Vista casual game problems are 'grossly overstated'

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Feb 1st 2007 at 1:25PM }

Earlier this week, WildTangent CEO, Alex St. John, lashed out against Windows Vista and claimed that most casual games were drowing in the moat surrounding the operating system's impenetrable castle. With many downloadable titles lacking official ESRB ratings, St. John suggested that Vista's security architecture was blocking all manner of family friendly games, including titles from MSN, AOL and Yahoo.

In a communication with TG Daily, Microsoft has responded to these claims, labeling them as "grossly overstated." Rick Wickham, director of Games for Windows, notes that "a fraction of casual games are encountering temporary upgrade issues - a situation we have largely corrected and are committed to fixing within days." He goes on to say that out of the 100-plus MSN casual games available, only five have displayed problems in working with Vista. Those issues are expected to be resolved by the end of the week.

Tags: Casual gaming, CasualGaming, Microsoft Windows, MicrosoftWindows, Vista, WildTangent, Windows Vista, WindowsVista

Related From Joystiq

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Agent MOO @ Feb 1st 2007 1:33PM

My main concern with Vista is the new WinFS filesystem... will it break existing applications?

Foil_Goon @ Feb 1st 2007 1:36PM

WildTangent is not mad because of the ESRB ratings issue, but because they cannot load their spyware and still be a games for windows game. This is just them trying to make trouble and take peoples eyes off the fact that they are a spyware company that packs it in with "casual" games.

Foil_Goon @ Feb 1st 2007 1:36PM

Arno @ Feb 1st 2007 1:46PM

WinFS was pulled from Vista last year because it is still ways off. It'll be available at a later day, optional of course. It has been in testing for a while now and I haven't heard it breaking anything.

ahamsandwich @ Feb 1st 2007 8:20PM

@1: winFS in not in Vista...yet. its will most likely be implemented in Fiji, ala Service Pack 1. Vista currently uses NTFS, same as XP

blamecanada @ Feb 1st 2007 1:54PM

Yea WinFS was supposed to be cool, but it ended up being a bigger project than expected, so it was put on hiatus and planned for a download later, although there are rumors that it was canned completely.

And NTFS will probably be an option for a long time, just as FAT32 was.

And as for Wild Tangent, I think they came on one of my HP PCs, and was the first thing i removed.

Marty @ Feb 1st 2007 1:55PM

The issue for indie game developers is not of compatibility - it's the fact that whenever you run a game that doesn't have the correct credentials (IE, the kind that Ubisoft or EA games have no problem PAYING for), it displays a security warning before running.

While I hate everything that Wild Tangent does and stands for, this kind of thing scares off the casual gamers who play games that the small guys make.

Agent MOO @ Feb 1st 2007 2:17PM

No WinFS? So my $99+ just get me pretty looking windows

RG2 @ Feb 1st 2007 2:22PM

No one has mentioned that in the story MS basically says "Well, our casual games work., why don't yours?" Of course they do, cuz they are YOUR casual games

G99 @ Feb 1st 2007 2:23PM

Aye. I am very, very glad that spyware companies like Wildtangent are having problems installing stuff on a vista system. Makes me alone want to upgrade just that much sooner.

abobo kitty @ Feb 1st 2007 2:27PM

yeah but why is MS stil trying to rip off the Mac OS?

Virtua Fanboy @ Feb 1st 2007 2:35PM

10. yeah but why is MS stil trying to rip off the Mac OS?

Posted at 2:27PM on Feb 1st 2007 by abobo kitty

Get a life.

sine909 @ Feb 1st 2007 4:04PM

#7 - While WinFS isn't available, there is an index based file search system that enables similar instant searching capabilities that WinFS promised (and Mac OSX already had). This will suffice most users - it's actually very very nice.

MasterInsan0 @ Feb 1st 2007 3:36PM

Being a casual game developer myself, I think this sucks. Downloading software from the internet is risky business to begin with, as you don't know what you're being infected with when you run it. So, if Joe Blow downloads my game and sees a security warning, he's going to think "oops, spyware, better not install this." He'll at least think twice about it.

I'm sure Microsoft means well by trying to protect the customers from unlicensed programs, but I'm also sure they aren't in any hurry to allow games without their special "Games for Windows" distinction to run without a warning.

eddy_88_nite @ Feb 1st 2007 3:39PM

wild tangent is a load of crap. If they allow it on vista that's another reason to wait for upgrading. The main thing making me even think about upgrading to vista is directX 10.

samfish @ Feb 1st 2007 3:21PM

Not like #10 doesn't have a valid point, though.

anyway, having only played with Vista for a grand total of 15 minutes, at best, am I to understand that if a game doesn't have an ESRB rating, you...can't play it? Can't install it? It's blocked?
Can it be shut off?

I've read enough about how MS made a deal with movie and music companies to give them the potential to shut down any files without industry sanctioned DRM in them.
Frankly, it sounds to me more and more like Microsoft is starting to embrace a corporate fascism philosophy with the release of Vista.