Windows 8 and WP8 Release: What it Means for Game Developers

Vladimir Kolesnikov, an expert on strategic technologies at Microsoft, gave an exclusive interview to the App2Top portal. As part of a rather lengthy conversation, we discussed the reason for creating separate operating systems for smartphones and tablets, the issue of porting applications to them, as well as the features of monetization of games on Windows 8 and WP8.

When will the first Windows 8 tablet be released?

A very good question, because it is easy to answer. The official launch of sales will take place on October 25 at 10 a.m. East Coast time, and on October 26, sales of the system and devices will begin worldwide. 

And what kind of tablet will it be?

It will be several devices at once. In fact, we tried to get in touch with most of our vendor partners synchronously. Including it will be our Surface RT tablet. Literally at midnight on October 26, stores will open in New York, where they will begin to be sold.

They say that there is a little confusion with the types of tablets: there are tablets compatible with applications for previous desktop OS, and not compatible. Is it so?

Yes, that’s right. There are, in fact, two Windows operating systems: Windows 8 in general and Windows 8 RT. The RT version is visually no different for the user, with the only exception that it is sharpened and made for devices on the ARM architecture, which is installed on the vast majority of mobile devices. As a consequence, since these classic desktop applications that exist for previous versions of Windows are not made for the ARM architecture, they will not work there. Only those applications that are published in the Windows Store will work there. For them, the specifics of the ARM architecture are no longer important, and they will work both there and there. The development tools themselves have support for the application to be built on the same base for three platforms at once: X86, X64 and ARM.

If we talk about our tablet, the RT version will be released first, and the so-called Pro version on the Intel processor will be released a little later. Probably three months later.

What resolution will Windows 8 tablets have? Will there be tablets with different resolutions and a variety of views, like Android, or will it be one or two standard devices?

It will be a variety of species. The resolution for tablets, if we talk specifically about tablets on Windows RT, will start with 1366×768 – this is the minimum. There will be diversity, fortunately or unfortunately. Rather, fortunately, because people have different monitors, different computers, including different screen resolutions. There will be devices already announced from other manufacturers, including in the format, for example, of a 10.1-inch screen with Full HD resolution. There will be devices with the same format, but with a resolution of 1366×968. And there will be devices based on Intel architecture, where there is a huge touch monitor, perhaps 20 inches. And in this sense, on the one hand, developers are increasing the amount of work they have to do – you need to draw graphics. On the other hand, we tried to write quite succinct and understandable guidelines on how this is done.

I can explain with an example. Let’s take a game like Doodle God for Windows 8. Drawing graphics in order to support the maximum number of form factors, you can get out of the situation quite simply: sharpen the game for 16×9 aspect ratios, for which, conditionally, 90% of all devices will be released. At the same time, it is possible to draw from two to four types of graphics, in terms of resolution, ranging from devices with a small screen to huge screens. You can just save them in different resolutions. And after that, if you run on a computer with some other aspect ratio on any device, be it a tablet or a regular monitor, then the fields will simply appear. Yes, someone will be dissatisfied with this, but there will be very few such dissatisfied.

Will apps made on Windows Phone 8 and on Windows Phone 7 be compatible with Windows 8?

No, these are different operating systems, they will be similar in many ways for developers, oddly enough, since they are made on the same core, but from the point of view of applications and from the point of view of markets, they are completely different for users. The fact is that due to some tradition or fact that there is on iOS or Android, there is a desktop operating system (in the case of Apple) and there is a mobile operating system on which the phone and tablet work. Our situation is different: we have a “completely” mobile operating system on which the phone works, and there is a mobile-desktop operating system on which the tablet and desktop computers work. Because all our tablets and the tablets of our partners today, if desired, can only be turned into ultra-beeches. In my opinion, so far all Windows 8 tablets that have already been announced have a keyboard counterpart. It can exist separately as a tablet, but at the same time you can always connect a keyboard, mouse and similar things to it and work with them as with full-fledged computers. This is also true for RT versions that do not have traditional desktop applications. Because the RT version of Windows comes with Microsoft Office, where you can print text, work in Excel if desired. In general, all the things that categories of users who tend to produce something are moaning about are not just content. We solved this problem for them: connect the keyboard and work. 

Here is an example of Apple, there is an example of Google, and why did you decide not to follow their examples initially, but to do it your own way, to make a mobile OS for phones and tablets separately?

Because we firmly believe that users, including those devices on Android or iOS, do not engage in any activity on iPad or Android tablets, for which it would be very convenient to have a mouse and keyboard, not because they do not need it, but because they normally do it. they can’t. That is, in this case, we are actually saying that if you really don’t need to do this, let’s say you only play with toys and go online, then you will have the same opportunities, at least for gaming and surfing the Internet, as on competitors’ tablets. But if you need it, then you get at your disposal a normal full-fledged machine, in terms of devices and basic software. 

How difficult/easy will it be to port applications, for example, a game from iOS to Windows 8?

As usual, it depends. I’ll tell you about two extreme options. Suppose you have a game that is made for iOS, it is written on its own engine, then everything, of course, depends on how well the various parts are abstracted: graphics output, game logic, etc. We have on Windows – C++, full–fledged, without any restrictions, including for Windows Store applications that can be published in the Windows Store, sit down – and port. From the point of view of graphs and abstract engines (I mean not hung with specific game logic), we have good old DirectX, which a lot of game developers who have traditionally developed on PC are familiar with. We have Sharp DX – this is, in fact, a DotNet binding over DirectX. If you have DotNet developers, then they can be given the opportunity to use the full power of DirectX. And finally, there is MonoGame, familiar including on other platforms, with which you can also develop games for Windows 8, for Windows Store. Moreover, there are already several such games in the Windows Store, which are made specifically on MonoGame. This is option #1.

Option #2. These are already targeted game engines. And the first one is, of course, Unity. Not so long ago, just a month ago, Unity announced that the next version of Unity 4 will support both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. They have not yet released a release and builds are distributed by special invitations, but this will happen sooner or later. And if you have a game on Unity, then it can easily be ported to Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 – this is the minimum circle.

And finally, the third option – another ported engine, which was widely announced – is Unreal Engine, which was also ported, including to Windows RT, but so far they are not distributing it at all, they just created a demo and said that there would be information.

And Marmalade?

The Marmalade team confirmed that Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are obvious priorities for them and the development of the corresponding versions is already underway. By the way, another engine that is exactly ported to Windows Phone (at what stage is porting to Windows 8, I’m not sure) is Cocos2D.

A very important question about games, since we’re talking. There are rumors that in games on Windows 8 it will be impossible to sell in-game currency for real money inside the game. Is it true? If so, why did you abandon such an in-app, on which developers earn a lot of money?

This is partly true. “Impossible” is the wrong word. The correct word is “not very convenient”. The fact is that Windows 8 has today (we are not saying that this will not happen in the future) there is no in-app console. There are simple in-apps, there is a subscription, that is, you can sell in-apps that never end, conditionally, like game levels. And there are in-app subscriptions that “rot” after a while after the sale – this is a classic subscription model. In-app consumable, that is, classic gaming money, of which you bought a thousand, and they are being spent on the sly – they are not there. But this does not mean that we forbid emulating them in any way – someone does it. And they do it quite simply: they sell a certain in-app, you buy it, and then they fix its consumption on their infrastructure. There is nothing complicated here. Plus, it has some validity time, or, in the end, your purchase will go bad, that is, they actually only need you to buy it. Thanks to the store, they get the moment of purchase, and then they fix the expense themselves. Yes, it requires additional infrastructure or programming, rather, both, from the game developer, but this does not mean that it is prohibited. In addition, we will not get tired of repeating a thesis that does not work very well for most indie developers, but can work for developers in general, especially for large ones: We do not force them to use our billing. Use others, write your own, do not pay us any deductions from this, take everything for yourself and be happy if you do not like the Windows Store from this point of view. Spread through us, and collect the money as you see fit.

And why did you do that?

This is our way of differentiating from the competition. We enable people to keep their income. This has an obvious drawback. Most of the people I talked to, especially game developers, believe that this will scare away a certain percentage of users from in-game purchases, but at the same time you will not need to leave 20-30% of Microsoft for these purchases.

Now there are rumors that Apple is going to tighten its rules about cross-promotion, there is a new point in the contract. What ways of promotion and advertising will you have on Windows 8, on Windows Phone 8, in particular, offers, cross-promotion, banner exchange between applications?

Everyone who can make apps makes them. We do not restrict them in any way if they do not violate the law: they do not show pornography, do not promote homosexuality (it is relevant for us in Russia) – it depends on the country. If you are not doing something in some market that is illegal for this country, then you can do cross-promotion and anything. Our own promo is one thing – a feature in the Windows Store, spot lite on the Windows Store homepage as soon as the buyer opens it, a feature inside categories, among games, among news applications, etc. and spot lite in sections that belong to device manufacturers. That is, each device manufacturer will also have its own spot lite, where he can feature certain applications that he likes, not counting those that he has already installed on his device.

Perhaps App2Top readers will be interested in a few more facts.

Everyone likes to ask what your forecasts are, how many devices you will sell. Usually we don’t tell such information. But in the case of Windows 8, we decided to tell you what our forecasts are. In the first 9 months, we plan to sell 400 million Windows 8 devices worldwide, 30% of them, we expect, will be devices with a touch. It is either convertible devices where there is a keyboard, or clean tablets, or laptops with a touch. We are not saying that 100% will be devices with a touch, it is clear that there are a lot of classic computers. This is our forecast. People will gradually move from the seven, from XP to Windows 8, and already today the interest in Windows 8 is one and a half times higher than it was in the same period with the super-successful Windows 7. That is, in three months of registration in the transition program from Windows 7 to Windows 8, we received one and a half times more applications than in six months of the transition program from Vista to seven or from XP to seven.

Plus, there are two more quite interesting figures. During the existence of pre-release versions of Windows 8, which were distributed for free (they could be downloaded for free), these were developer preview, consumer preview and release preview, which, in fact, can be called release candidate. They were downloaded 16 million times, of which 7 million were downloaded release preview – this is an unfinished operating system, with no actual devices that can move it, it was just interesting to people, and 7 million people downloaded it. In general, there is nothing wrong with the interest in Windows. Now, when applications appear, there will be someone to download, buy and give developers the opportunity to earn money.