[0]:http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/steams-newell-windows-... [1]:http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/03/tim-sweeney-to-microso...
To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming. FUD articles are abound though.
Many people don't want Console/phone like restriction on PC. Sweeney feared that MS will try to force everybody to use UWP, and later MS will change UWP policies. But then it will be late for everybody move away from UWP.
How many people you know downloads the apk on their android phone to get the app running? Do you have any say on the Google Play policy changes? MS will certainly repeat how convenient UWP is, but people are reluctant to trust MS because they don't know how MS will behave in the future.
That's what Tim Sweeney fears. Phasing out the open nature of the ecosystem, and replacing it with a locked down one where MS controls everything.
And that's a lock down. Maybe it's not for malicious reason, but people have enough reason to hold on onto the open nature that drove the growth of PC gaming(and malware). Secondly, when they don't know if MS will keep their words.
Most of the PC gamers I know (maybe all) did this on the day Pokemon GO was available in NZ/Aus but not NA. Probably few of them had done it before.
I understand what you're saying, but PC gamers are a different crowd than the average Windows user. We'll do what we have to in order to get control of our own PCs back.
I guess on the one hand the lock down is a rational fear, because it's something MS would attempt. But I'm not actually scared that it would be achievable.
If Microsoft is going to lock the platform down, they're going to lock the platform down. There's nothing you can do about it. But Microsoft choosing to use competent security in app design has nothing to do with it.
DX12 is a form of lock-in.
And DirectX 12 is not any more a lock-in than any other version of DirectX since the beginning of DirectX, as far as I'm aware. (And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.)
Responses going forward heavily delayed because I'm rate-limited. If you want to talk elsewhere at any point, I am @ocdtrekkie
