Gadgetory

anyone remembered games for Windows Live it was that parasitic entanglement of PTSD inducing software purpose-built to drive legitimate game buyers to piracy gfwl clung to its life as an early scout SCV might or Starcraft 2 at all for that matter and the games for Windows Live lived a relatively short life thankfully but each day of its existence felt like eternity spent in a quagmire haunted by the crushed souls of developers pressured into marketing deals with Microsoft who all watched an abject horror as their games received lashings for interminable crashes and login bugs mercifully it was killed put down and leaving developers to scramble and update a few good legacy games and Street Fighter Batman in dirt 3 included to work without the gfwl lifeline if you could even call it that to begin with we thought it was dead for good but Microsoft's newest incarnation of marketing doublespeak calls for a new era of quote unified gaming between consoles and PCs which means only one thing for PC gamers restrictions and this is a common buzzword for these companies who think they're doing great things for PC gamers by quote unquote unifying the platforms but that's not really what PC gamers want it's only what people who sell things want and that's fine it's all based in capitalism anyway they need money to make these games to make their platforms but it's got to be done in a way that is agreeable with the PC gaming culture and that's what we've observed with Microsoft's announcements over the past few weeks like the fine brothers attempting to trademark the word react and thinking that they were doing great things and changing the world Microsoft doesn't quite seem to understand just why their self aggrandized attempt to quote-unquote unify and better gaming scares so many PC enthusiasts they're just oblivious and they haven't learned a damn thing from the decaying corpse of Windows live in the next cubicle over here's what's happening Microsoft's Windows Store featured in Windows 8 and now prominently in Windows 10 makes an attempt at recreating the mobile app buying experience but for desktop devices the store is now being leveraged as a direct competitor to valve steam in some ways and even promises exclusive titles like quantum break which has effectively been sentenced to death to buy at Windows Store exclusive launch and other titles in the near future in the immediate future Gears of War Ultimate Edition will also ship via Windows Store including Windows 10 as a requirement for play and then tomb raider rise of the Tomb Raider just shipped on Windows Store and steam at the same time and that might not be so bad after all EAS got its own origin platform and many of its titles are exclusive to origin CD Projekt RED the CEO actually owns good old games and The Witcher 3 has exclusivity on GOG galaxy but none of these titles do some of the short-sighted things that Microsoft does with currently available games on the Windows Store certain game settings are wholly inaccessible and immutable including vsync which is forced on and this means that users of free sync and gsync displays must forgo their cutting-edge expensive monitor technology yes even free sync does add a bit of overhead for validation and they have to forego this tech in favor of Microsoft's vision for PC gaming which is apparently vsync for reasons unknown to humankind other than perhaps utter incompetence the store also doesn't use executable files or exp s as we all know them and instead opts for a special UWP framework file and critically this means that control panels from GPU vendors as one point can't tap into the game and make setting specific tweaks and video control panel and AMD Radeon settings are included in this unable to see the uwp format is a playable game and this means that their in-game displays don't work as they plainly don't understand what the process is or that it is even a game to begin with fraps shadowplay and peripheral macro software for your mouse or keyboard are part of this exclusion and cannot talk to the game in normal ways that you'd expect with an exe maybe through Steam standalone or GOG or otherwise and this means the head by forcing this uwp framework if you're playing a game that is exclusive to the Windows Store you've instantly cut your settings that you can tune including vsync for again whatever reason that's one of them even though most of us hate for a great many of very valid reasons and it also includes the restriction of not being able to use those overlays so if you do like overlays or you like gameplay capture you've now got a fight with the Windows Store and it's uwp framework in order to try and do anything like that and here Microsoft thinks its unifying the console and PC experience it feels like an episode of the office it's just painfully awkward as we watch an over-the-top character try to relate with normal people one of the game development studios that has experience working with the uwp framework mixes I think is it's NI xx es the folks who ported rise of the Tomb Raider indicated that vsync and other settings restrictions within the Windows Store version of games our limitations of the uwp framework ie Microsoft's doing were you to buy rise of the Tomb Raider on Steam where it's available at the exact same price as on Windows Store you'd own something infinitely more expandable that retains compatibility with the screen overlay software settings tuning and modding especially modding is a big point by the way a lot of mods will not work without their normal exe launching platform and Microsoft is trying to blockade users into a sandbox where in Microsoft's thinking the users can't harm themselves and that's not how PC gaming has ever worked and had Mike yourself to learn to anything from previous restrictions levied by itself and other Studios it no it's not how PC gaming will ever work I think there's more to it than these restrictions - there's got to be a reason Microsoft's doing this and mark my words I think these restrictions inevitably bear with them microtransaction heavy stores that attempt to monetize simple changes or mods that be free through any other normal framework or platform that's where I think this could be going so as Microsoft continues to expand its quote-unquote ecosystem that's a huge marketing word that everyone loves to use as they expand their ecosystem that attempts to unify Xbox and Windows gamers we can only hope that developers don't sign exclusivity deals with Microsoft's embarrassingly misguided gaming plat form Microsoft if anyone there's listening start by ditching your cumbersome framework allow normal program wrappers structures whatever and grant the same level of control as would be found within any reasonable game distribution software on PC and I'm including steam EA origin GOG galaxy and others in that list Windows Store is as far from reasonable as possible it is basically an incarnation or reincarnation of games for Windows Live which should have remained dead and buried as for all of you watching our recommendation is simple avoid the Windows Store whenever possible as anyone who considers themselves a PC enthusiasts will face only frustration with at the very least the settings and control panel limitations not to mention API and operating system requirements dx12 and Windows 10 in cases where they might not otherwise make sense that's all for this one subscribe for more check us out on patreon to support us directly and thanks for watching as always we do love making this kind of content I'll see you all next time I need to go scream into a different black hole because YouTube wasn't enough and I know this isn't actually going to change Microsoft's opinion that they are the best thing ever to happen to gaming