r/pcmasterrace • u/screwdriverfan • 24d ago

News/Article Microsoft patents system to freeze games and inject ads during downtimes — watching commercials earns ad-free playtime credits

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/microsoft-patents-system-to-freeze-games-and-inject-ads-during-downtimes-watching-commercials-earns-ad-free-playtime-credits
7.9k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/NotaVortex PC Master Race 24d ago

This is why you get a pc. All that shit will be modded out.

1.0k

u/420weedscoped Rtx 3090 | Amd Ryzen 7 5800x | 32Gb DDR4 24d ago

Valve could also just put it agaisnt their terms of service and pretty much everybody would have to go along or you'd sell nothing on PC.

926

u/19412 RX 550 • i5-6600K 24d ago edited 24d ago

It's already against Steam's storefront policy to implement ad-based revenue generation for anything that isn't a promotional event within a game. This ads-for-playtime thing would never be permitted.

447

u/Someotherrandomtree Asus TUF 5070 Ti | Ryzen 9 9950x3D 24d ago

This is why we need to make sure Robo-Gaben happens so Steam stays the way it is

93

u/Blaziken420_ 24d ago

We have to make a Mr. House out of Gaben whenever he dies

35

u/TieMillenium 24d ago

Pretty sure Valve has been working on BCIs for a long time so that's probably already in the works.

29

u/Rew0lweed_0celot Haha, Xeon go brrrrr 24d ago

GABeOS

17

u/AuthoritarianParsnip PC Master Race 24d ago

Put him on the Golden Gaben Throne

3

u/StaleSpriggan 24d ago

Blood for the Valve god, skulls for the Gaben throne!

1

u/ourlastchancefortea 24d ago

And if all fails we resurrect him.

MUSTA GABEN

MUSTA GABEN

THE TIME HAS COME

AWAKEN

2

u/Gimlz Ryzen 5 3600 / EVGA 2070 Super / 16Gb DDR4-3600 24d ago

He truly will become the emperor or mankind on the throne.

1

u/jntjr2005 24d ago

Monkey paw curls

1

u/GlowyStuffs 24d ago

Why would they do this knowing steam exists and all those games couldn't be released on steam ever, and generally would be disliked by all unless they had plans to assasinate Gabe? It feels like some race between Sony and Microsoft to coordinate major gaming dystopia, knowing everyone would hate them for it unless they had some plan to make it so that nobody had other options. Though gog also exists. And other stuff on PC too. Unless this was just for mobile games.

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u/lmflex ryzen 7 7800x3d, geforce 5070ti 16gb, 64gb ddr5 6000 cl30 24d ago

And people still dislike steam? Imagine if Sony or microslop ran that. It would be past garbage by now. With AI garbage. And every update would break half the games.

67

u/Fracasist Specs/Imgur Here 24d ago

That’s also why Tim Sweeney hates Steam

41

u/xXDamonLordXx 24d ago

They're always pissed we choose steam and try to guilt us with how it is unfair for the poor publisher's profit... sorry "devs" despite indie devs without publishers having blown up in popularity almost exclusively because of Steam.

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u/epimetheuss 24d ago

Indie and smaller devs are crushing the supposed "AAA/AAAA" clowns that think they get to decide if players like hyper aggressive monetization strategies or not. They are also making way better games because they make games to be fun, not trap players in dark pattern BS and artificially making the game worse to force them to use the store.

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u/Emotional_Solid6538 24d ago

What I hate is that some indie devs get controlled by someone shitty like in case of Subnautica and Disco Elysium

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u/nuker1110 Ryzen7 5800X3D,RX7700,32gbDDR4-3000,NotEnoughSSDspace 24d ago

And devs would have to pay a fee to push patches.

13

u/Falanin 24d ago

Oh, looking at Steam, it's easy to see how they could completely screw us over. They're a monopoly the same way Amazon, Google, or Netflix were. Trusted because they're the best.

Any venture capital or a different set of board members and they'll forget that the business model works because they're mostly ethical. Then we'll be back to getting copies of games from whatever source we can, sorting them manually, and talking about games on 3rd party sites.

2

u/Dr_Valen 7800x3d / 9070xt / 64gb / Cachyos 23d ago

steam isn't a monopoly tho. People could easily migrate to gog or even god forbid epic games. Steam is only one of the PC gaming storefronts. They're the most popular because they treat consumers right but if they flipped they'll lose customers too

0

u/Falanin 23d ago

Yes, you're seeing what I was getting at. Steam apparently holds monopoly power because they're so much more popular than their competitors...

but we could do without them if they were gone. Their position in the market is, as you also said, a product of how well they treat people compared to their competition.

2

u/No-Pomegranate-69 R7-9800X3D | RTX 5080 | 64GB DDR5 | 2x 4TB M.2 24d ago

Extremely expensive garbage on my side

-1

u/goonknight6969 24d ago

I hate valve not steam as a product. I hate them because of how much gambling shit they peddle with cs2, they were also the ones who popularized loot box mechanics

4

u/bickdiggles 24d ago

How does that work when it’s the OS that’s forcing ads? I can’t imagine the OS is subject to Steam’s storefront policy 

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u/Cheet4h 24d ago

The patent as described in the article would have to be implemented in the game engine. So the game developer would have to just not activate that feature. If they do, they violate Steam TOS.

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u/Emotional_Solid6538 24d ago

Steam is also trying to move to Steam OS permenantly

1

u/bickdiggles 23d ago

Have they released it officially for desktop use?

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u/Emotional_Solid6538 23d ago

Technically yes. The Steam Machine desktop mode is meant to be used with kbm. Tho I wouldnt say its desktop yet. Also steam has a lot of games which wont work on Linux, so they need to do smth about it before promoting Steam OS for PC I think

1

u/bickdiggles 23d ago

That makes sense. Is Steam OS limited to just running games on Steam or do games from other store fronts work as well? 

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u/Emotional_Solid6538 23d ago

Its Linux. You can rum wtv is cpmpatible like GOG, Epic. But apprenty gamepass dont workeven though xbox games work i think?

2

u/Nausicaaah 24d ago

Gabe Newell is 63 years old.

0

u/Penetratorofflanks 24d ago

So how does 2k get away with it?

2

u/-nutz 23d ago

Not sure what you’re getting at, but afaik 2k doesn’t do anything against Steam TOS. The rules are as follows.

Supported:

Games may contain real brands, products, personalities, etc as part of gameplay, provided such portrayals are not disruptive and are appropriate within the context of the game. For example, a racing game might feature real life sponsor logos on its race cars, or a skateboard game might include characters wearing real-world brands.

Not supported:

Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play, or gating gameplay behind advertising.

Developers should not use advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players a reward for watching or engaging with advertising in their game.

Source; steamworks documentation

-5

u/solarwindy 24d ago

M$ and others are looking at streaming games. Sadly no matter how long Gabe lives, the Steam model is going to go the way of Tivo.

In 5 to 10 years (at the most) you will simply download a small client on your pc (or console) and then play your games streaming.

And a lot of people will think this is great because they no longer need to buy an expensive video card. Nvidia would rather sell M$ and others back end gpu's to run these games thsn to pesky customers like you and I.

Its probably too soon (luckily) for Elder Scrolls 6, but I could see Fallout 5 (likely another 7-8 years awsy) from being the big game they use to launch a service like this.

1

u/meneldor_hs 7600x/9060xt/32gb 24d ago

That's why they want to take out Steam

0

u/Simple-Machine6799 24d ago

Steam deck running linux native is also peak

-20

u/muakaya9876 24d ago

that would just increase piracy

2

u/No-Photograph-5058 9850x3D 9070XT 64GB DDR5 24d ago

I think they mean it the other way around as in the ad injection would not be allowed (which in this case if the ad isn't related to the game it already isn't allowed)

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u/ContributionNo8787 24d ago

We've reached the inflexion point of game innovation

There's nothing more they can do to compete with each other so it's just about putting a price tag on every single thing they can to bleed gamers dry

Dynamic pricing, micro transactions, season passes, now ads on a console you own and a game you clicked "buy" telling you it's a game you should own but fine print says fuck yourself

14

u/Transientmind 24d ago edited 24d ago

This isn't game-only 'innovation', it's just capitalism, full stop. It happens in pretty much every industry.

First and easiest is the productive growth: better products, lower prices to expand market share, remove barriers to entry and add accessibility to expand the market audience, consolidate market share through mergers/acquisitions, automate processes and pipelines for efficiency...

And when you reach the limits of productive growth, you switch gears to reductive growth. Skimp on materials, fire people, reduce support quality, remove costly features, fire more people, pay people less, cut down on R&D instead just iterating on existing models. Lobby regulators to remove or relax regulations that prevent further cost savings at the expense of the public. Expand market share by driving competitors out of business.

Then there's rent-seeking. Extract additional value from the captive market share. Monetize any possible aspects of the product or service that previously hadn't been. Convert purchases to recurring subscriptions. Eat away at the base offering, converting more and more of it into subscription or purchase. Attack the concept of ownership.

Then abstractions: Diversify. Invade tangentially-related industries where the previous steps of capitalist growth haven't been optimized into oblivion. Bundle offerings together to claw out market share. Attach to public funding, seeking grants for semi-related objectives already being met for profit. And worse. Prey on gambling vulnerabilities and addictions. Teams of psychologists are hired explicitly to lock in living, breathing wallet-banks.

It's the 'blood out of a stone' playbook and it happens predictably in any industry where companies seek to deliver not just a steady profit for shareholders, but a reliably growing profit, for a return on the investment. Infinite growth.

8

u/Yuzumi 24d ago

Yeah, this is the exact thing that is happening in basically every industry. These people will burn a company to the ground to gain pennies now rather than orders of magnitude more profit in a year. They literally don't think about anything but "this quarter".

It's late stage capitalism and these people are basically a death cult.

3

u/turbospeedsc 24d ago

Yup, a reliable business that produces one trillion dollars of profit a year is not enough, they need to keep growing or the shareholders could go another year without renovating the guest bedroom bathroom on the auxiliary yacht.

1

u/NotaVortex PC Master Race 24d ago

Which is funny because all of the best selling games, dont have any of this.

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u/OkAlbatross9889 Gentoo | r7 7700X | 9070XT | 32gb 24d ago

If it gets baked into a proprietary piece of software that works within a proprietary OS that actively supports this, good luck.

Microsoft fucking sucks, but they're not stupid. You'll get the ads as long as they want you to see them. Any and all efforts made until now to "debloat" windows to remove adware and bloatware work purely because they haven't been enough of a nuisance to microsoft bottom line to intervene, but be sure that as soon as they become one you'll be shit out of luck.

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u/PM-ME-YOUR-LABS I5-9600K@5GHz/RTX 2070 Super/32GB RAM 24d ago

Sure, but with SteamOS on the horizon to make Linux plug-and-play accessible for gamers, locking down Windows would just be lighting the Xbox on PC/PC Game Pass investments on fire, particularly given this would be against Steam ToS and would effectively reduce new Microsoft releases to “Epic Games Exclusive” levels of reach

11

u/eozca 24d ago

linux plug and play IS here TODAY and has been for some time. if you people actually gave a shit about owning your pc you would be running linux already instead of talking about steamos which is just another distribution in the heap.

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u/PM-ME-YOUR-LABS I5-9600K@5GHz/RTX 2070 Super/32GB RAM 24d ago

Sure, unless you’re playing a game with kernel anti-cheat- SteamOS is going to be the only linux distribution that actually has the market share and developer/user trust necessary to even potentially get those games working on linux. Until it comes out, you’ve gotta use Windows/Mac or you’re SOL

7

u/eozca 24d ago

might be just me but i think people defending an operating system by pointing out that it is the only one that is vulnerable to kernel-level malware that they willingly install on their own computers because the malware ships with a mediocre-at-best videogame is a great example of how computer-illiterate people really are

1

u/Emotional_Solid6538 24d ago

Some years ago I used to play Valorant. Icl I had no idea what Kernel level anticheat meant. I didnt stop playing cuz of Vanguard tho

5

u/Sanity_in_Moderation 24d ago

It's so much easier to switch to Linux than people think. Everyone is stuck in the mindset of 10 years ago.

Mint Cinnamon. Steam. Proton. It all just works. Have a question? Ask a free chatbot. I switched my desktop and laptop over to Linux last summer and never once had to ask a tech friend for advice.

5

u/Yuzumi 24d ago

I have had basically no issues with CachyOS on any game have tried save one,

And that one game actually runs fine on its own. There is just an old dot net tool that is finicky even in windows and getting dot net to work in proton can be a pain.

And no, I don't play anything that wants to install root kits they call "anti cheat". As much as I can enjoy competitive games I do not enjoy the toxicity that always comes with them so I avoid most of them and the ones I avoid happen to be the ones that don't support Linux, which is convenient.

3

u/AileStriker 24d ago

Been rocking cachyos for almost a year and love it. There are some snags, but no more than random shit windows would throw at me and the problem solving isn't difficult with the amount of resources available online.

5

u/eozca 24d ago

i made the switch on all my computers a year ago and my experience is that linux is better and easier in literally every conceivable way than windows ever was. even specialized tasks like making music or doing digital painting are better, despite the much more limited selection of DAWs.

5

u/Sanity_in_Moderation 24d ago

Remember dreading updates because Microsoft would just change things you had set up? Constantly fighting your computer because Microsoft wouldn't let you control what you own?

I did a full update of everything yesterday on both computers. The time I had to spend making it all work right again was zero. Literally no time. I haven't had that since Windows XP. People want plug and play? That's plug and play.

2

u/eozca 23d ago

oh yeah, not only did they reset settings, they straight up installed stuff on my computer that i had specifically uninstalled, often with the command line because they wouldn't let me uninstall it the normal way from what is supposedly my computer. i remember multiple times of me screaming at my computer in frustration over how the yanks seem to think that they own my computer that i paid for and can do whatever they desire with it as if i didnt notice or care. i remember how relieving it felt when the windows updates stopped working because of a bug.

never once has linux installed something on my computer that i didnt specifically ask for or manually install my self, apart from the default software that your chosen distribution ships with (that you can uninstall in like 2 clicks no problem). the only reason winslop still has users is ignorance

1

u/narawolf3 24d ago

Well, not all games run on Linux. CAD software and certain other programs for modeling don't run on Linux. I'll stick to win10 ltsc.

1

u/Yuzumi 24d ago

Life finds a way...

And my "life" I mean modders and emulator developers.

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u/assidiou 24d ago

Guess who owns the OS the majority of PC gamers use.

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u/Bestyja2122 24d ago

Yeah I don't think picking a fight with steam is something anyone would like to do, and even if they did something steam quite literally has its own os now

2

u/ToflixGamer 24d ago

There would be other gaming-focused OS like Bazzite too.

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u/angrydeuce Ryzen 9 7900X\64GB DDR5 6400\RX 6800 XT 24d ago

Heh, MS is going to be moving Windows to a subscription based service as well. It's been in the works for years, they just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

The requirement to have a microsoft account in order to get past the OOBE in Windows 11 is part of that groundwork. That's how it's going to verify your subscription status and lock your physical hardware behind a monthly paywall.

Want to use more than 16GB of RAM? You need W12 Premium. Want to play games? You need the gaming add on that unlocks GPU acceleration. Want more then GbE networking? Want to use more CPU cores? Want to customize your background?

It's going to kill their share of the consumer PC OS market, but that's such a tiny piece of their income (I work in IT, you should see what they're raking in for licensing servers and azure and shit, makes Windows look like change from grandma's ashtray in her car) that they don't give a fuck. PLUS, they have the muscle to lock exclusivity in so that if you want to play the game at all (a subscription itself, most like) you need to have a valid subscription to Windows, too. And the AAA publishers will buy into this because MS is going to give them big wheelbarrows of cash to develop the games in the first place.

Going to be a lot of people switching to linux....assuming the hardware itself doesn't also end up getting subscription locked by then. Can't wait to have a sub to Nvidia and Microsoft and a Studio to play a fucking video game. Gonna be awesome!

8

u/UnidentifiedBob PC Master Race 24d ago

thats okay ill play the games on steam.

3

u/AnarchBeetle 24d ago

You could just pirate everything. Where there is a will, there is a way.

3

u/turbospeedsc 24d ago

When that happens I won't enjoy it, but ill move to Linux for something else than my plex server.

As for games, there a big enough library of current games so far to keep me busy a couple decades.

Heck there is enough unplayed games in my steam library to keep me busy a couple years.

1

u/Running-In-The-Dark 24d ago

Well I mean the EU is already kicking Microsoft aside to use Linux and Linux has already been pretty damn user friendly for awhile already. So if MS wants the shotgun, please be mindful and at least make sure it's loaded with buckshot.

2

u/Emotional_Solid6538 24d ago

Many governments are switching to Linux since years. Microsoft doesnt even make its money from Windows these days. Its mostly from their enterprise products and cloud

2

u/angrydeuce Ryzen 9 7900X\64GB DDR5 6400\RX 6800 XT 24d ago

Yeah the amount we pay monthly in just Office subscriptions is 5 figures. We end up dropping mid-high 4 figures on server licensing, which is all based on core count, and the requisite user/device CALs. And then the cloud bullshit (storage/server VMs) and now copilot licensing and teams calling plans. We are not a very large company, either, like 7500 users across the US, with a few dozen in Europe and SE Asia.

That's why I say that they really could just do whatever the fuck they want because Enterprise is thoroughly locked in and Linux admins cost a lot more than Microsoft does. Shifting off of VMWare when Broadcom went scorched earth was one thing, moving off of Windows Server would require so much money they'd never do it, not to mention how many of our core apps are designed around Windows Server.

Google has really positioned themselves in much the same way, but the opposite. Workspace is a tragedy but they're making all their money from adsense and youtube and scraping metric fuckloads of data on the consumer side of things. Their Enterprise side can just be in perpetual "yeah put it in the suggestion box" mode for all time for all they care. They know they similarly have edu and nonprofits by the balls there.

This is precisely why companies should not be able to get as large as they have. When they have their tendrils spread across so many different markets, there is zero competition or desire to really pay it much mind because that costs money, either in R&D or competitive pricing, and that will not make line go BRRRRR.

If you had told me this is where we would be 10 years ago I never would have in a million years predicted it. This shit is just fucking bananas.

1

u/Emotional_Solid6538 23d ago

Google controls the web and funds competitors js to not be illegal as a pure monopoly

1

u/Yuzumi 24d ago

Yeah, I stopped using that over 2 years ago. I'm good.

1

u/assidiou 24d ago

Friends made fun of me for switching 8 years ago. I told them I was preparing for when they decided to switch. Now they're asking about Linux.

1

u/Yuzumi 23d ago

I've been using Linux off and on for a quarter of a century. I've wanted to switch for most of that time and I did switch on my laptop over in college after spending half a class period with windows unusable because it was forcing an update.

I had dual boot on my desktop but the games I would play were just too much of a pain for substandard results most of the time. Proton helped, but early on it wasn't quite there. I also had an Nvidia card which didn't help.

Then I got my steam deck. After spending a year or so seeing how well games worked when I built a new desktop a couple of months before I made the switch I got AMD because I knew I was going to jump ship at some point and did so when I heard a rumor that the AI BS was coming to windows 10.

Over a year ago I decided to hop to CachyOS and realized I hadn't booted into windows in like a year and a half. Coppied anything I thought I might need off that partition and reclaimed the space when I installed Cachy.

2

u/Briggie Ryzen 7 5800x / ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero / TUF RTX 4090 24d ago

Also super sure this is against Steam TOS.

1

u/SpartanMase 24d ago

Not the most affordable, also not easy to work

1

u/SomewhereExtreme924 24d ago

Only to be replaced with hackers that will make multi-player impossible to play

1

u/NotaVortex PC Master Race 24d ago

Ehh i dont really play multiplayer games like that that arent co op pve games because of this. Even on console i got tired of dealing with xims

1

u/RockyTopRowdies 24d ago

Im just so tired of it. I dont want to, "mod it out" or jump through the hoops of piracy. Either make the thing work or I just wont use it at all.

1

u/JayBird1138 24d ago

You might need to switch to Linux, in case they put this in at the OS level.

1

u/JohnTheBaptiste1 23d ago

Honestly it feels like both Sony and Microsoft are trying to push gamers to PC, and I'd say that's a bold but promising strategy if both companies hadn't recently announced the intention to double down on their consoles.

I'd love to know what their game plan is, or maybe I'm giving them too much credit by assuming they actually have one.