Games for Windows FAIL
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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Dawn of War was once on my list of games to get through one way or another (for about 5 minutes), but i read the back, saw the words "Games for Windows Live" and realized that any redeeming qualities of a game that I was expecting would be a disappointment or worth a single playthrough didnt exist.
games for windows live is not just a piece of crap, its a giant light consuming cancer on the face of all things glorious about PC gaming. there is nothing good in it, from the fact it lets the inferior consolfags play with the PC gaming Overrace, to the terrible distribution, to the failure of its matchmaking. now my issues with steam are more personal issues related to the fact i have never successfully played a game on steam
games for windows live is not just a piece of crap, its a giant light consuming cancer on the face of all things glorious about PC gaming. there is nothing good in it, from the fact it lets the inferior consolfags play with the PC gaming Overrace, to the terrible distribution, to the failure of its matchmaking. now my issues with steam are more personal issues related to the fact i have never successfully played a game on steam
I purchased the same deal and the only problem I had was trying to remember my password for my windows live id. Maybe I was just lucky but it downloaded in an hour (few gigabytes) and runs perfectly. Just saying all cases are not like yours.
I am so happy I refused this "offer" when I saw that I could only pay .10$ by either credit card or by buying an 800MS points card from a retail store. Nah, really not worth the hassle, let alone the obvious aftermath that I seemingly evaded.
My sincerest sympathy to all who fell for what Microsoft propagates as "charity".
My sincerest sympathy to all who fell for what Microsoft propagates as "charity".
The worst part is that some companies get the bright idea that using Steam and GFWL at the same idea is "great DRM". (See: Dead Rising 2, Dawn of War 2.) So you need to be logged in with two accounts at the same time - one of which is perfectly functional, the other of which is... yyyeeeahhhh.
Even though. I know we all expect a certain degree of polish from programs like this, but it's hard to read this like anything other than "Shamus has computer issues!" I can count on one finger how many programs that haven't needed serious tinkering to get working optimally, from Word to Steam to iTunes to Chrome. Maybe because it has "Microsoft" and "Windows" in the title we expect different - and even then, in what universe does that makes any sense?
Even though. I know we all expect a certain degree of polish from programs like this, but it's hard to read this like anything other than "Shamus has computer issues!" I can count on one finger how many programs that haven't needed serious tinkering to get working optimally, from Word to Steam to iTunes to Chrome. Maybe because it has "Microsoft" and "Windows" in the title we expect different - and even then, in what universe does that makes any sense?
I myself haven't received major issues from GFWL titles that you buy in-store, like Fallout 3 and Halo 2, but if I remember correctly, without update, Gears of War had a pretty crippling bug that made sure you couldn't play it if your computer's date was set past 2008. This article, however, was about the GFLW store and backend.WaaghPowa said:I haven't had any serious issues with GFWL yet, but the games I have that require it I got from steam. I was seriously thinking of getting Gears of War for pc, should I, or avoid it now that I've read this?
6 gigabytes of updates sure is quite a lot, but I'm not very tech savvy so I'll buy it. But what if I don't want to download the updates? What if I just want to play the game? Is that illegal or something? I'd rather just be able to stick the disc in my drive, install it, and play it.cocoro67 said:
My 2 cents.
I didn't have this much trouble, though I did have to accept the terms of conditions on two different accounts (one of which being my brother's).
yeah, GFW is an epic pile of shit. There really is no excusing it. Like why can't you manage your games/profile from the GFW program itself? You can only do that from IN GAME. The standalone program does absolutely nothing except have links that take you to the GFW store in your browser. What in the hell is the point of that? Why is the program even there?
I'm glad to see more and more games abandoning GFW for Steam. While Steam isn't perfect, at least it works and has a good community and doesn't treat PC users like bastardized XBLA users.
I'm glad to see more and more games abandoning GFW for Steam. While Steam isn't perfect, at least it works and has a good community and doesn't treat PC users like bastardized XBLA users.
GFWL denied me the possibility of getting the DLCs for Fallout 3 and insisted on being a ***** and ruining my Red Faction experience. That said I will never ever ever use it.
As others have mentioned the CD key thing happens from time to time on Steam too, I only recently discovered that fact. I own a few GFWL games, I own a few Steam games (All through retail). If you create a local profile and choose to forgo the online services you can fire up your games no hassle AT ALL, in this regard "Games for Windows Fail" > Steam. That's all I'm saying. Personally, I'm not a fan of either. I'm really, really not.
By the way I can't wait for the huge writeup bashing Steam
OHNOWAI....
I usually like your content Shamus, but bludgeoning one service to death while ignoring the rest is rather distasteful.
EDIT
Now I realise I may just come across as having a vendetta against Steam, you know what, I kinda do.
But what I'm trying to get at is this:
I understand you had a fucking TERRIBLE experience and this article was probably a heat of the moment thing. I'd have preferred if you'd slowed down and done a writeup on the shortcomings of the still young Digital Distribution business, and included all platforms (or more realistically all the current big players). Your spiel would have fit in just fine under the same heading but within a larger commentary and you would be very much justified in ranking this particular service bottom of the table based on your experiences.
I'll leave you with these parting words:
Big picture my friend, big picture.
By the way I can't wait for the huge writeup bashing Steam
OHNOWAI....
I usually like your content Shamus, but bludgeoning one service to death while ignoring the rest is rather distasteful.
EDIT
Now I realise I may just come across as having a vendetta against Steam, you know what, I kinda do.
But what I'm trying to get at is this:
I understand you had a fucking TERRIBLE experience and this article was probably a heat of the moment thing. I'd have preferred if you'd slowed down and done a writeup on the shortcomings of the still young Digital Distribution business, and included all platforms (or more realistically all the current big players). Your spiel would have fit in just fine under the same heading but within a larger commentary and you would be very much justified in ranking this particular service bottom of the table based on your experiences.
I'll leave you with these parting words:
Big picture my friend, big picture.
Microsoft just plain straight out fails at lots of things, with the exception of microsoft office or thier operating system. Windows sucks so bad they had to sue htc and motorola in order to force them to make the next crappy windows phone. i went from widows mobile to android(which is newer to the mobile world than wm and nailed it when wm failed it). i also hate GFWL. It is far inferier to Steam, and in my opinion is made to be crappy to force others to resort to thier piece of crap rigged red ring of death crapbox 360. microsoft is a ripoff company nothing more and nothing less. After having to deal with gfwl with Batman AA, i realized its more trouble to play a game that uses gfwl.
You know, if the title of this thread didn't read Games for Windows FAIL and just Games for Windows, I would still have been able to predict the contents.
Games for Windows,
keyword: Windows
Windows in and of itself generally represents failure, problems and misery except when it does get some things right, a lot of the time the things its getting right is making things difficult for the user.
Part of me wants to ask "What part of this whole proceeding surprises you?" the rest just feels sorry for you.
Games for Windows,
keyword: Windows
Windows in and of itself generally represents failure, problems and misery except when it does get some things right, a lot of the time the things its getting right is making things difficult for the user.
Part of me wants to ask "What part of this whole proceeding surprises you?" the rest just feels sorry for you.
Here's how my purchase of AoEIII went:
Load up GFWL, accept new ToS blah blah.
Click the offer.
Purchase, accept.
Download.
Play game.
Also, your point about GFWL running after closing down? Steam does that too.
That said, GFWL is abominable. It's so clunky and restricted, and the majority of content is overpriced as fuck. I hate having to use it, and I'm thankful when games don't have to use it.
Load up GFWL, accept new ToS blah blah.
Click the offer.
Purchase, accept.
Download.
Play game.
Also, your point about GFWL running after closing down? Steam does that too.
That said, GFWL is abominable. It's so clunky and restricted, and the majority of content is overpriced as fuck. I hate having to use it, and I'm thankful when games don't have to use it.
It sucks that that happened to people, but it worked for me, I bought that and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 (because I fucking love that game) and both work fine.
I wanted to pick this game up, i was so excited to see it was only 40 points... But then i realized i was a day late.
Sadface
Sadface
My friend and I have had some, well, "less than ideal" experiences with trying to run Bioshock 2 through it, and all the hand-wringing about Steam becoming a monopoly has a simple answer: Make something that's better than Steam. But the guys at Microsoft, realizing what an impossibly tall order that is, seem to have just given up and mashed their hands on the keyboard for a while to code it. But by all means try; as Shamus said, competition here is definitely a good thing.
Its gotten to the point where I dont even use my xbox any more, my dvd drive was broken my the 3 year old 6 months ago and I havn't fixed it/dont care. There really is no substitute for steam. while to worries me long term about competitiveness here in a Australia it cant be worse than the jb hifi/game/eb games oligopoly. And steam really has brought me fun and interesting games again at a fraction of what I pay (remember I live in Australia) over the counter.. And games for the kids that they actually like too, rather than re-skins of boring console games..
I bet there were numerous choice words after the first problem with Firefox (obviously not not you browser's fault)... and I'm betting there were even more and louder choice words when you found out they "ran out of keys".