Epic Games' Tim Sweeney Is Warning Of Microsoft's Closed Gaming Ecosystem

[Azrael5]

As a former professional game developer (15 years+ in that industry) and having pushed on multiple platforms I'd contribute this....please take it as the 'two cent' contribution it is ...

Linux based gaming will be somewhat niche for a long time, simply because the dominant consumer desktop OS is not Linux based and won't be, for a very long time.

Development shops simply can not sustain supporting the larger public in Linux based gaming, the sheer hardware variants combined with driver variants that live out there are unwieldy at best. Microsoft has worked HARD (by hook and by crook) to get Windows to a point where it is well supported by the IHVs, Linux support lags in important ways that the general populace won't have the patience for. Heck, my wife barely does and she is a technologist in her own rights who HATES Windows - one day we'll figure out why suspend/resume doesn't work on her 2015 Alienware 15 R2 under Ubuntu but it hasn't resolved yet.

I would speculate though that over time we're going to see fewer and fewer casual games being pushed out for desktop, leaving them be mobile based - whether phone or tablet - which will result in the pragmatic duality of Android and iOS being the dominant by-the-numbers gaming platform (which they may already be). I continually see people spending more and more time playing games this way, and buying the portable battery packs to support it. I have former colleagues who more and more are developing only for iOS or Android or the two, and have abandoned desktop and console targets altogether.

The smaller percentage of dedicated - "core" ? - gamers will go where the content is and have both the expensive desktop and console devices needed to play the games they are interested in. These are also often the online "vocal majority" who mistakenly (!) feel they speak for the gaming community at large. They won't settle for a lesser desktop experience if the XBox plays it better on their 56" TV, for example. Likewise the other direction for games that are hindered by a needing a traditional desktop input device set, guarantee of extended duration without power drop, ridiculously powerful GPU/CPU presence, brobdingnagian RAM or local storage requirements, or any combination.

If you want to spread games on linux:

1) linux operating system has to run flawlessly and has to be customizable;
2) you have to make proposals directly to gamers during gaming expositions where they can test the product playing it also organizing matches.

After this, gamers will spread gaming on linux.

[drone4four]

Imagine for a moment if nvidia, AMD, Nintendo, Sony, Epic, Valve, Crytek, Ubisoft, Blizzard, et. al. all came together as an industry and decided to assemble a standard gaming console operating system. Imagine that these players and actors doing what they did with Vulkan, but let’s see them come together this time writing exclusives for what Gabe N started with SteamOS. Together these actors have billions of dollars at their disposal. Sony developed a platform around FreeBSD. Google built Android on top of Linux. I read somewhere that Valve’s SteamOS cabal is only 12 people. Imagine what the entire gaming industry could do if they collectively decided to huddle around SteamOS or come up with something better based on Linux. Microsoft’s UWP barrier is precisely what we need to see a free alternative flourish and have SteamOS exclusives.

[asdfblah]

PC gaming is essentially a closed platform as it is now, thanks to years and years of developers knob-polishing DirectX and other closed, proprietary, locked-in tech.

You guys made your bed. Enjoy getting bent over by MS.

This.

It's really funny that, while MANY companies use/distribute Linux for cheap/free, as their main embedded/server/networking/... OS (you can find Linux even in your SD card!), the gaming industry apparently just "discovered" that they could do the same, too... They just needed to do some conjoint effort.

And who cares about PC/desktop gaming, if every company could make their own gaming OS, or even console?

What we Linux user should do/have done is to motivate these companies to move to Linux as their main target, and to convince them to pressure hardware companies to make/improve their graphics (and other) drivers/stacks.

[Nille]

Did you read the source article?

He was linked? Normal only links back to this Blog are Linked ....

[Nille_kungen]

He was linked? Normal only links back to this Blog are Linked ....

This time it was, last sentence in the article.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft-monopolise-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-war

[Nille]

This time it was, last sentence in the article.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft-monopolise-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-war

So i read it and again, its only a different way for distribute packages.

[drohm]

Imagine for a moment if nvidia, AMD, Nintendo, Sony, Epic, Valve, Crytek, Ubisoft, Blizzard, et. al. all came together as an industry and decided to assemble a standard gaming console operating system. Imagine that these players and actors doing what they did with Vulkan, but let’s see them come together this time writing exclusives for what Gabe N started with SteamOS. Together these actors have billions of dollars at their disposal. Sony developed a platform around FreeBSD. Google built Android on top of Linux. I read somewhere that Valve’s SteamOS cabal is only 12 people. Imagine what the entire gaming industry could do if they collectively decided to huddle around SteamOS or come up with something better based on Linux. Microsoft’s UWP barrier is precisely what we need to see a free alternative flourish and have SteamOS exclusives.

I so wish this would happen. They could then make the system how they all see fit to optimize the system themselves without having to go through MS. It would be amazeballs. Gotta have a dream, right??

[kpedersen]

I so wish this would happen. They could then make the system how they all see fit

What? Why should only big fancy companies get to do this? The only reason they aren't screwed now is because we (the plebs of the digital world) developed FOSS operating systems. We are the ones paying money out of our behinds to these companies, so why don't we get a system which *we* see fit and they bend around us to entertain us.

Digital consumers have such a strange outlook on stuff like this. It is a very real case of the Stockholm syndrome and it is what allows companies like Microsoft to thrive.

I dream a dream where one day it is normal for us to buy software as source code from these companies so we can run the software that we have purchased on whatever the hell platform / OS we want. Sure, it wont stop piracy but neither has Steam, app stores or anything else they have tried to "oppress" us with. It also means that the software can be made to work 20 years down the line (I find this important or I simply wont pay for it *but* unlike Richard Stallman I will still download it and run it).

[chithanh]

So i read it and again, its only a different way for distribute packages.

Actually, Tim Sweeney's concerns are not about this way to distribute packages. In fact he explicitly acknowledges that Microsoft has the right to their own app store.
However, he fears that Windows functions will be limited to UWP apps, and Microsoft will make it extra burdensome (even more so than it is today) for developers to install UWP apps outside the Microsoft store, thereby effectively forcing competing app stores (like Steam, Origin, Uplay, GoG, etc.) out of the market as well as preventing companies to directly interact with their users (e.g. providing downloadable binaries on the website).

[drohm]

What? Why should only big fancy companies get to do this? The only reason they aren't screwed now is because we (the plebs of the digital world) developed FOSS operating systems. We are the ones paying money out of our behinds to these companies, so why don't we get a system which *we* see fit and they bend around us to entertain us.

Digital consumers have such a strange outlook on stuff like this. It is a very real case of the Stockholm syndrome and it is what allows companies like Microsoft to thrive.

I dream a dream where one day it is normal for us to buy software as source code from these companies so we can run the software that we have purchased on whatever the hell platform / OS we want. Sure, it wont stop piracy but neither has Steam, app stores or anything else they have tried to "oppress" us with. It also means that the software can be made to work 20 years down the line (I find this important or I simply wont pay for it *but* unlike Richard Stallman I will still download it and run it).

I don't have a strange outlook on this stuff, you misinterpret. I agree, we (the plebs as you called it) developed the FOSS operating systems, but I'm talking about an incentive to get those companies to develop for our platform. Face it, we're an after thought to them, we're small potatoes compared to windows. It's not about having them dictate what the OS should be (like MS/Apple), it's more about having them write the software (games specifically here) for this platform (think Vulkan). People are getting fed up with MS, and they would come to this platform if the games they wanted were available for it (not 6 months to a year later if that). And when I say develop for it, I mean target linux as the primary platform for gaming. It won't happen overnight, but when MS does stuff like this, it only helps. I'm not sure if you listened to the interview with Mr. Sweeney, you could hear the frustration in his voice when he talked about some of the decisions MS made with Windows 10, the tracking, keylogging, etc. It's a great interview - http://bit.ly/21O6557