What percentage of Google devices are not tablets? Less than 1% I'd guess.
I don't know how the Apple Store looks like on a desktop, but they're heavily biased to iPad and iPhone.

Windows is primarily a desktop environment, its tablet and phone offerings are tiny compared to that.

Yes the windows Store is inspired by these mobile Stores, which Is a find on their tablet/phone solutions but a humongous mistake for the desktop.

Not that low, I'd guess. The problem here is why you find it a mistake for an interface to be unified on all. They're not even unified as in one UI for all, it's unified as in this UI bends over to all.

I was using it as the worst case scenario example and you decided to cling to it and twist it out of context.
Anyway do you honestly think the controls on Carmageddon for Android are good?
I'd say they are barely adequate and the game is just about playable.
Besides, Carmageddon is a complete remake of the engine with a completely remade new input method, not a direct port. Universal App would be unlikely to have that sort of selection for inputs, usually selecting the lowest common denominator, which is tilt and touchscreen controls (neither is available for most PCs).
Civ 5 only works on mobile platforms because point and click games work well on touch screens just by emulating a graphic tablet/mouse.

LEt me ask you, have you ever tried to play an FPS on a phone or a tablet? Horrible, oversimplified controls and severely limited engine which results in a mediocre bare-bones experience at best that can only barely keep you interested for a 20 minute bus ride.

I sometimes have a feeling some are arguing just for the sake of arguing.

A single UI across different platforms is a very bad idea. The UI should be tailored to it use, I'm very much an advocate for a terminal/keyboard biased UI for data entry. Most entry clerks don't like mouse driven systems, it makes their jobs take five times as long, but through my IT career I've seen web based systems forced into these departments.

Common UI traits are however useful.

A coherent common development environment is good too. Being able to use the exact same knowledge to build a mobile app as needed for making a desktop program is great for coders.

I realize I'm not JMich, but let me chime in on this.

That's a problem of the developer implementing poor controls. A developer can make their input methods much better of course, it's all up to them to utilize the concept of a touchscreen well. Again, developer laziness to be blamed on. There are similar stories on Android as well. Some games that don't use gamepad controls to work, and some games that don't even use touchscreens to control and demand you to play them with a gamepad (Hotline Miami, I'm looking at you.) This is a problem with developers in general, having the ability to develop for all of these is a great thing, but of course developers underutilize them. Yes I have tried, and I enjoyed it. Modern Combat 4 was quite a lovely experience on my phone, sadly I don't have it installed now because my phone is otherwise lackluster on the space now. But I enjoyed it, and was interested in it.

In the end, it all boils down to one thing: Microsoft gives developers a lot of tools to utilize the best out of their platforms. Whether that utilization sucks or not depends on the DEVELOPER to do it, not MICROSOFT. Big difference here. The same thing for touchscreen controls, given the potential, they are very excellent, and the only thing holding it back are the DEVELOPERS who don't utilize it to the fullest. Rockstar ported five games from the console-centric GTA series to Android, and they all work fine with a touchscreen.

   Now for the obligatory test line.
The UI is designed to change shape depending on how big the screen area your app takes up now, among other factors. So while it's the same UI across platforms, it is made for all of these platforms and designed to adapt on the fly.

The best example of this is the Windows Store app. Visit any app page. It rearranges the UI itself depending on how big the Windows Store app is. It can shove everything under each other in one vertical space if the space is so small, or do the same but with the pictures right beside the logo and app name on the top (medium sized), or even put the "People also like" pane on the right of the screen and away from the content.

This was more a reference to Win8 and its modern interface.
Microsoft tried to put the exact same tile based interface onto destops, xboxes, phones and tablets.

It was tailored to touch screens or xbox controllers, Most PC don't ships with touch screens which made win8 awkward.

Also, , the [url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition&hl=en]Baldur's series, the [url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.dq8&hl=en]Dragon Quest series, (and Final Fantasy, and others). etc. Nothing overly simplified about those games, is there?

I'm sorry, how does
translates to a "worst case scenario"?

Yes. I used one hand for pedals and tilted to steer. Worked quite well, even though I could have used an extra finger or two. May have worked better if I had the tablet on a table and used the other hand for steering.

Weirdly enough, I think I can find people to say the same for a dozen KB/M games, including the original Crusader. That means that a well implemented input scheme will be good, while a badly implemented one will be bad, no matter if the input scheme is keyboard, joystick, gamepad, voice, touch, or any other scheme we've used in the last 40+ years.

If tilt and touchscreen are the ones to be used, then that means the app will not be available for PC or console. Same as an app that requires KB/M (or gamepad) won't be available for a tablet. So your "bad case" scenario you present here actually means that a UWA will be restricted to specific parts of the ecosystem, just like Rise of the Tomb Raider currently is.

Allow me to heh here. A touch screen cannot use hover, so it does work differently from a mouse. The old pixel hunting adventures that would show you the hot spot's name when you hovered over the correct pixel are not touch screen friendly, while other games may be. So a touch screen UI may be different from a mouse only one.
Oh, and didn't you say that the touch screen interface causes problems for any games more complex than flappybird? So which is it, are point and click games less complex, or can touch controls actually work for more complex games as well?

Don't think I've had the chance yet, any suggestions?

Ah, you mean like the old arcades? Shoot, cover, reload, where have all my money gone ones? True, no one would be interested in those.

Also true.
I'd also add XCOM:EW to the list, but some people may complain that it is a simple game ;)

On the other hand: Do all these games use this incredibly cool Universal Windows Apps system for it or did they all manage to achieve the same stuff more or less also without it?

I was merely arguing the point that mobile gaming does not necessarily imply simplified gaming. I'm against the UWA program personally.

To make moar moneys!

He had an odd argument, mainly that console and iOS users love their walled gardens, hence PC gamers should love MS gradually turning PC gaming into a walled garden too.

That's just silly. People who like walled gardens' extra security (through extra restrictions) etc., have already gathered to such platforms, like consoles and iOS devices. Likewise, people who like the extra freedom (and are ready to take any of the negatives that come with it), favor PC.

Why should all platforms be alike, and cater only for the people who like walled gardens? PC platform is one of the last relatively open platforms in many senses (especially when looking beyond Windows also to Linux etc., albeit Microsoft is trying to destroy the OS competition inside the PC platform too with UEFI Secureboot bullshit), so it would be a damn shame that it would perish.

If that arsetechnica guy loves walled gardens so much, why hasn't he left the PC platform already? It isn't like there aren't any walled garden options out there for him to use and develop for.


In the comments, someone pointed out that "hey, Win32 isn't going anywhere, so what are you guys fretting about anyway?". To me that sounded a bit like someone would have said with Windows 9x "Hey, DOS games are not going anywhere, you can still run them in Windows 9x, so what are you fretting about?". Yet, it was clear to everyone that the intention with Win9x was that the DOS stuff is just for legacy support, and on its way out. Microsoft is probably hoping and planning the same for Win32 stuff (in favor of UWA stuff).

Of course with Windows 9x, Win32 programs gradually superseding DOS game/application development didn't have similar risks as now with UWP, as there weren't similar restrictions put on Win32 games as to where you can buy them, can you modify them etc. Pretty much the only opposition Win32 and DirectX games got was that people were afraid they would perform much worse than DOS games.

So sideloading is enabled by default? Some of those articles seemed to suggest it was disabled by default, so the user had to find the option and enable it, in order to install universal apps from non-Windows Store sources.

Was this default behavior changed in some recent update (because of these complaints), or was it like this from the beginning?

This apparently still leaves the other open issues, like modifications etc.?

You remember the Windows 10 update that messed with default apps and settings? That was the one that changed that default from what I recall.