Don’t you hate it when you get proven wrong? Don’t you hate it when your plans blow up in your face? Don’t you REALLY hate it when you become the world’s worst joke? Again?
I am, of course, asking Microsoft. They should be tired of this by now, but they love putting themselves in this position. I’m still asking because, seriously, they should know better by now.
The monolith from Redmond, WA recently had a chance to do something that was considered inconceivable as little as a year ago: unite the console and PC gaming market organically. Microsoft owns the PC space with its Windows operating system; depending on what report you trust, Microsoft’s platform is present on anywhere from 75-1,000,001% of all PCs in the world. A great many of those Windows PCs belong to PC gamers. Marrying that PC user base to the corporation’s Xbox console platform and cross-promoting the shit out of both WITHOUT upsetting the status quo would seem to be a no-brainer.
Well, Microsoft tried to pull a half-brainer. Their solution to bring the two disparate ecosystems together has, in my mind, become the most ridiculous punch line to a joke no one wanted to hear. The joke has a name: Universal Windows Platform (UWP). It’s a platform so unloved, Epic’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, stated that it “can, should, must, and will die.” I believe it has claimed its first victim: Remedy Entertainment’s Quantum Break.
UWP is just the latest attempt by the big M to wall off the PC gaming space for their exclusive control, like how Apple does with its devices. Funny fact: after the PC was introduced by IBM in 1981 with the 5150, there was no real push to commoditize it and turn it into a controlled platform. IBM wanted to promote an open architecture, similar to the Apple II but with less restrictions, and take over the business space. They asked a fledgling software developer, Microsoft, to design an operating system for the 5150. The result, MS-DOS, was also not readily commoditized in the hope of promoting rapid adoption. The result is a very popular platform, the PC, that is truly owned by no one.
Microsoft has tried their damned best to take over the PC landscape since. With each successive operating system, software suite and service, they have increased their presence and market share on PC. The one space where they have not shown dominance, or at least basic competence, is in the PC gaming space. They have tried to remedy this through sheer market dominance and outright brute force, but they have yet to succeed.
Their last attempt at bending PC gaming to its will was in 2006, with their Games for Windows initiative. It was a horribly implemented certification program and online service that tried to recreate Xbox Live in the PC arena. PC developers and publishers were expected to adhere to Games for Windows if they wanted Redmond’s blessing. The adherence often affected the certified games negatively. Ask any seasoned PC gamer how well that went. I’ll give you a hint: it launched with Windows Vista, one of the most reviled iterations of the venerable OS.
UWP takes the Games for Windows idea and injects it with Bane’s veneno! The idea is for Microsoft to foster a universal platform, called “One Windows”, where compliant apps work across all Windows devices, including Surface, Xbox, and even Windows Phone. The idea is noble; an app you buy on your phone works on your tablet, Surface device, and PC. Of course, that falls apart the moment PC gaming enters the picture. Quantum Break for the PC is currently taking the brunt of UWP’s noble but flawed ambition.
Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry ran some comparison tests for Quantum Break on PC for some baseline comparisons at 720p and 1080p using two graphics cards: AMD’s Radeon R9 390 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970. These graphics cards are considered the “sweet spot” for PC gaming; cards that are capable of handling all but the most extreme requirements. The results were disappointing, to say the least:
- Even at 720p with low settings, the game cannot break past 5/6 the refresh rate of the monitor. That means that for a consumer-standard 60 Hz monitor, it cannot play past 50fps. For PC gamers accustomed to 60fps gaming at a bare minimum, this is unacceptable.
- The game has a 30fps cap on PC that is selectable in-game, in order to recreate the Xbox one experience. Great idea I guess, only it doesn’t work well. The game becomes a jerky, stuttering mess when the 30fps option is enabled.
- Nvidia is treated very roughly by the game. On average, the AMD Radeon R9 390 owns Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 970 in framerate by an average of 50 percent. And that’s when the Nvidia card can actually run the game. Digital Foundry reported multiple crashes due to Nvidia’s drivers quitting during game sessions.
- THERE IS NOT QUIT BUTTON IN THE MENU!!!
All of these issues are bad – even borderline incompetent – but not something out of the ordinary when it comes to PC ports. When Bandai Namco released their PC ports of Dark Souls and Tales of Symphonia and Capcom ported Deadly Premonition to PC, they were similarly unsatisfying to play. In those cases, as with many others, the games got a boost from an outside source: the modding community. Enterprising enthusiasts with knowledge of programming set to correct the errors present in those games, and the results in both cases were evident. Those games, like many other broken PC ports, became playable and actually enjoyable.
The PC community loves modding their games. Whether it’s adding Imperial Destroyers to Grand Theft Auto V or turning zombies into Teletubbies in Left 4 Dead, modders love to add, improve, or substitute content to existing games. When it came to Dark Souls, Tales of Symphonia, and Deadly Premonition, modder and PC Gamer writer Peter “Durante” Thoman did what the original publishers couldn’t: make the games playable. Technically, he or other modders should be able to do the same with Quantum Break. And they are probably chomping at the bit to take a crack at it. Unfortunately, this is where UWP comes in and applies the brakes to the whole idea.
Games that are UWP compliant have their code locked in by UWP. Any fixes or enhancements have to come from the developer, the hardware manufacturers, or Microsoft; there is no outside modding allowed. This is meant by UWP as a way to control the environment, similar to the control they exert on the Xbox One. Honestly, that is the ONLY viable reason for Microsoft to do this: they want to turn the PC platform into another Microsoft console. The downside, of course, is that the PC community has to suffer as there games languish in crapdom, unable to be fixed by anyone other than the entities that trusted Microsoft to do right by PC gaming.
Microsoft is trying to wall off the PC gaming space, giving them primacy of place over other game delivery services like Steam, GOG, et al. The wall, as a result, also keeps out enthusiasts who want to enhance games with their own mods. Their intention is to give every gamer on all of their platforms a similar experience. But they fail to understand that the PC gaming crowd, despite expecting performance superior to their console brethren, thrives on the openness and freedom of the platform. Currently, a PC gamer can choose to download games from a multitude of sources and expect those games to run on their hardware, no matter what. UWP seeks to usurp that and rein PC gamers in by forcing them to play by THEIR rules, on THEIR platform, with THEIR restrictions in place. PC gamers have the option to ignore UWP for now, but how long will that last? How long until Microsoft yanks that from them? Remember, Microsoft owns Windows; how long until they change how all games play on it?
UWP treats everything on it as apps, and Microsoft decided to assimilate PC gaming as an app for UWP. It wants to be the primary source for PC gamers to get their games. Along the way, its ideas broke the concept of PC gaming. It (maybe) unintentionally broke Quantum Break. If it persists, it will, according to Tim Sweeney, break PC gaming as a whole unless we help kill and bury it.
Maybe the UWP acronym should stand for something else. How about “Until We Profit?” Because that seems to be the only motivation Microsoft has with their latest run on PC gaming. Until THEY profit. Because I guarantee gamers will not.
