Replying to a couple here.
@rhrmn said:
@smitske said:
@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.
This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.
Look at it this way, you as a developer being forced by higher ups to release on a vastly inferior environment leading to less people being interested in your work.
Or even worse your work being torn down by critics because that inferior platform is so unstable it lowers the quality for people playing the game.
Not saying this is the case for windows store, it was however the case for its predecessor GFWL which gives me very low expectations
Although the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are far from perfect and do not combined include all the most popular Steam client features, the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are big improvements over Games for Windows LIVE.
And also…
@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.
This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.
I don’t know anything about this Windows 10 Store because, having never had an Xbox gamer tag until within the last week, I never used it. The Xbox app never even ran on my laptop, but once I had a gamer tag, it had no problem opening and trying to make me buy stuff right away. Since the Store also didn’t want to run before, I still haven’t even seen it. Therefore, reading about this “trial” is a concerning thing. Are you talking about the Windows 10 Store, or a “trial” version of AOEDE? I don’t think a trial version has been announced. If it has, forgive me.
As yet, my stance has not changed as I’m unconvinced. Yes, Microsoft has every right to choose what platform to release their game on. Yes, Microsoft has the right to choose to make a game exclusive to a certain platform. But literally shutting out over 70% of the gaming market? Yes, they have every right to do that. 70% of the gaming market also has the right to refuse to update to Windows 10. Because they have no reason to do the upgrade, or in the case they don’t have Windows just will not buy the software for it. I get new machines once in a while, and that’s when my Windows gets updated (using the new computer, the old one collecting dust and being activated to look for things or test something), but if I was not due to upgrade for another year or two I’d be pretty annoyed right now. Using the tactic to force people to buy a $120 operating system that people clearly have reasons for not wanting to use is clearly a tactic that will backfire, because those users will simply not buy the software OR the game. M$ thinks they can get $200 out of these people with the exclusivity, but they will in fact get nothing. That’s the risk they’re taking by not making it compatible for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. And it will be their financial failure. Of course, there will be bigwigs who will think and say whenever they can in game development meetings that there just isn’t interest for the game and franchise, which isn’t true at all; it will be a failure to make the game available for fans of the franchise, and that’s all it will be.
@TheUnknownKing said:
@CycloneGU said:
Sorry for what might be a double post here, I can’t edit posts for some reason.
@qweytr24 said:
My view on this is that Microsoft doesn’t care about AoE, they care about the Windows Store. They hope that AoE:DE would attract some people to at least try out the Store and to hopefully continue using it. If they released the game also in Steam, all the Steam users would just buy the game there. I’m sure Microsoft knows they would get a lot more sales for the game by releasing it on Steam, but they mainly care about getting more users to their store.
Something that comes to my mind is that, as far as I’m aware, Windows 10 is free. So they are trying to encourage more people to use their platform and thus be able to get their games. The other difficulty is that there are people who HATE Windows. This means Mac, Linux, and many more. They were probably already never going to see the game, but blocking out Windows 7? Windows 8 and 8.1? The game needs to be compatible for the biggest group of users possible. You are correct, they don’t care about AOE, they only care about their own interests. And when a developer only cares about their own interests, they are not a developer one should be supporting. They need to listen to their community before they get the support from said community.
Note this is not necessarily a personal opinion, but a phrasing of what could very well be a general community opinion not just here, but anywhere.
On that not able to edit: you can only edit within one hour, after that it’s locked.
W10 is NOT free. And on top of that it is very unstable and advanced-user-unfriendly. You Can’t have the same amount of control of your computer as in previous versions and you can say goodbye to your privacy where in previous systems you could somewhat keep your **** to yourself. And I totally agree on the statement for the earlier Windows versions to be excluded is going to cost them a whole lot. They really need to reconsider this horrible decision, no, mistake that they are about to make.
I learned the edit thing in another thread, so that’s taken care of. I since edited the post I wanted to edit.
I know for a while that Windows 10 was free. I guess I didn’t notice that they are now charging for it, so that’s news to me. However, the upgrade from Windows 8/8.1 - and maybe even from 7, I don’t know - is free, so technically people could upgrade or use their license key to be able to obtain it for free. Also, when a computer is purchased, you tend to be able to get Windows 10 for free on it as well, meaning that those people will have no problem. However, being someone who can’t just come up with cash for a new computer whenever I want to, I understand all the same the problems of not being able to upgrade; if your Windows 7/8/8.1 doesn’t meet the system specs for Windows 10, you CANNOT upgrade, and therefore M$ chooses to shun you. And that’s not fair to potential customers. This is why people hate Microsoft and go to Sony, or Nintendo. Yes, these companies also have their problems (and in Nintendo’s case, games are very often exclusive to their systems, meaning there will probably never be a Mario or Pokémon game on PC that isn’t a fan project), but they don’t force users to upgrade their OPERATING SYSTEM in order to buy a game. Yes, they might have to buy a new console, and players can choose to buy the console or not. Don’t buy the console, don’t play the game. The same logic could be applied to Windows 10, but now we’re talking in some cases of people having to buy a new $800 computer to run the game. I mean, really? I’ll take the $200 portable gaming console any day.
Again, it doesn’t affect me at all. I have the ability, more or less, to access the Windows 10 Store. Even saying that, I am saying that they are making a huge mistake making the game exclusive to the Windows 10 Store. By shutting out a lot of users who might otherwise play the game, that will mean there are fewer players online playing the game, especially over time, and again, this goes back to the “there just isn’t interest in our product” from the same bigwigs who make the decision to keep the product out of the hands of many players. For a game that’s also released on Xbox, it makes sense, and I can see buying a game like Sea of Thieves that way and, hopefully, being able to play with Xbox players. For a game that’s only on PC and no other platform, it’s suicide. Microsoft needs to change this course and put the game with all of the others in the series, where it belongs, on Steam. If the game has to be delayed to do it, delay it. Just get it done.