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A Moment's Silence for [The Death of Games For Windows Live]

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Posts

  • SmokeStacksSmokeStacks Registered User regular
    Lars wrote: »
    I've got Fallout 3 on my Steam account but haven't had time to play it yet.

    I assume Bethesda is cool and will take care of whatever issues may arise for me, or that there are easily implemented workarounds that I can do myself?

    I don't remember having to do anything with GFWL when I played Fallout 3 on Steam. I think it tried to ask me for a login the first time I played, but I told it to go fuck itself and that was that.
    Zek wrote: »
    GFWL being inferior to Steam was understandable when it launched. Everybody hated Steam when it launched too. It would have taken a lot of work to catch up though, and Microsoft just left it to die pretty much from the beginning. And they just kept accumulating customer ire by continuing to put games on this service that never stopped being terrible.

    A lot of people mention how terrible Steam was when it launched when they talk about GFWL (or Origin, or whatever other service), but the problem is that GFWL wasn't competing with launch Steam, it was competing with refined for years Steam.

    I think Microsoft has known for a long time that no one wants GFWL, but they still kept it around because they had to have some kind of dd service and closing it down would be like admitting defeat. My theory is that people had to deal with shitty, broken online play and disappearing saves for years all because MS wanted to save face.

    This new attempt to monoculture everything Microsoft has into the Windows 8 style is just a perfect excuse, because now they can ditch GFWL and then say they did it to make way for their new Metro Games on Demand service, or whatever they end up calling their next DD thing.

  • BronzeKoopaBronzeKoopa Registered User regular
    I only dove into PC gaming when I built my first PC in 2011. One of the first things I bought on Steam was some GTA Complete Edition sales pack and a Batman Arkham 1+2+Imposters+DLC pack from a sale. Realizing that I had to set up a GFWL account just to play GTA4 single player sucked. Also I didn't realize that you had to input the DLC product keys into a separate GFWL client program to unlock the DLC for Arkham City. It confused and frustrated the hell out of me because I can see the DLC on Steam -- I thought I had to beat the main story first to activate the DLC or something.

  • lowlylowlycooklowlylowlycook Registered User regular
    Gaslight wrote: »
    It shall die as it lived: terrible and unloved.

    Fitting that it would screw people over one last time through the games that won't get patched, though.

    Of all the things said about the death of GFWL, this might be my favorite.

    steam_sig.png
    (Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
  • BasilBasil Registered User regular
    It's poetic, really.

    Ah well. Ding dong, the witch is dead!

    9KmX8eN.jpg
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited August 2013
    Tube wrote: »
    The chances of Valve going under in the next ten years are vastly lower than my chances of losing a game disk in the same time frame are.

    Valve could shut down tomorrow and I'd only be pissed about the game I'd lose from purchasing over the last year or two; Steam has done infinitely more in helping me retain all my old games than I could ever lose in it shutting down at this point. I think I've been with Steam seven years across three states and 4-5 places to live, and they've yet to lose a game on me; that's a lot more than I can say for myself and the dozens of cartridges and game discs I've lost for consoles over the last couple decades.

    And good riddance to GFWL. I hate Origin and Uplay from sour personal experiences, but they're nothing compared to how aggravating and useless GFWL was. The only bad thing about this is it didn't happen years ago.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • korodullinkorodullin What. SCRegistered User regular
    Lars wrote: »
    I've got Fallout 3 on my Steam account but haven't had time to play it yet.

    I assume Bethesda is cool and will take care of whatever issues may arise for me, or that there are easily implemented workarounds that I can do myself?

    I don't remember having to do anything with GFWL when I played Fallout 3 on Steam. I think it tried to ask me for a login the first time I played, but I told it to go fuck itself and that was that.

    Fallout 3 only used GFWL for achievement tracking and for some save game storage. A lot of bigger FO3 mods already require you to bypass GFWL entirely by moving your save game directory, so it won't really affect anything in the end.

    ZvOMJnu.png
    - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
  • Regina FongRegina Fong Allons-y, Alonso Registered User regular
    edited August 2013
    korodullin wrote: »
    Lars wrote: »
    I've got Fallout 3 on my Steam account but haven't had time to play it yet.

    I assume Bethesda is cool and will take care of whatever issues may arise for me, or that there are easily implemented workarounds that I can do myself?

    I don't remember having to do anything with GFWL when I played Fallout 3 on Steam. I think it tried to ask me for a login the first time I played, but I told it to go fuck itself and that was that.

    Fallout 3 only used GFWL for achievement tracking and for some save game storage. A lot of bigger FO3 mods already require you to bypass GFWL entirely by moving your save game directory, so it won't really affect anything in the end.

    Yeah I don't recall having any interaction with GFWL (I own FO3 and all the DLC on actual disks).

    Even if there is some sort of required interaction I think between Bethesda and the mod community it will be obliterated the moment it gets in the way of a actual play.

    **

    Note: "Actual play" shoud be read as 'boob physics and nude mods'

    Regina Fong on
  • Dark Raven XDark Raven X Laugh hard, run fast, be kindRegistered User regular
    It is mind blowing to me that stuff that ain't really that old, like Red Faction Guerilla, could soon be unplayable.

    Oh brilliant
  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    I remember going like hours trying to get gfwl to patch (and constantly failing to) Guerrilla to play, so it's probably only a very small step down.

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    I've had one hilarious incident with GWFL:
    You can't register new CD keys if you change your backup email address without sending an email from the old address. For 30 days.
    Since my gwfl is tied to my seldom used hotmail, I never noticed that I still had it backed up to my uni account I haven't had access to for years.
    So when I got Batman:AC, had to log in to register, there was some prompt like 'Are these security settings correct?' and I went nope, guess I'll set it to my gmail. 'We sent an email to your old address to confirm this, please do so now, otherwise the change will take 30 days to complete'
    Then I tried to register DLC, and it just went 'nope'

    A 30 day cooldown.

    The kicker was that googling showed that registering games from inside the gwfl client instead of the gwfl website ignored the cooldown.

    So a really dumb cooldown was negated by really dumb security settings.

    I've also had a GWFL update loop (Everytime I started Iron Brigade it would update to the newest version, even though I already had the newest version) and the gwfl stutter was pretty bad in Iron Brigade for me.
    I can't recall any positive things that happened to me due to GWFL. No positive unique feature.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular

    If I lose the ability to play Bulletstorm, I will be sad.

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • Big ClassyBig Classy Registered User regular
    Well there was one positive about GFWL; it United all pc gamers in their hate for the service.

  • TransporterTransporter Registered User regular
    Hold on a sec
    Lets check for a pulse

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    The only two GFWL games I've got are Bioshock 2 and Arkham City.
    Am I screwed?

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • cooljammer00cooljammer00 Hey Small Christmas-Man!Registered User regular
    klemming wrote: »
    The only two GFWL games I've got are Bioshock 2 and Arkham City.
    Am I screwed?

    Those are two with the highest chance of getting patched, so no.

    steam_sig.png

    3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
    Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    edited August 2013
    About the only unique feature, real talk, is cross platform multiplayer with 360s. And since only like six games total ever made use of that, it's basically a non feature. Also, in the early days (Shadowrun FPS era), you had to have a Gold gfwl account to do so, which basically everyone said "fuck that" to.

    Fucking hell, remember that? Microsoft had so much of a hard on with their console division that they tried to bring Live-style subs to the PC by gating certain features of their substandard service through a paywall. I genuinely wonder if people balking at that shit is one of the reasons Microsoft basically went all "fuck PCs, get Xbox."

    Oh, and I guess if you liked pumping up your Live gamerscore and having unified achievements with the 360, gfwl was OK. There are a few people liked it for that reason. These people are nuts so pity them.

    Zxerol on
  • cooljammer00cooljammer00 Hey Small Christmas-Man!Registered User regular
    The only thing about GFWL I liked is that it seemed to recognize when I pressed the PS button on my PS3 controller and would bring up the overlay. The overlay was almost entirely useless, but it's still kinda cool that it works.

    steam_sig.png

    3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
    Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited August 2013
    klemming wrote: »
    The only two GFWL games I've got are Bioshock 2 and Arkham City.
    Am I screwed?

    Maybe.

    If it dies and you can no longer play Bulletstorm, that it a joyful eight to ten hours you'll never get a chance to experience.

    Go get Bulletstorm before it's too late!

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • grouch993grouch993 Both a man and a numberRegistered User regular
    GFWL managed to lose my account information along with destroying my Batman:AA save games when trying to recover.

    This was enough to stop me from trying to play Batman:AC. Maybe I will be able to play both again one day.

    I also purchased both through steam, so I had the extra inconvenience of layered mandatory game services.

    Steam Profile Origin grouchiy
  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    Thanks for sharing?

    LxX6eco.jpg
    PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
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