Thought there would be a topic about this here already, but I didn't find it (if there is and I missed it, I'm sorry, ignore this one then), so: Tim Sweeney published a piece in The Guardian today lashing out against Microsoft's moves towards closing down the PC platform, especially when it comes to gaming. GOG mentioned there in passing too, for those interested.

"With its new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10, as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem and monopolising app distribution and commerce.

In my view, this is the most aggressive move Microsoft has ever made. While the company has been convicted of violating antitrust law in the past, its wrongful actions were limited to fights with specific competitors and contracts with certain PC manufacturers.

This isn’t like that. Here, Microsoft is moving against the entire PC industry – including consumers (and gamers in particular), software developers such as Epic Games, publishers like EA and Activision, and distributors like Valve and Good Old Games.

Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP, and is effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem. They’re curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers.

[...]

The specific problem here is that Microsoft’s shiny new “Universal Windows Platform” is locked down, and by default it’s impossible to download UWP apps from the websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store.

It’s true that if you dig far enough into Microsoft’s settings-burying UI, you can find a way to install these apps by enabling “side-loading”. But in turning this off by default, Microsoft is unfairly disadvantaging the competition. Bigger-picture, this is a feature Microsoft can revoke at any time using Windows 10’s forced-update process.

[...]

If you’ve tried to change your Windows 10 search engine, web browser, or movie player, or to turn off their invasive new lock-screen ads, Windows search bar Bing spam, and invasive “analytics”, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a deliberately anti-customer experience: the options are there, but good luck finding them.

The ultimate danger here is that Microsoft continually improves UWP while neglecting and even degrading win32, over time making it harder for developers and publishers to escape from Microsoft’s new UWP commerce monopoly. Ultimately, the open win32 Windows experience could be relegated to Enterprise and Developer editions of Windows.

[...]

In my view, if Microsoft does not commit to opening PC UWP up in the manner described here, then PC UWP can, should, must and will, die as a result of industry backlash. Gamers, developers, publishers simply cannot trust the PC UWP “platform” so long as Microsoft gives evasive, ambiguous and sneaky answers to questions about UWP’s future, as if it’s a PR issue. This isn’t a PR issue, it’s an existential issue for Microsoft, a first-class determinant of Microsoft’s future role in the world.

[...]

Microsoft’s intentions must be judged by Microsoft’s actions, not Microsoft’s words. Their actions speak plainly enough: they are working to turn today’s open PC ecosystem into a closed, Microsoft-controlled distribution and commerce monopoly, over time, in a series of steps of which we’re seeing the very first. Unless Microsoft changes course, all of the independent companies comprising the PC ecosystem have a decision to make: to oppose this, or cede control of their existing customer relationships and commerce to Microsoft’s exclusive control."

Here we go again...

*UWP is locked down. Apparently Win32 applications suddenly vaporized.
*The options are there, but good luck finding them. Like, every version of Windows ever?
And the funniest thing is...
*Options changing back themselves. Apparently I'm given options which I can toggle on or off, yet people come and say that's irrelevant because the default setting is always the higher in priority...can I even? If they reset to the defaults despite the options available, why are they options in the first place?
*Default for sideloading apps is off, unfairly disadvantaging the competition...yeah, I'm pretty sure the Amazon Appstore on Android is a barren land with only 4 apps hosted there, because the sideload apps function in Android is off by default...or apparently, the fact that it's an "on or off" toggle which is opened on one side apparently triggers saltiness and whatnot.


While some of the complaints against Windows 10 are legit, such as the automatic updating...well, some of these complaints have to be burnt with fire...

He actually uses Android as a bad example there:

"This true openness requires that Microsoft not follow Google’s clever but conniving lead with the Android platform, which is technically open, but practically closed. In particular, Android makes it possible to install third-party applications outside of the Google Play store, which is required for Google to comply with the Linux kernel’s GNU General Public License. However, Google makes it comically difficult for users to do so, by defaulting the option to off, burying it, and obfuscating it. This is not merely a technical issue: it has the market impact of Google Play Store dominating over competing stores, despite not being very good."

Good to know. I can tell you that the average Android user knows how to sideload an app, and if they don't know how, the instructions to do so are literally told to them from the vendor they're buying apps from.

Do you know where the setting to turn sideloading on? Settings App -> Security -> Unknown sources. Seriously, how is that 'buried' and 'obfuscated'? Hell, even attempting to install apps from sources other than Google Play gives you a hint as to how to just install the app and screw security. The most important part is that this toggle is there and off by default for security reasons.

So I'm not sure where this guy is going. Or rather in general, what's with the whole 'burying' and 'obfuscating' settings INSIDE the settings app becoming a bad thing...

Personally I'd have a serious problem as a principle with any OS that doesn't allow the user to just install whatever they want by default. May have a prompt (like the Windows UAC) if the source is for some reason not trusted, but to require anything else, nope.
But there are a lot worse issues there than this anyway.

They’re curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers.

The exact same thing can be said for Steam.

VALVe has an abusive near monopoly control over PC gaming and no-one makes a peep.

This sounds like a lot of what EA was saying to justify launching Origin and it really came down to "we want to keep more of the pie to ourselves rather than giving some to Valve". And Epic has a launcher application these days that you need to use.

People are also bad at securing themselves. They give themselves rad administrator access, and whenever a UAC prompt shows up, boom, instant yes, and suddenly you have people downgrading the security of a system via word of mouth. I can understand Google and Microsoft doing such a thing via a toggle switch as a better way of saying "Hey, we told you, but you didn't listen." And that too. If you're going to smack Microsoft for it, let's start also smacking Valve for it, and also start smacking EPIC GAMES while we're at it too! Every similar freaking vendor is smacking Microsoft for doing the exact same thing they're doing, yay.

Since he mentioned GOG, i wonder if we'll ever see Gears of War here :).

Microsoft may be trying, but they tried before and rolled a critical failure instead, and botched the save. While I'm sure this is what Microsoft wants, I'm not sure they can feasibly achieve it.

For one, I'm one of those lunatics with a local account only. The Microsoft Store is bogging useless to me.

Its not just about keeping an extra 30% of the pie, but not having another company have complete control over your pie once sold.

When his business wasn't endangered, and it was merely users that were screwed, it was okay. Just "limited to fights with specific competitors", eh? But when he's the "specific competitor", then it's the worst thing ever. Ahahahaha. When did he become a comedian and is Louis C.K. now heading the development of a new Unreal game? Some humor might be the best thing ever to happen to the franchise, god knows it never had decent gameplay :)

Let's see. Valve had a monopoly with Steam, so everyone had to play along. MS thought "well, we own th desktop, why not make even more money on people too stupid to install Linux?". Valve saw this and went "hey guise, our FREEDOMZ are in question, those evil M$ guys want to take away our monopo...I mean, lock down the market and drive out the competi...I mean, it's just bad bad bad, mmkay?". EA and Ubisoft looked each other in eye and said "scew you all, we're gonna have our own locked-down store, with hookers and blackjack...hookers and blackjack limited to company execs, though - sorry, plebs". Everyone else was "nah, you're just being paranoid" for the split second they could afford to be away from developing "mobile experiences". Now MS, slow as molasses as per usual, has finally made good on their announcements, and there's a Big Scare, every steambot is now going to sing further praises to Gaben for "saving" them all from vendor lock-in (ahahahahahahahaaha), while everyone else bitches and moans and tries to strongarm MS into backing down. Good times.

As much as I wanted Linux gaming, VALVe has turned it into another locked down gaming platform.

Just as on windows, for 80% of games you play how they tell you too.

Those are some pretty strong words coming from a solid (as far as the industry is concerned) source.

I get the impression we're in for interesting times ahead when it comes to definitions of ownership, subscription, service and property in the PC / device / software / hardware / data realm. And by interesting I mean fairly unsettling.