Internet Petition Demands Dark Souls Drop GFWL

[Andy Chalk]

Internet Petition Demands Dark Souls Drop GFWL

Games for Windows Live in Dark Souls does not sit well with PC gamers.

You may have a petition [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116749-Port-of-Dark-Souls-Prepares-PC-Gamers-for-Death]!

"GFWL is unpopular, difficult to use, inconvenient, has terrible online support (a key feature in Dark Souls), and is downright unpleasant. After anxiously awaiting a PC release for this fantastic game it feels like a real slap in the face hearing Dark Souls will use Games for Windows Live," it says. "We recommend Valve's Steamworks in place, as this DRM is much easier to use, less intrusive, more reliable, and more accepted among PC gamers. Please reconsider the use of GFWL, or offer the game on both services. Thank you for taking the effort to port this game, but for a lot of customers it's Steam or no sale."

Before we get all dismissive, we should probably bear in mind that the PC version of internet petition [http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-Playstation-3/dp/B004NRN5EO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334256319&sr=8-1] that attracted over 92,000 signatures. The current "No GFWL" petition is doing pretty well for itself too, garnering over 13,000 signatures in just its first day.

I can't help but think that "Steam or no sale" gamers are cutting off their buttons to spite their mice, to coin a somewhat more relevant expression, but props to them for sticking to their guns. And who knows? Given the precedent set by the "we want Dark Souls" petition, maybe Namco will listen to this one too.

The PC-exclusive Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition launches world-wide on August 24.

Thanks to gigastar [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/gigastar] for the tip.


Permalink

 

[Tanis]

I don't blame people.

I've used GFWL once and made a 180 da hell outa that crap.
I'm not even a fan of STEAM, but at least that tends to work better.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I don't agree with no steam no sale but I agree with not using GFWL. Tons of other people do and here it's just the lesser of 2 evils. I'm pretty sure tons of people would rather use steamworks than GFWL. Also what took you so long this was made within minutes of the actual game being announced? People were linking the petition all over the news page of the other article on this.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I'd buy it even if it's not on steam, just not GFWL. Anything but that please.

 

[Azuaron]

You know, I'm probably a "Steam or no sale" gamer in this instance. Not really because I hate GFWL (though I do), or because I really love Steam, but because Steam is very, very effective at getting me to buy things, and Dark Souls is more of a curiosity for me than a must-have game.

Curiosity in an "I wonder how well I can deal with failure" kind of way.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

As the article mentions, considering Dark Souls arriving on PC was brought about in part due to a petition, I can't help but feel that yet another petition will remedy this unfavorable decision.

 

[Somethingfake]

I'd buy it even if it's not on steam, just not GFWL. Anything but that please.

Anything? Even Ubisoft DRM? You're a stronger man than I, friend!

 

[RA92]

Considering how much GFWL is prone to losing your save files, this is especially worrying since Dark Souls has only one continuously updated save file. And you probably won't even be able to back it up since it'll be encrypted.

Tread carefully, From Software.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I'd buy it even if it's not on steam, just not GFWL. Anything but that please.

Anything? Even Ubisoft DRM? You're a stronger man than I, friend!

Well considering the only games to use Ubisoft drm are generally games published by Ubisoft, we don't need to worry about that at least.

 

[RaikuFA]

You guys...

You got your port. Be happy with that. Us Tales fans can't even get a petition through.

 

[therandombear]

Some people are never happy...

I can understand the disappointment for GFWL, I've used it before, mainly when I played FO3 and DoW2, but at least they got the game for the PC.

Baby steps.

 

[AnarchistAbe]

*sigh* I'm done. Is it just me, or is every news story nowadays about gamers bitching about *insert topic here*? Is it just me that sees it?

 

[draythefingerless]

GFWL is a great deal for me to NOT play a game. if i wanted that kind of hassle, i would play in xbox live.

 

[80Maxwell08]

You guys...

You got your port. Be happy with that. Us Tales fans can't even get a petition through.

You just got Tales of Graces F and didn't that sell pretty well all things considered? Also didn't Namco Bandai trademark Tales of Xillia for the U.S. and Europe recently? Also there's no point in a bad port especially if that port uses a service known to just delete saves at random.

 

[Sandytimeman]

PLease stop GFWL, its so bad it makes Gotham City Imposters almost impossible to play. I hate it so much please, Steam or Ubisoft DRM ANYTHING BUT GFWL!!!!

 

[AJax_21]

You know I'm all for competition between digital distributors. Heck, I would've supported them even if they went with Origin as their DRM, it doesn't even have to be a steamworks game.

The problem is that GFWL is an abomination that deserves to be dragged to the backyard and get its brain blown off its head with a shotgun at point blank range. And my only experience with GFWL was Bioshock 2!

 

[ResonanceSD]

I'd buy it even if it's not on steam, just not GFWL. Anything but that please.

Anything? Even Ubisoft DRM? You're a stronger man than I, friend!

Ubi drm has always worked for me, even allowed offline modw better than steam does.

Ot:signed. GFWL is the worst DRM around.

*sigh* I'm done. Is it just me, or is every news story nowadays about gamers bitching about *insert topic here*? Is it just me that sees it?

Do you even understand the issue? This is a pretty serious feasibility question. Plenty of people won't get this because of GFWL.

 

[Roboto]

*sigh* I'm done. Is it just me, or is every news story nowadays about gamers bitching about *insert topic here*? Is it just me that sees it?

You're done? Don't let the door hitchya!

But really, a lot more about what is being heard is people saying "no more" to crap like this. How many times have we had to digest GFWL or other garbage Microsoft likes to attach to games, like Halo 2 Vista edition? The only reason this will probably fail too is because the almighty contract with Microsoft on GFWL will stranglehold them into having to use it.

The cost-benefit analysis will end up like this: is the cost of buyout to disconnect from GFWL proportionate to the gain of people that will buy it without GFWL in place? A petition is kind of useful in that regard, at is quantifies the amount of people who will not buy it with GFWL, which can be multiplied by the profit each lost sale could have made, subtracting a safe margin that were signatures with no intent to buy. If CancelCost = AmountOfLostSaleRevenue, it ain't going anywhere.