PC Game Pass, now includes EA Play! [PCGP, XGP:PC]
- Thread starter iroboto
- Start date
in the meanwhile, Steam is breaking records.
Steam Sets New Record With 34 Million Concurrent Users In 2024
Steam has just broken past 34 million concurrent users this year, shattering all previous records by a massive margin.
tech4gamers.com
MS could do great things in the PC space, it's their natural space, but they aren't doing much. Valve had excellent ideas like the Steam machines, Steam Deck, etc, but MS has the means to make something similar but a lot better, if they wanted to. I still hope, as a fan of PC gamepass and windows store as my main store -though I use Steam more-, that they start working on those aspects of PC gaming because there is so much potential and the app is still messy. Steam got where it is over years and years, but everything from the interface to how it works, is very good.
I'd want the windows store or pc gamepass and things like GoG to have a lot of success, but the reality is different.
This! This a thousand percent. I don't care how good a deal GamePass is while all these issues persist.
I'm generally satisfied with the MS store as a service and UI. Half the time I go there is because I'm being directly linked to the app download page from a developer's website, so the navigation and discoverability part gets sidestepped entirely. The other thing is that most of the stuff I download through that store are sub-1GB, so issues like broken installs/authentications can quickly be cleared in seconds by reinstalling it. You're not being asked to spend several hours redownloading some 100+GB game to clear what's presumably just a DRM/account service adjacent error. Even the annoyance of having install folders that you don't have permission to open is less obnoxious because you're not staring at a large fraction of your drive that you can't access. One is like having a fly trapped in your house, the other is like having a hobo staking claim to your spare bedroom.
It's absurd that I can't tell what is installed where on my hard drives via MS's own file explorer. Not only is the install folder locked, but the folder is sometimes named after some internal development build name (for example, Forza Motorsport 7's install is called "ApolloBaseGame"). Really helpful, thanks. So rather than being able to just open the folder and see the Forza.exe I'm forced to Google what "ApolloBaseGame" is to know what this 120GB folder is. Why do I care what this 120GB folder is? Because it's now actually possible to have orphaned and inaccessible app installation folders from a previous Windows install. And then there's firewall permissions. How do I whitelist a .exe when I don't have folder access? How do I hook a .exe for OBS capture?
I think Steam got where it is because from the outset they were aiming to deliver legitimate utility over the status quo to get people on board. The market of users at the time were using mIRC, ICQ, AIM, etc for communication, GameSpy/AllSeeingEye for server browsing, and various download hosts like FilePlanet for patch updates. Valve provided a single solution that delivered all the daily user features in an easier to use front-end. The fancy storefront is something that took the better part of a decade to take shape, so it wasn't (and I think still isn't) the primary reason why people have Steam running on their computer and regularly engage with it.
Not only does the XBox app not stack up to Steam, I honestly don't think it even stacks up to the UX of vanilla install wizards in the late-90s. The old inconvenience of downloading and installing patches manually every few months(if ever) was more than compensated for by not having all these system-level pitfalls and handcuffs. Troubleshooting steps to solve game launch errors never involved system-level command line or OS repair because the game, its install/patch/launch environment, and the OS weren't an interconnected house of cards.
Only used it for 3 months in 2020 does it still deny you access to your own hard drive ?
Edit: just read all of hughj's post and the answer is yes
Last edited:
I believe it's part of how UWP apps are sandboxed. So not every game or app is going to behave like that. In the event that you need/want to override it and gain access then you can by altering ownership permissions, but then that breaks stuff. Which leads to colorfully named fixes like https://github.com/AgentRev/WindowsAppsUnfukker
Generally games installed in custom location, would have normal folders and files access like steam games
what @orangpelupa said. For instance, a game like Super Dungeon Bros. has that limitation, and for any game that has restricted access the app tells you and you can't even browse its actual installation directory. Most of the games I know of, don't behave like that nowadays. You can easily tell after installing them or previous to the installation, but if you have a Browse Files option, then you can open the game's main directory and install mods and so on. I.e. A Plague Tale Requiem lets you access its installation directory.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
As people know, I'm a pretty big Xbox and GamePass fan, but I sympathize with the notion you guys are putting forward: That MS has been completely incompetent in their GP/MS Store implementation on PC. It's no wonder Steam has been kicking their ass for 10 years, even though they are a multi-trillion $ company that publishes the dominant OS platform. It boggles the mind.
Last edited:
same here. There are so many great games there, and from now on if I find a game that I like on PC Gamepass I am buying it on the service instead of buying it on Steam, but the app is a hit and a miss.
Today I was looking for Local co-op games and found several titles of the Paw Patrol series and so on, in just a few clicks, it was quite easy, I liked it. I'd love to have a better filter, like ordering games by price, and so on, but still not a bad experience.
Also today I was very content I saw Evil West and since I restarted my subscription I started downloading it. After it finished downloading, I started the game and then it told me that I didn't have the rights to play it -as if I weren't registered on pc gamepass-. Closed the game, closed the PC gamepass app, restarted it and then the game = same result. So I uninstalled the game.
Also when looking at other games I might be interested in, to buy them like I got Vampire Survivors and Brotato as of recently, there was a message saying something along the lines of "Not all the options could be loaded, please try to restart the app".
Odd stuff. I really love the concept and MS is my favourite company in gaming, but the app still has its ups and downs. I just hope that apart from a console they just make a Windows PC handheld -with a desktop version too- just to play games, but tha't another story.
It's another software with no direction, clear roadmap or concept. Like the GoG client, it's there because i need to use it to download the game on the platform for gamepass. When my gamepass lapses, it'll be gone.
alas, that app doesn't work for me. I used it to install mods for Resident Evil 3 but the Re3.exe file is untouchable no matter what I do. I tried the app, made it ran and work fine with a successful message at the end of the process, and I also read the extra tips they give on the page, but to no avail. So no RE3 mods for me :/
Thankfully, GOG games run fine without having the client installed, I have many GOG games but have never installed or ran the client.
As for GamePass my only experience with it was a free 3 month free trial but about only 50% if the games I tried to install were successful the rest failed with an "Unspecified Error" - Thanks Microsoft that error message was incredibly helpful
never went back to it.
Last edited:
cheapchips
Veteran
The app's far better than it was during that period. I'm not saying it's good, but it is massively improved!
yes, it's more decent now. There is a lot of room for improvement though.
A great thing about gamepass is that it quite a few family friendly games to play with my 6 and my 4 y.o. nephews. Aside from Paw Patrol games, there are games like Peppa Pig (though not truly a coop game, but both can control the main character using their own gamepad) and so on.
Rush: A DisneyPixar Adventure has been a success with my nephews, especially the Cars part, where they race and the game. The game is from Microsft Studios and programmed by Asobo, both facts really surprised me.
The gameplay is excellent, whether you play the platform part of Disney stuff like Toy Story or the part of Cars, where racing is the most important thing and I am surprised at how fun it is.
Another positive thing is that when my nephews are playing pc gamepass games and I am on my laptop I immediately get a notification when they obtain an achievement. It's a nice touch, you know what they are playing even if you aren't physically there.
Every game can be played like this, even if it isn't specifically supported in game, using copilot.
is that automatic? 'Cos I've never used copilot.
Another advantage of PC gamepass is that, contrary to Steam where games have a default gamepad, you can play single player games with any of your controllers. Windows gamepad management can be a little tricky since there is a preferred gamepad, and I've set my least used gamepad as my preferred gamepad -long story-, which means that on Steam I am forced to use that gamepad, but on PC gamepass I can use my favourite controller to play Vampire Survivors, Brotato, and all my gamepass games....
I guess I'm not sure on PC, if you were talking about PC Gamepass. But yes, on console, you can essentially make 2 controllers "controller 1", and they can have all of the same functions.
