How Much do You Plan to Support Windows 8/Metro?

L. Spiro · 2012-11-06T06:59:57

Some of us are making our own engines, some of us write popular blogs and make tutorials. Some of us here even write books and give presentations at GDC/SIGGRAPH, or do private research and publish research papers. One of the authors of SlimDX said he was not interested in adding support for it to SlimDX, and Valve is obviously going out of their way to make a point that they are not going to support it either. Minecraft won’t, and I am not decided on my own engine. MJP has never even tried to use DirectX 11.1 yet. How about you? If you are a book author and see yourself having the chance to write a book about it, will you? Would you only do it if they approached you to do it or would you actually send a proposal to the publish of your own free will? If your blog is mainly focused on tutorials, will you be putting any out for DirectX 11.1/Windows 8/Metro in the near future? Do you plan to continue any private research you are doing on any new graphics techniques on said platform (if is so why)? How many of you are starting to consider moving away from Windows in favor of Macintosh OS X or Linux? Do you think Microsoft will be able to continue going this route or will they be forced to either downsize considerably or lift their ridiculous policies? Do you plan to push them into such a situation by, for example boycotting any of their products? // ======= MY ANSWERS As I said I am not decided about my engine. I can see some market value in being one of the few who support it, but I prefer to take a stand against them. And this is the first time I have considered moving away from Windows, or at least never “upgrading”. Windows XP and Windows 7 still work fine. If games stop coming out for them, I will see what platform is getting all the games. Linux? Valve’s own new game machine? That Ouhaoasdjh thing funded by Kickstarter? In any case it is not going to be Windows 8/Metro, as guaranteed by their own policies on what they allow through their store, which specifically state, “No good games”. I see Microsoft in the near future being just a shell of its former self. Apple has been rising steadily in popularity thanks to iOS and other vendors are stepping up to fight in the console wars, while existing platforms may suddenly get a boost in popularity depending on how things go. The upcoming generation of gaming will leave consumers with many more options than previously, so we are no longer bound to just Windows and consoles. With many gamers feeling smitten by Microsoft, I see a lot of people intentionally seeking options outside of Microsoft, and Microsoft will ultimately end up in trouble. L. Spiro

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by L. Spiro October 29, 2012 12:20 AM

83 comments, last by bagnz0r 11 years, 5 months ago

way2lazy2care

793

October 31, 2012 01:37 PM

Microsoft is hosting it's Build 2012 conference right now and you can watch it live or watch past sessions here: http://channel9.msdn.com/
I have heard them confirm more than once that if you use your own payment system you don't pay any fees. One in the keynote speach Ballmer gave and later in the talk "Windows store: how does it work" Just select day 1 then scroll down to select those sessions to see it for your self.

Recording does not appear to be up yet

Should probably be up in the next day or so.

edit: it's up now.

slayemin

6,313

October 31, 2012 04:52 PM

[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1351622532' post='4995513']
1. Visual Studio costs lots of money!!! VS2012 Ultimate is $13,000!!!

Not sure where you're getting your prices. VS is expensive, but it's not that expensive. The professional edition is probably the one to shoot for if you're buying a license. I have access to ultimate, and I do not use any of the more advanced features. Professional is selling for $800, and Ultimate is just over $6,000. It is also worth keeping in mind that you're not just buying Visual Studio, you're getting an MSDN subscription as well which allows you to download pretty much all Microsoft software for development purposes. This includes all of their office suites, all of their operating systems, etc. Plus it's not all that hard to get those tools (even ultimate) for free. Check out Bizspark, WebsiteSparkand DreamSpark.
[/quote]
The only reason I know is because I was pricing it out a few months ago. It really is $13,000. See for yourself

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate - $13,299
Visual Studio 2012 Premium - $6,119
Visual Studio 2012 Professional - $1,199
Visual Studio 2012 Express - Free
I use 2010 ultimate at my workplace. I probably don't use most of the features which come available with it, so I probably wouldn't miss them. But, it's still expensive software! I can't justify spending $13,000 for the top notch IDE with all the bells and whistles.

2. If you want to code for the MS platform using their API's (DirectX, XNA, .NET), you get locked in to the MS ecosystem. This limits the market base you can target. Java apps, on the other hand, will work on any platform which can run and support the JVM. You don't have to run any VM's or third party software. (note: the VM is included in the JVM). Making .NET available on non-MS products is contrary to Microsofts big picture business plan -- to build and run an MS controlled ecosystem.

This is just flat out wrong. Mono and MonoTouch allow you to run your .NET apps on OSX, Linux, Android and iOS. You may have heard of an XBLA game called Bastion.They used a version of MonoGame to take their XNA game and build it for the Google App Store.
[/quote]
I knew someone would come back with Mono, so I purposefully wrote my paragraph carefully. Mono is an open source API developed by a third party to make .NET operable with non-MS platforms. My claim is that out of the box MS .NET is not cross platform compatible. .NET is supposed to be Microsofts response to Java, which can be run on any hardware platforms which support the JVM. MS isn't going to go out of their way to make sure that .NET works on Linux because it doesn't align with their business vision of a MS only ecosystem. So, .NET is Microsofts answer to Java, but it's breadth just isn't comparable. For the multiplatform conscious developer, its more prudent to work with Java.

1. The pricing structure for selling apps in the windows store.

Microsoft Source: When you sell apps through the Windows Store, we assess a Windows Store fee. For apps that generate less than $25,000 in sales, this fee is 30%. After the app generates its first $25,000 in sales, the fee on the subsequent revenue drops to 20%.[/quote]
Considering how I'm already slightly biased against it and a little reluctant to spend time, effort and money on developing a Win8 app in the first place, if all MS does is match their digital distribution competitors at a 30% take, I will be even more hesitant. They'd better sweeten the pot a bit and go down to 25% at the least, and ideally 20% overall. The first $30k should be all mine! Everyone wants their slice of my pie (government taxes & Microsoft)! Once I cover my development costs, I'd be willing to split the revenue a bit more generously... if I was going to charge.[/quote]
30% is the standard. It's what Apple and Google both charge. As far as I know, Microsoft is the only one that drops it to 20% after a certain amount of revenue. As far as app stores go, it's a pretty good deal.
[/quote]
My point is that microsoft is late to the digital distribution market. They need to convince developers that it's worth their time and effort to go through the trouble of targetting the win8 platform. I've got my reservations about the number of people who will adopt Win8. Most people will probably be happy with Win7, so the number of possible customers browsing the windows store won't be the whole windows users population -- it'll probably be a very limited subset. I think microsoft needs to undercut their competitors (Apple, Google, Steam, etc) with their revenue sharing model. Microsoft really needs to make a comeback in the digital distribution marketplace. It's not very incentivizing to offer the same pricing model because then the main differentiating factor is going to be who has the most eyeballs and MS isn't going to be a leader. I probably don't need to tell anyone this since most of us already know it, but the adoption of a platform is heavily influenced by the number of tools and apps available for it, which is in proportion to the number of developers building for the platform. It's right in line with their grand strategy of building and maintaining their MS ecosystem.

Eric Nevala

Indie Developer | Spellbound | Dev blog | Twitter | Unreal Engine 4

Alpha_ProgDes

6,963

October 31, 2012 05:06 PM

Well their revenue is coming from 3 places: PCs, Tablets, and Phones. And seeing that WP8 shares the same core code as Win8, many apps from the phone could work as is on the Tablet/PCs and vice-versa. So for Microsoft, it'll be about the adoption rate of the Win8 platform overall. Plus with its tie-in to Xbox and ScreenGlass [sic], more people in one way or another will know and get used to the Metro style. Although, I have a feeling that WP8 Metro will be a bit more intuitive than Win8 Metro.

Beginner in Game Development? Read here. And read here.

AussieBacom

178

November 01, 2012 03:11 AM

I think I will be using Windows 8 allot. I like the idea of where Microsoft is going with Windows 8 Surface and I think it will open up a brand new market.