And you think he's the one qualified for this?

If he was really doing us all an altruistic favour instead of spinning around like the Mad Duck from Earthbound, he'd show the code of this alleged platform and make it open source. You know, a populo ad populum?

Even if he was doing this as an angel service, there's the small matter that porting costs time & money, and there is no way to do a one-size-fits-all port. Just because the Xbone and PS5 are running x86 doesn't meant mean their underlying architecture is 1:1 compatible.

Else you end up with disasters like Sonic Colours Ultimate and GTA: Silent Hill HD edition.

The idea of purchasing a thing once and having it work across platforms is at best, a nice idea. If I buy Finnegan Fox for the Amico, I don't think Tommy Tallirico would be keen on letting me play it on another platform, even though it's just literally a worse version of Fox n' Forests.

After all, big platform holders often have to be herded like cats to allow multiplayer crossplay.

Not really. I sell Product XYZ on every platform possible, every storefront. (Including my own site too.) Purchasing it at any of these includes a personal license file that can be used with every version and every format. (Activating with said license file does not require a 'net check.)

When publishing on every platform, I make sure the version I put there can be gotten freely, and that version can be activated by importing the license file to the full version.

Look at that, no double and triple dipping!

For non-software:
* Video/movies/music would just be a DRM-free download that you can port with you and use anywhere.
* For books, it would similarly be a DRM-free download in a format that can be converted to other formats.

And so on.

The ttRPG industry is a gigantic mess right now with every virtual tabletop (VTT) application/website having their own virtual marketplace. People are buying the same content 2, 3+ times to get the mileage out of it. And it's disgusting. The content creators (you know, the publishers actually making it) need to make sure that the VTTs allow exporting of things purchased on them, so you can get the image files, etc, out. Same people need to start selling that stuff directly, outside of the disparate VTT marketplaces, too. And they need to start selling their rules materials either not just as PDFs but as well-formated XML/JSON that can easily be imported to a given VTT, or including redemption coupons like I mentioned at the top of this post. It's an extra PITA there because each VTT reinvents the wheel with every product and insists on getting another cut each time. There's so much not-invented-here syndrome that it's hurting them and players.

EDIT: Physical books should come with a scratch-off redemption card or something to get the digital copy. Or at least for things like $50 RPG books... Amazon's AutoRip (free MP3s with purchase of a CD) was/is a great program... Though my most recent purchase, the idiot musicians opted out of it for some reason.

Why do companies stop players emailing devs, or company owners? Don't give me that, but they're too busy bs. They spend half their time on social media, twitter etc. What happens if an owner wants to know something bad and the front line devs minions gatekeep all information to investors?

When I was a kid I'd play Monopoly a lot with my cousin. I won almost all games and she'd go completely mental whenever she lost.

Many years later and I'm just a poor peasant and she's a rich bitch now. Oh, the irony... :(

What Tim Sweeney says: "the world needs a single store where you buy in one place, and you own it on all platforms and devices"

What Tim Sweeney does: creates another store/launcher where he buys exclusivity to force people to buy it/own it there.

Yarp. I don't think I've ever finished a full game of Monopoly. Everyone just tends to get bored after a while. So many better games to play.

Humble Bundle?

Monopoly is indeed a really bad game. But it's not quite as bad as most people assume. People tend to play with TONS of house rules that make it even worse than its already-bad default rules. Some extremely common house rules that worsen the game:

* "Go around once before you can buy property."
* Not using auctions if someone opts not to buy (even on first go-around).
* Loading up money in the center of the board for Free Parking.
* Getting extra money if you land on Go precisely.

Someone is still managing that overall system to some degree, and wants a cut for doing so. Steam was/is trying to do this with PC games, but it eventually broke down when some publishers wanted to keep their 30% for themselves.

I mean maybe I'm not understanding. If you buy a game on EA's store, why would Valve want to provide support for that game through Steam? How would GOG offer every game DRM free if the companies don't want that?

I mean if we're speaking of pie in the sky wishes for ponies then it COULD be done on a technical level, but because of these issues it never would happen unless it was a monopoly Steam takes care of everything kind of situation.

I don't see how Sweeney's opinion is any different from any other CEO of a platform. They all believe their platform is the answer to gaming in the future, and build their clients to ensure that the product sold gets accessed by that customer only forever-more.

For the media to single out Sweeney in this case is at the least a case of a CEO who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. At the most it's a bit of Epic-bashing because it's popular at the moment to do so.

Sweeney's idea as quoted in the OP isn't so bad, except he forgot to add DRM-free into the equation.

If there was one single store to get all apps and games from in a DRM-free form, then that would indeed be ideal, and it would be way better than the current DRM-infested fragmented market that currently exists.

Im just quietly observing as I have nothing more to add here, as others have conveyed already, but thank you for this phrase. It made my day. haha

Can anyone guess who would be the godfather provider of such a humble and altruistic service?


1: Microsoft store
2: Gamestop or similar
3: G2A/Eneba/Kinguin
4: Consortium managed by individuals from big companies, eventually some GOVs
5: Some hypotetical existing private store, wich may or may no start with "E" and have a big share on the hands of the bad guys, that after 3 years still missing a freaking shopping cart making the purchase of DLC a nightmare and incite children to bomb a competitive service on their behalf. Let's go even further and say the hypotetical store had a very heavy on resources client (taking 10+min to open on a slow internet/HDD computer) and scrape the installed computer hard drive searching for who knows what files "by accident". The list can go on but such a hypotetical company would never do such things if they are so friendly and good... Right???