Valve boss calls Windows 8 a 'Catastrophe'

[Geoff_B]

From BBC

The exaggerated rantings of someone who stands to lose a lot of money or a legitimate concern for the future of PC gaming?

Discuss.

[Rikadyn]

Windows 8 will be the new Vista

[plummeting_sloth]

Seems like if the guy who basically rebuilt PC gaming into something massively viable is worried about losing tons of money, that kinda makes it a legitimate concern for PC gaming, right?

[Wraith]

Windows 8 will be the new Vista if rants like this keep cropping up. Vista had its problems, but they were blown massively out of proportion. Most of Vista's stigma came from:

1. Bad word of mouth. Half the people I spoke to about it (and considering I was working for Geeks On Call doing on-site service and talking to a few dozen people a week about these things, that was a lot of people) said they hated it and it was a horrible mess, but then couldn't tell me a damn thing about it or what was wrong with it. They just knew that they read somewhere that it was bad, or Johny from the corner, who knows a lot about computers (but apparently not enough to avoid making your computer worse when he tried to "fix" it for you) said that it was bad. So hating on it just became one of those things you did. It was kind of like the reverse-version of what Apple did with its Mac marketing.

2. It was different. People get absolutely terrified when something looks different on their computer. It's a lot like what they go through when Facebook changes something. When Windows XP came out, people freaked. The single most common request technicians received after Vista was "can you make the cartoony bars go away, and change the start menu, so it looks like Windows 98?" It wasn't that 98 was better, just more familiar, and with a world full of people who can barely bring themselves to read half a screen of text and use their friggin brains to figure out what they've used every day for half a decade, the idea of things changing -even a superficial GUI change- it's an absolute horror.


So yes, Windows 8 has the potential to be the next Vista. It looks different, and if people start talking crap, it probably won't take much to make people believe that it's crap.

Meanwhile, after 17 years of people accusing Microsoft of copying what everyone else is doing, they're putting it all on the line and trying something new. They're completely over-hauling the default interface (default mind you; for those of you who haven't tried the preview yet, you can switch to the more familiar Win 7 look) to bring it more in line with the direction that computing is going. The philosophy being one consistent experience, whether you're on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or even phone; all tied together using SAS and remote file hosting (because I refuse to say "cloud") to tie them all together.

[Wraith]

Posted separately because I imagine the above will get a lot of tl;dr's, and this is really a different subject;

This story pisses me off, because his criticism isn't really about anything Windows 8 does or doesn't do. It's about what Microsoft could possibly decide to do at some time in the future.

Microsoft could be "tempted" to make Windows 8 a closed platform, according to Mr Newell

That's what it comes down to. Microsoft might one day decide to lock them out. First of all, it's a pretty crappy thing to do to talk trash about the OS just because you're worried you might lose money. Secondly, I'll tell you right now, that is never going to happen. Why? Two words: anti. Trust. Microsoft hasn't forgotten what happened when they integrated IE 4 into Windows 98SE. The justice department went after them for monopolistic practices. Just recently England told them that from now on, British copies must come with a pop-up when you install Windows, allowing you to chose between IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. When Microsoft released the Zune, they created a whole new media market for it, instead of simply using Windows Media Player, because they were afraid of anti-trust allegations. And Gabe thinks they're going to lock out other digital distribution avenues? That's crap, Gabe.

I seriously hope he pulls the stick out of his ass, because if Valve decides that they're not going to support Windows 8 out of spite? That will be a disaster for PC gaming, and it will be entirely on Valve.

[Lord Chrusher]

I would like to think Mr Newell is not that stupid of a businessman. However I think he now sees Microsoft as more of a competitor. He is taking a page out of Microsoft's book and spreading some FUD.

While I doubt Microsoft can close the desktop/laptop platform due to antitrust I would guess that they could get away with closing there tablet/smart phone platform since they do have the market share there that they do have for PCs.

[Geoff_B]

I have to admit at first I was "Oh noes! Windows 8 is the work of the Devil! What about all the poor indie developers who will die from this?" Then it slowly dawned on me that Gabe Newell has a vested interest in this as the Windows Store would be a direct competitor to Steam, so of course he's going to blow things way out of proportion.

It's warm and I can't think straight okay?

[Metcarfre]

I don't really know much about the old antitrust case, but how was Microsoft including IE different from Apple including Safari?

[Geoff_B]

Could it be, and this is probably wrong, that Apple makes it's own hardware as well as software, whereas Microsoft does not? So if you buy a mac you accept that you're getting the OS as part of it, whereas you might want to buy a PC that doesn't use Microsoft software?

[Metcarfre]

I guess that explains why my Xbox has friggin' Bing.

[Matt]

I don't really know much about the old antitrust case, but how was Microsoft including IE different from Apple including Safari?

I believe the difference was that IE was integrated with windows itself, and as a result the OS would not function without it. This meant that it could not be uninstalled, and HAD to be used with Windows, thereby creating a strongly anti-competitive environment on windows operating systems.

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that was the case.

I don't actually believe there's much difference with how OS's are bundled now, but consumer and manufacturer cultures have shifted drmatically in the years since the lawsuits, and business practises are different. Bundling is now the standard.

-m

[Myrph]

Given that Gabe Newell spent 13 years working for Microsoft and was involved in the production of the first three interations of Windows, I'm almost tempted to think he might have half a clue what he's talking about. That isn't to say his current position doesn't lend him a certain amount of bias in such discussions, but given his pedigree I would lend more credence to what he says than other similar figures.

I don't really know much about the old antitrust case, but how was Microsoft including IE different from Apple including Safari?

I believe the difference was that IE was integrated with windows itself, and as a result the OS would not function without it. This meant that it could not be uninstalled, and HAD to be used with Windows, thereby creating a strongly anti-competitive environment on windows operating systems.

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that was the case.

I don't actually believe there's much difference with how OS's are bundled now, but consumer and manufacturer cultures have shifted drmatically in the years since the lawsuits, and business practises are different. Bundling is now the standard.

-m

If I remember correctly, certain services such as Windows Update would only work if you had Internet Explorer present on your computer, so if you wanted to remove IE (as I did at one point) and then decide to manually check updates, you'd discover that you would get a bunch of error messages telling you to put IE back on your system or else you wouldn't be able to update your OS (or at least not without having to jump through a whole slew of inconvenient hoops).

[Darkobra]

...said they hated it and it was a horrible mess, but then couldn't tell me a damn thing about it or what was wrong with it.

The biggest complaint I heard about it was how much RAM it ate. More than it was supposed to apparently.

[Wraith]

I don't really know much about the old antitrust case, but how was Microsoft including IE different from Apple including Safari?

Microsoft was more successful. That's really the long and short of it. In 1998/1999, Microsoft's dominance was almost completely unchallenged. A lot of people didn't even know what a Mac was. The justice department argued that due to Window's dominance, Microsoft had an unfair advantage in the browser war (which at the time was Mostly IE vs. something called Netscape Navigator; I don't know how old you are or if you'd remember that). Honestly, Mac OS had ever been as dominant and pervasive as Windows, the DOJ would probably have shut Apple down by now; as their practices generally make Microsoft look like an open-source advocate. For example, by the DOJ's logic, requiring iTunes to sync songs on your iPod really should have prompted a similar suit against Apple, as there's no doubt that the iPod had such dominance in the MP3 player arena.

Honestly, I thought the whole thing kind of sucked; because I thought the integration of browser and file explorer was a step in the right direction.

[Metcarfre]

Oh, I've been around since before the WWW was really a thing (was on BBSs, etc.), not that I've ever been super involved. Definitely remember Netscape. Good times.

I guess it's one of those things that is more a prosecutorial decision on what to pursue and what not to pursue, although it could certainly be argued that Apple's dominance of the digital music market was (is?) incredibly strong, if not as strong as Microsoft's dominance of the PC market in the late 90s.

[JustAName]

I vaguely remember Netscape. As for the article it... feels like they're trying to make this bigger than it is? Like, I feel that they took the quotes they could best sensationalize and just ran with it.

[Master Gunner]

While I had several minor issues with Windows Vista, the main issue I had with it was it apparently causing targeted amnesia in users, removing all previous knowledge and experience the user had with computers, including in some causes, up the basic literacy skills. And then, of course, all those users asking me to come help them for every minor little thing. That is why I fear Windows 8. I also hate the Metro UI in a desktop environment (I played around with it for a bit on one of the preview builds), and am annoyed that Microsoft is apparently going to make it as difficult as possible to boot directly into the desktop view, even on the server version (yes, I'm selfish and lazy). On the other hand, it's supposed to have better virtualization support, so I'll probably end up using it for that. I know my current workplace is looking into setting up one or two Windows 8 dev boxes to take advantage of that.

[auberginequeen]

I fear Windows 8 mainly because I find the "start" page needlessly complex for a desktop OS. Why do I need that extra step of calling up an entire page? What if I want to open something while paying attention to something else? And why have they made quitting applications so convoluted?

It seems to make sense as a tablet OS and people have been saying that as a result tablets that run it have the potential to be very powerful. However, I have no interest in tablets, and as such am underwhelmed. On the upside, it's nice that they've taken some settings they hid away under random Control Panel tabs and put them in more logical places.

I also feared Vista because of all the horrible things people said about it, but when my new PC wouldn't let me install XP (wrote a haiku about it for The Whatever Thing, not sure if anyone remembers) and Win 7 was off in the distance, I dealt with it. Turned out to not be as horrible as people complained, just had some issues occasionally and some annoyingly unnecessary features to disable/ignore.

As to this whole Steam/Valve article, no sense getting all worked up about it until Microsoft comes out and says they're going to do it. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

[Dominic Appleguard]

Honestly, Mac OS had ever been as dominant and pervasive as Windows, the DOJ would probably have shut Apple down by now; as their practices generally make Microsoft look like an open-source advocate. For example, by the DOJ's logic, requiring iTunes to sync songs on your iPod really should have prompted a similar suit against Apple, as there's no doubt that the iPod had such dominance in the MP3 player arena.

If the new iPhone came with a peripheral for punching kittens, people would still act like Microsoft was Hitler McSatan and Apple was the voice of the fecking downtrodden.

[Ottoman]

Boo hoo, people use different operating systems!

That aside, Windows 8 looks fucking atrocious for its interface alone. Not that Mac 10.7 is much better. It's like both companies are in a race to turn their legitimate desktop systems into bullshit 'mobile platforms'.

Time to start learning about Linux, I guess.

[Jamfalcon]

Time to start learning about Linux, I guess.

My Dad is quite a Linux fanboy, and I have to say every version I've tried (admittedly just for simple things) has been quite good, and not hard to get used to after Windows. I would seriously consider putting it on a computer that I didn't intend to use for gaming*.

*The gaming scene for Linux has been steadily improving from consisting mostly of open source knock-offs. Now we're seeing higher profile indie games and even Steam working on it, but it still has a long way to go before it runs everything my current computer does without putting in a lot of effort.

[empath]

Okay, I'm late to this, and it may well have already been said, but remember, humans form a superstition that alternating versions of anything are either good, or bad. For example, Star Trek films.

[Geoff_B]

Except with Star Trek films it's a) the odd numbered ones that are not as good and b) correct.

[Ottoman]

humans form a superstition that alternating versions of anything are either good, or bad.

Except the trend lately seems to just be straight downhill. Both Apple and Microsoft seem to be ripping out features left and right in order to pander to smartphone kiddies.

[iamafish]

I'm not sure i understand the logic of trying to create an OS that works with both a computer and a mobile device/tablet. surely the two are so completely different, with different functionalities, that trying to make a system flexible enough to accommodate both is bound to sacrifice usability for versatility, which doesn't seem like a good trade.