Unacceptable anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices in game pass for PC

[Hazybeard]

6 hours ago, Spotty said:

No, the game when launched should check that you're logged in to an account that has access to the game. The same way that Steam, uPlay, Origin, Epic Games, Blizzard.net, etc all do it. You can't just copy a steam game folder to another computer and launch the game without being logged in to a steam account that owns the game.

I'm assuming that the Windows Store/Xbox App does the same thing. It would be silly for them not to.

 

Edit: Though I think there are games where you can do that where the developer is okay with not having DRM on their games.

Not exactly the same thing since it was unintentional, but what comes to mind is when DOOM Eternal accidentally left an executable file in the game files that would launch the game and bypass the DRM protection. All you needed to do was run that executable instead of the default one. Woops!

I am honestly OK with the way Steam, uPlay, Origin, Epic Games, Battle.net, etc all do it. They do not block you at an OS level from looking at the files (like mentioned in the article, they could not even if they wanted to).

 

However, MS takes it that step further, and in my opinion that is a step too far.

 

Even when booting into Linux, you wont find the game blobs you typically expect (like in Steam). You will find game blobs encrypted by MS.

 

I would like MS to be on an equal playing field with Steam, uPlay, Origin, Epic Games, Battle.net, etc.

[Hazybeard]

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

it's just bad practice, when I replaced my non OS drive I noticed it had a couple of windows"apps" folders on it which I couldn't delete whatsoever... what I think happened is that I downloaded a program from MS store and that just stored stuff on my secondary drive... and that program later stopped working randomly after a windows update... but that got never fixed with another update,nor did windows delete these now useless folders, basically taking the drive ransom... 

I eventually had to format the drive to get rid of these folders... they weren't even big, 100mb or so, they were just annoying and I wasn't sure if they'd suddenly mess up other windows installs or what, as I now use that drive as a backup drive...

 

Long story short, it's a huge mess and I personally find this indeed unacceptable. ಠ_ಠ

I think this words it quite nicely, it indeed feels like a part of your drive has been taken ransom. Back in the day indeed the amount of Windows store apps at least I personally would use were very minimal. However, now with the game pass and the incredible amount of traction it has gained I think the situation is rapidly changing.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

I can confirm that the secret information you are concerned about is, in fact, the recipe for a particularly refreshing and delicious lemon sorbet. 

[thrasher_565]

all data can be hacked and revers engender but it take time and no one on this forms is going to tell you how too do it.... i given up trying to download games and find crakes as it seems that i normaly just get a virues of some sort... i just buy it when its cheap. think i like about steam wish list it emails you when there a price drop. i think on good old games you can take the files and move em around and not have to use an app form what i heard they call them drm free? althow not all steam games work and there some that fuck it up bad like city sky lines and there anty cheat thingy that refused to install so i had to find a work around.... just sad.

 

i get if its a console exclusive and only playable on pc with ms store. at lest we can play it on pc like i wanted long time ago.... but there not many games i look formward to play theses days as there full of buges and lootboxes and need a subscription to paly. (we use to play for free oh the good old times) i guess i just fell in to the rut of just watching youtubers play the game then me buy and play i guess. but someday you wont beable to stream / watch game videos unless you have an subsription. technically the game companies can clame the ads on the videos or have them removed but they mostly leave it for marketing. Nintendo locked done there stuff on youtube for a bit there and it was stupid.