't be exclusive are now defending this in a different vein. Lo and behold it's suddenly a case of "this is why this being UWP exclusive is good". It's difficult to keep up.

All I know is that I'm still waiting for //build/.

Edit: LMAO at "fanboyism" being the reason for people having beef with UWP and the windows store. The irony is strong.
 
Maybe I'm dumb and all, but I don't see where it says that Game Mode is exclusive to UWP. It just says that UWP games will require that Game Mode be enabled.
 

12Dannu123

Member
As said multiple times already.

Clearly people are actually unintelligent to believe that UWP and Windows Store are the same thing.

UWP will obviously get better over time. It's a much better position as it was a year ago.

Adobe also sells UWP apps on their own storefront, so it makes everybody's claims of UWP and Windows Store moot.

To people who think UWP won't be successful. Trust me as long as Xbox consoles exist, then UWP will succeed. Whether Origin, Uplay or Battle.net adopt support UWP on their stores, that means UWP has succeeded.
 

Osiris

I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Other concerns for UWP include the lack of moddability, lack of multi-gpu support without DX12 code, lack of ability to inject/overlay stuff and more.

Again, lack of modability with UWP/UWA is another faulty misconception, developers can use MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) to leverage a plugin architecture in their app to allow for mods. Whilst this requires developer support and doesn't allow for modding of unsupported applications that is different to "lack of modability", any dev that want to allow for mods, has a route by which to do so.
 
Well his concern was two-fold - that on the one hand MS would try to obsolete or disadvantage Win32 apps, and then thereafter/separately, tie UWP to the windows store.

If the latter has been solved (?) then I guess his concern about the former might be offset. But the type of thing in the OP could be right along the tracks of the first part of his concerns, if it's the first part of a segregation of capabilities or OS performance for UWP vs non-UWP apps. If UWP apps are irrevocably deployable and distributable outside the windows store and without MS approval, though, then I guess that concern is now moot.
The issue has been solved, no need for question marks.

If you want to see what Tim Sweeney feels about UWP right now this is fairly recent:

Sweeney: Microsoft has done a lot of great things with UWP lately. They’ve opened up the installation APIs, so any new version of Windows 10 can install a UWP application from any source. You can buy them from the Windows Store, but that’s not the only place. They’ve done almost everything I would have wanted or envisioned as far as openness, except for promising the industry that they won’t close it down in the future.

That last part is still a big hang-up for him -- he advises people to stay away from UWP because of it, and I feel it's a fair argument -- but at least GAF can move on from some of its misleading UWP points about them being irrevocably tied to the Windows Store, right?

(Ha ha ha.)
 

scitek

Member
Again, lack of modability with UWP/UWA is another faulty misconception, developers can use MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) to leverage a plugin architecture in their app to allow for mods. Whilst this requires developer support and doesn't allow for modding of unsupported applications that is different to "lack of modability", any dev that want to allow for mods, has a route by which to do so.

The point is what you just described is absolutely not what PC gamers like myself want. That locked down environment is exactly the problem with what MS is doing.
 

Zedox

Member
What's even more funny is the fact that some of the same people who were saying it won't be exclusive are now defending this in a different vein. Lo and behold it's suddenly a case of "this is why this being UWP exclusive is good". It's difficult to keep up.

All I know is that I'm still waiting for //build/.

I know that I personally said that there was a precedent that MS had that it could be non-exclusive as not all features MS has worked on in the past year was just for benefit of UWP (but mostly so). We also didn't (and still don't) know for sure what Game-Mode is. Based on the article it seems more like a developer tool for making games than a consumer facing feature (the author doesn't seem sure). I don't see how there's anything "bad" per se in this being exclusive. If you could tell me how, I would like to know your opinion.

Even though I know you are joking, I actually am waiting for build as I am a developer and it interests me making 1 game for phone to HoloLens (just need money for that HoloLens...fuck a damn emulator)
 

horkrux

Member
For the people still not understanding why people take issue with Microsoft leveraging their OS to push their other products, please read the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

It's only one of the most important competition cases ever.





They are leveraging the OS and bundling to push their proprietary products over competitors.

Doesn't make any sense, since this is Win32 vs. UWP, and UWA can be distributed by other sources than the Windows Store.
 

Gestault

Member
Microsoft's practices are generally anti-consumer, so them succeeding is actually bad for competition, it's anti-competitive. So them failing is actually good for competition until they change their practices.

Saying "I resent a walled-garden approach for PCs" would convey what you're saying without resorting to brand demagoguery that's gonna put up a lot of people's filters. A low-resource mode for an OS isn't a terrible idea if it works, but this response to the OP sounds like you think it's audacious for a company to add features that some people might use. It's not ham-stringing what's already there; it's adding something new. Sure there are ways power users can achieve something similar. That's true of basically every new software feature ever, and this sounds like it has some back-end improvements from the more detailed write-ups.
 

KageMaru

Member
The store and UWP are intertwined and people usually refer to them as the same problem because a lot of their issues are caused by each other, and the same policies and vision fuel both.

Tell me what part of this quote has anything to do with the store:

This means that developers using Game Mode enabled UWP today to build games for Xbox One at 900-1080p and up to 4K for Windows 10 PCs are ready to deploy those games for Project Scorpio, with over 95% of the existing project code intact. This could explain why we're already seeing major players jump on the UWA-train, with Resident Evil 7 set for a Windows 10 Store debut on January 24th, 2017. If it is a Game Mode enabled UWA, Resident Evil 7 is ready for true 4K on Project Scorpio as a result, unpacking its 4K PC textures and settings when it installs on the console.
 
Whatever issues remain can be fixed. UWP is the future and Microsoft has been very vocal about it in the past few months.
It can be a part of thier future, but make no mistake as long as devs can run .exe's on an open PC they will choose that route. If MS closes their OS by forcing all game devs to only use UWP then expect an exodus of publishers and devs to leave the Windows OS platform in droves and figure out a plan "B" to make sure their games aren't locked to such a closed system.


Edit-I will no longer be a part of the problem for MS. Gears 4 will be my first and last Windows Store release. I don't want to give them the idea that this kind of system is OK.
 
this is tired as shit by now but does everybody forget when everyone HATED THE SHIT out of a steam?

Why are we comparing the beginnings of Steam, that happened almost 15 YEARS AGO by a small company, to the W10 Store, which is developed by one of the largest corporations in the world in a time where we have countless examples of how to do it right, again?
 
Why are we comparing the beginnings of Steam, that happened almost 15 YEARS AGO by a small company, to the W10 Store, which is developed by one of the largest corporations in the world in a time where we have countless examples of how to do it right, again?
I want to add to this...Even Origin and Uplay are automatically better than Windows Store due to the nature of the UWP beast.
 

xabbott

Member
MS obviously has a lot more control over how UWP games run so the fact that this game mode applies to to them makes sense. I don't see the controversy. I suspect that the only processes game mode will manipulate will be other UWP programs or Windows services. Just to further limit issues with third parties.

Microsoft trying to do this with Win32 games seems way more problematic. I could just imagine the headlines when Windows 10 auto shutdowns some anti cheat services or a competitor's lesser known store front client to make a game run better.
 

Daingurse

Member
Mircrosoft are gonna have to completely overhaul their store, for me to even consider buying anymore UWP shit. I paid $9 for Tomb Raider, and full price (yeah I know) for Quantum Break. I really don't want to buy anything else from that shitty store.
 

prag16

Banned
Any dev that does that can lose my sale and judging by reactions from others, I'm not the only one. I'm done with MS's crap and I'm not reformatting to get Windows Store games working again, no matter how good they are.

Is there anything stopping from UWP apps being sold through steam if developers so choose?
 

Bsigg12

Member
I wonder if this will build into Microsoft being able to better support Play Anywhere and grow it out to more games by essentially allowing UWP games to be a single executable that works across PC and Xbox One devices. We already know UWP apps can do just that with a little device specific code added, but I wonder if making a more "to the metal" game mode for PC will essentially smooth out that process between PC versions and the Xbox One family versions.

Is there anything stopping from UWP apps being sold through steam if developers so choose?

I don't believe so. I would think there would need to be some sort of info box added that notifies the purchaser that the game is a UWP app though.
 

EvB

Member
I think it sucks to limit this for the UWP titles.

As someone else has pointed out If anything can do it, then surely every single program would then start using it in order to get an upper hand and then when everything is using it- it becomes pointless.
 

EvB

Member
I wonder if this will build into Microsoft being able to better support Play Anywhere and grow it out to more games by essentially allowing UWP games to be a single executable that works across PC and Xbox One devices. We already know UWP apps can do just that with a little device specific code added, but I wonder if making a more "to the metal" game mode for PC will essentially smooth out that process between PC versions and the Xbox One family versions.

That is one of the things that it is.
 
Said this in the Scorpio thread as it was posted there, but I can imagine this game mode being MS' big picture equivalent. As in, the Xbox UI on PC.

Can imagine that is why it's UWP exclusive.

This is what I was thinking as well, which makes the distinction make sense.
 

Zedox

Member
I wonder if this will build into Microsoft being able to better support Play Anywhere and grow it out to more games by essentially allowing UWP games to be a single executable that works across PC and Xbox One devices. We already know UWP apps can do just that with a little device specific code added, but I wonder if making a more "to the metal" game mode for PC will essentially smooth out that process between PC versions and the Xbox One family versions.

Yea, it seems more like a testing tool for devs than anything (and I'm very interested in it, hope we hear more during GDC)
 
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