Using different servers per-launcher does not, in fact, make it a different platform. There’s a Big difference between the two.
The PS5 is a platform as it has different hardware and processes, The Steam Deck could reasonably be considered a different platform as it uses a custom Arch-based OS as well as leveraging Proton. Meanwhile EGS and Steam are launchers, as they rely on the OS, and are not platforms in of themselves, as they can be run on both Windows and Linux natively and via Lutris respectively, regardless of IOI’s admittedly annoying server segregation. The OS and hardware defines the platform, not the launcher you play it on, for all games, not just ones players selectively choose to include or dismiss.
Yes, this is a beserk button of mine, and i’m not happy about this making me annoyed either.
You have a good argument there and after thinking about it a bit more, I agree. The server-side differences are not enough to make Steam/Epic two different platforms.
Anyway, let’s hope that IOI unifies their server architecture in the future, so that we don’t even have to think about different platforms and different launchers on PC in the first place.
Knowing IOI’s selective muteness when it comes to anything but Steam or Stadia, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
I’m not usually a doomsaying kind of guy, but their actions, or lack of them, really does speak for itself.
This is the company that cited technical limitations preventing them from doing Epic → Steam cross-saving, but wasted no time in advertising that yes, they do plan to make Stadia → Console/Epic/Steam cross saving.
Pissed off only mildly describes my reactions to their decisions. And I don’t even want to move off of EGS; I just want the option open to those that do. IOI are just being strange, and they won’t even address it.
It is not possible to go straight trough a mountain any way you want. Even if I dig a tunnel somewhere else that makes this possible for two specific ends, the rest of the mountain remains solid. And now you are mad the company did not invest the effort (that is unknown to you) to dig five or so more tunnels. Or you think that the original statement was a lie like they did hide the tunnel from Stadia City from you, as if it was always there?
You forgot to count Xbox Game Pass and Geforce Now in this list.
I consider Game Pass more a subscription and add-on to the microsoft ecosystem rather than a launcher. You could reasonably be game-pass only if you really wanted to go all netflix-style gaming, but I sincerely doubt that is a large population of people.
Geforce Now, as I understand it, connects accounts from your preferred service (Steam etc,) and streams it to you, it’s not like Stadia was where it was its own separate platform and save system.
The groundwork has figuratively and literally been dug by both IOI and EGS already. Given their work on doing Microsoft-ecosystem specific saving, and Steam → Epic and the upcoming Stadia → Consoles/Steam/Epic support, it seems rather strange to leave the one company that actively encourages crossplay out of the loop. Hell it doesn’t even make much sense to segregate between consoles and PC anymore (although Sony are apparently still quite dickish, so i’m not surprised IOI haven’t done that on a larger scale).
I know a played-out, obviously false PR line when I see it. In college, I did graphic design, meaning by proxy I learned a lot about PR speak, advertising tropes and how to hook people in and keep interest. I trust my intuition that yes, they lied back at the start of 2022. I got told at the time that “doing systems one way does not mean it works the other way”, and now, rather magically, IOI decided to be the good guy to do stadia transfers which works between all platforms.
Funny that – A system that is more complex politically and technically (all platforms involved have to give the go-ahead) is able to be made, but Epic to Steam transfers just isn’t possible apparently…despite other games have already done and conquered such issues. That doesn’t make any sense to me?
As I said when I posted about this a month ago, I’m not angry at IOI doing the right thing here for Stadia users, but what it does do is show off their behaviour and their entire hand. It confirms what they said was untrue from the moment it was written. The simple fact is that they just don’t want to do it. Smaller games made by smaller companies have managed to do what IOI can’t, so I refuse to believe it’s any kind of technical limitation, and more about what will make the company look good.
Thems’ Fightin’ Herds, a game made by an indie studio, should not have better cross-play support than Hitman.
The data model of content ownership that has to be translated into a unified model for the transfer is likely different for every store/platform. And that unified model has to be translated to the target store. Through probably a horrible jungle of endpoints.
The “groundwork” is probably just designing that unified model and the two interfaces (from and to) that have to be implemented for every platform. I don’t see how Steam or Epic knows how to read or insert content ownership into Microsoft or Sony services?
Of course that is just my assumption from what I saw so far in webdev, maybe other than me you have some insights?
Intuition is a great thing but pardon me that I can’t just adopt yours.
I don’t understand that the work to make this work is considered to be magical, like flipping a switch.
It probably is hard enough so IO does not just do it for every platform in every way. They only did it now because it was a needed thing that justifies the amount of work involved. Stadia died and IO wanted the players to not go overboard.
Uh yes.
What, did you think “this is not possible” was meant to be like “this is not physically possible”? No it was “this is not possible, we’d need to (find out how to) make this work and because of reasons we don’t do that now”.
Could you give a brief overview what that studio had to tackle? Note that this is not just about cross platform in the regular game play (like it would be if contracts and leaderboards were cross-platform in Hitman) but also about ownership.
I too think what I put in brackets is the easier task for IO and it is sad they don’t do this, but let’s not forget the thing with telling Sony that suddenly user X does not need to buy content A but owns it now.
I feel like you’ve misunderstood my use of the word magical. I was being a tad facetious, noting the curious ability for IOI to make cross saving between platforms, but only when they get some good PR out of it. Again, they are in the right for doing stadia transfers, I think I even mentioned that, but it does show off their double standard behaviour. They can’t make Epic → Steam transfers, but can take the time to do Steam → Epic, and Stadia → consoles/PC. Is that not suspicious to you? To anyone That raises every red flag in my book.
I of course didn’t mean “they can’t physically do it”, I meant precisely what I wrote, they don’t want to. They either have no interest in doing so, or there’s no opportunity to make themselves look good by adding support. I’m under no illusion that if they’re able to do the whole stadia transfers, one suspects they had plenty of time and manpower to do Epic → Steam transfers back at the start of 2022. It’s not exactly an unusual request, and given that they were able to make it work one way already, I see no reason why they wouldn’t have done so the other way.
Why are we talking about ownership? That’s not what I was getting at.
To answer the question, I don’t know. All I know about Thems’ Fightin’ Herds is that it’s been in development for a few years due to legal issues with Hasbro, and then when it got spun off into its own project, they were quite open about making a Native Linux port (which is when it piqued my interest). My knowledge of their BTS stuff is not something I looked up.
As I understand it, it just connects to their centralised server with some identifier that you’re on EGS via the protocols for that service (EGS uses EOS, Steam and steamworks etc.), instead of making separate servers for separate launchers, meaning separate accounts and a messy system IOI now has to deal with.
As a final note; I feel like i’m either not explaining myself well, or i’m getting a lot of resistance for work IOI should’ve done by now. I don’t think that’s even a controversial statement to be honest, given the other work they had to put in for every other system. Their behaviour is truly baffling.
I know you think it was right to enable the Stadia transfer. And that it would be good if this was possible for every system. I think so too.
I really don’t understand why this is suspicious for you. It only proves that it is possible in principle and it is a matter of priorities. If it was easier to do, it would not need to be so high in the list of urgent problems. Apparently it is hard enough so they rather not spend time on that right now.
It is kinda like the Patient Zero maps we got in contract mode recently. Who knows why this was so hard to be postponed that much. But apparently the more important things for the offices involved were done. I can imagine the network people are among the most busy people at IO.
I can only repeat to what you are repeating here. It is no flip of a switch.
But it is relevant.
Is it you now who pulls PR tricks on me? Why do you bring it up as a comparable situation then?
If the two are wildly different internally, you can’t say it should be easy for IO if it is easy for the TFH devs.
I think “servers” is not very accurate here since all of them seem to be behind the same Azure endpoints, but yes keeping it so strictly separated internally is likely one of the reasons the whole transfer is such a pain to do.
I mean I think I’ve made it quite clear as to why I find it suspicious. It’s IOI being opportunistic, and only doing the right thing when it suits them. From what I’ve seen recently, it’s not a matter of priorities, it’s a matter of wanting to do it so it makes the company look good.
The Patient Zero maps being in contracts mode is A: not something people were exactly clamouring for, and B: something I strongly suspect was done so the maps could be used in Freelancer. In my opinion, they made that a priority because of what they were working on internally, and released them for contracts mode as the work to make them generic for Contracts mode had been done, and there wasn’t much point in not releasing it . It seems a little out of the blue to finally add contracts mode support for The Author and Patient Zero when such a task was cited by IOI back in 2017-18 as not being possible.
I saw FAR more people asking for shoulder swapping to be re-added than PZ Contracts Mode support; the former taking 8 months to re-implement. I wouldn’t put much stock in trusting their priorities list.
If it was easier to do, it would not need to be so high in the list of urgent problems. Apparently it is hard enough so they rather not spend time on that right now.
You don’t know their internal motivations. In fairness, I don’t know either, but at the very least I’m using the evidence of IOI’s (very recent) past behaviour to make educated guesses.
…no? I’m not pulling any PR trick on you. You asked me if I knew anything about TFH’s internal processes, and I said I don’t know. That’s not a PR trick, that’s me saying “I don’t know the BTS of TFH”. You asked me and I answered truthfully and as best I could.
Why do you bring it up as a comparable situation then?
…because it’s an example of a game that has cross-play?
If the two are wildly different internally, you can’t say it should be easy for IO if it is easy for the TFH devs.
I’m not knowledgeable on web servers or web development; I pick stuff up as I go along. And I didn’t say it was easy to do; in fact I tried to avoid using that sort of language specifically because I don’t know the internal process. What I did say was that a company as big as IOI should be able to do what an indie studio (and many others) are currently doing. It isn’t a leap of logic to make that assumption.
I did some more research into TFH, and I regret using it as an example now as it doesn’t have Cross Progression, which is more what I was talking about (though cross-play in the sense of leader boards and such is something IOI really should do). I probably should’ve used Rocket League or Paladins (both of which do cross-play and cross-progression; the latter even does cross-purchases!), as those would’ve been better examples.
I was using that term in the sense of “connecting to one service to matchmake/ handle progression”.
I think we don’t discuss this on the same level here.
What keeps me making hitting a wall here with you is:
What is the difference between priorities and motivation? I don’t think “We want to look good” and “We want people to enjoy cross platform” are two different categories.
What makes you say they don’t follow a priority list? The time it takes to do the things does not match?
Why should the required effort play no significant role here? If something is wanted but is too hard to do, maybe it needs good reasons to start working on it? Something more than the demand for cross-platform?
I just don’t see your logic. You confess you too don’t know their internal motivations, but then call loose observations an educated guess. Like I was pulling my arguments from thin air.
IOI have made certain to try and keep it that way. For the record, I agree that the two are one in the same, but IOI seems to think differently.
I did not say that. My “A matter of priorities” comment is not to be mistaken for “they don’t follow a list of priorities”; I’m reasonably sure they do; it’d make a lot of sense business-wise and development-wise to do so. However, it doesn’t means they rigidly stick to it, which is what I was getting at. Judging by past behaviour, they have a habit on working on things that’d make them look good first, rather than what the game actually needs.
I never implied that it the ease of making something shouldn’t play a role. But they haven’t said otherwise, leading to my speculation based on their behaviour. The fact they’re familiar enough with EOS and Steamworks to do it one way already, means they’re already well-versed in how the two platforms connect. I mean, one suspects the whole stadia transfers requires the entire network team to be familiar with how each SDK and system works so the systems work as well as they need to.
You’re just guessing that it’s too hard to do Epic → Steam transfers , which is amusing as you’re implying that I think it’s too easy, when I’ve said nothing of the sort, and deliberately tried to avoid saying that. The fact that other companies that have gotten it to work (and in a “do it as much as you like” system too) shows that IOI either have their priorities out of whack, or just do not see the point.
It is possible. Whether or not it’s hard to do is not really what I was talking about. I don’t think such systems are a walk in a park to set up, but its difficulty factor should not outweigh how pro-consumer it is.
I feel like we’re just circling here. Before my patience runs out, I’m gonna mute this.
Then what makes it different for IO? You pick this up for your arguments, so I need to understand it here as well.
Okay, can you give examples of things that made them look good while it was not really needed? I think this is tightly connected. How to look good if only very few wanted something?
I mean they said nothing sadly. Besides “We don’t do it”. For me to guess why that is the case, I can only look back to my experiences with the software industry.
I think they should at a certain point. Imagine what we want requires a full rewrite of H3. That is obviously too much. That’d take years. But we both know it is not that much work.
How about months of work time? That is less. But less enough?
I am sure there is a line. And I all ask here is to consider that this line matters for IO.
No worry, answer when you feel like it or don’t at all.
Stadia was a cloud gaming platform made by Google. Hitman has been playable on Stadia since summer 2020. I personally played over 1000 hours on Hitman on Stadia alone.
Hey guys. I am having troubles choosing epic games to migrate to. It only shows me Steam although I have linked my Epic Games account. Anyone else have the same issue? I know MrMike is also…
In my case, Steam is greyed out (which is normal, because I have already done a carryover) and Playstation is available (a new profile must be created, this is also normal in my situation because I don’t have a Hitman profile on the Playstation network, I only have an empty PSN account linked to my IOI account.
But I can’t choose Epic Games or Xbox Live (I wanted to choose the latter).
