Wow stops now as Vista disrupts online games
By John Pospisil
Vista is disrupting game play for up to 70 million online gamers at sites like RealArcade, Yahoo Games and AOL Games, as well as at Microsoft’s own MSN gaming portal, according to WildTangent, an online gaming network.
Could WildTangent have an ulterior motive for speaking out about Vista’s problems with online games?
The CEO and co-Founder of WildTangent, Alex St John, argues that Microsoft has gone overboard in making Vista so secure that the security restrictions have broken most online games.
“Vista’s incompatibility with most downloadable casual games, including those on Microsoft’s own gaming portal shows the enormous challenges facing many small game developers with getting their games to work Vista,” said St John in a statement.
“WildTangent has spent the last year preparing for Vista. We worked with nearly every major casual game developer to get their games tested and compatible with Vista in our network in anticipation of these problems,” said St John.
In addition to breaking existing games, the security restrictions of the new operating system rely heavily on ESRB (Electronic Software Ratings Board) ratings to block children from accessing inappropriate games.
St John said that this represents an additional hurdle for the smaller games developers since most of these games are family appropriate but lack expensive ESRB ratings.
“Parents who choose to use Vista’s parental controls are likely to accidentally block access to hundreds of very popular family friendly games that happen not to have ESRB ratings.”
If you’re wondering why St John is going out on a limb to talk about all these issues with Vista, it’s because he’s claiming that WildTangent offers the only 100% Vista compatible gaming solution.
The WildTangent Vista Ready Console is available for “free” download at WildTangent.com, apparently giving gamers access to over 300 gaming titles – but before you get too excited, you do have to pay for the games that are worth playing.
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January 31st, 2007
So Microsoft has sold 70 Million Units specificaly to Gamers in 24 hours since release? LOL! Man this article stinks to high heaven!
January 31st, 2007
WinXP User, I almost didn’t quote the 70 million number for that very reason, but that’s the number given by WildTangent — that’s why I put “up to”… yeah I know it’s a stretch
January 31st, 2007
Before you did your “professional” reporting, did you notice their article date?
Microsoft Vista Failing 70 Million Online Gamers and Developers
WildTangent offers a 100% Windows Vista-Ready Games Console to Ensure Casual Gamers Have a Positive Gaming Experience
Redmond, WA, January 29, 2009 – As Microsoft’s Windows Vista launches, the new operating system is breaking online games and disrupting gameplay, not only its own games on MSN but also at RealArcade, Yahoo Games, and AOL Games. WildTangent offers the only 100% compatible gaming solutions with the WildTangent Vista Ready Console available for free download at WildTangent.com giving gamers access to over 300 popular gaming titles. Vista’s incompatibility with most downloadable casual games, including those on Microsoft’s own gaming portal demonstrates the enormous challenges facing many small game developers with getting their games to work with the new OS.
Alex St. John, CEO and co-Founder of WildTangent, and one of the principal creators of Microsoft’s DirectX technology believes that Microsoft has gone overboard in making Vista so secure that the security restrictions have broken most online games. “WildTangent has spent the last year preparing for Vista. We worked with nearly every major casual game developer to get their games tested and compatible with Vista in our network in anticipation of these problems,” said Alex St. John.
Gamers can download a free fully compatible Vista-ready games console at http://www.wildtangent.com and continue to play games regardless of which operating system they are running. The WildTangent games console will also ship on 25 million new Vista-ready PCs and laptops from Dell, Toshiba, HP and Gateway in 2007 ensuring that popular online games will be available and work on Vista PCs purchased from these OEMs.
In addition to breaking existing games, the security restrictions of the new operating system will rely heavily on ESRB (Electronic Software Ratings Board) ratings to block children from accessing inappropriate games. St. John believes that this represents an additional hurdle for the smaller games developers since most of these games are family appropriate but lack expensive ESRB ratings. “Parents who choose to use Vista’s parental controls are likely to accidentally block access to hundreds of very popular family friendly games that happen not to have ESRB ratings.” WildTangent’s new Vista-ready console includes a parental control solution that ensures parental control over downloaded content without blocking access to family appropriate content that happens to lack an ESRB rating.
February 1st, 2007
The best AntiSpyware programs identify Wild Tangent as SPYWARE.
February 3rd, 2007
Plus quantity is not quality. I could shit out three hundred games, but they’d probably be mostly pong rip offs, and stick figures fighting. If I made one good game, it would actually be worth playing. And who the #$% cares about Vista. If you care enough about gaming, your gonna wait for an actual game to use Direct X 10, because a Windows upgrade is a NICE way to save up money, as most games don’t spec up for a short period of time after one.
April 30th, 2007
so does anyone had a solution for this?
December 2nd, 2007
maybe vista calls it spyware because it is either loaded or enables spyware…everytime i try to play one of these games i get extensive pop ups until i pull them out of the system….can’t somebody fix this problem….
December 2nd, 2007
oh, and i need to add, i abhore vista………