Epic Games founder and Unreal Engine co-creator Tim Sweeney is confident that the upcoming Windows 10 update will slowly “kill” Steam.
Pictured: Tim Sweeney
Up to this point, all Windows applications were developed using the Win32 interface.
Upcoming Windows 10 updates are forcing developers to use the Universal Windows Platform, Sweeney believes. Which is bad for the ecosystem in general and for Steam in particular.
“Every project on Steam and every game on PC over the past 10 years has been created using Win32, which, on the one hand, has formed a diverse software market, and on the other, has generated viruses. Every program can be malicious. Universal Windows Platform is a kind of antidote. This is a “sandbox”, it is much more closed. The problem here is that if Microsoft convinces everyone to use UWP, then applications created with Win32 will gradually become a thing of the past. If the company succeeds, then it’s not far from here that all games and applications will begin to be distributed through the Windows Store. Then the PC will become a closed platform. No, the Steam library will not be turned off in one day – Microsoft will need to pull off a series of tricky maneuvers. It will become more and more difficult to use old applications, and in the meantime the company will try to become the only source of new ones,” Sweeney says.
Microsoft will not stop there. To make the Windows Store the only source of applications, the company will make Steam gradually cease to function, Sweeney is sure.
“Over the next five years, they will forcibly patch Windows 10 so that Steam will work worse and worse. They will not completely disable it, but they will worsen it until Steam becomes so buggy that the Windows Store will seem like an excellent alternative. This is exactly what they have done with competitors in other areas. And now we’ve started Steam, and it’s finally becoming noticeable. Maybe they don’t have enough brains to pull it off, but they’re definitely trying,” Sweeney concluded.
Let’s add that Sweeney has criticized Microsoft before. In an interview with VentureBeat, the founder of Epic Games said that Microsoft is turning Windows into a closed ecosystem like iOS.
Source: PC Gamer