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Why Games for Windows is a mess

Submitted by rapture on Thu, 05/10/2007 - 3:37pm.

This guy at ExtremeTech put into words what I've been feeling about Games for Windows. It's an excellent look at why Games for Windows needs to change drastically for it to be a success.

Some key points:
* Live on the PC only runs while you're actually playing a Live-enabled game.
* The GFW - Live user-interface was designed for a controller.
* Microsoft charges for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages.
* The only publisher to support GFW - Live is Microsoft.
* No 3rd party developers are supporting it
* Epic has said why they aren't supporting Live on the PC with Unreal Tournament 3, and what Microsoft needs to do to fix it.
* People don't want to pay more to get less.
* Just when the Xbox 360 owners get all hyped up about the vastly superior Halo 3, the Vista users get a port of a 2.5-year-old game they should have had access to simultaneously with Xbox owners back in 2004.
* Geometry Wars is $5 on the Xbox 360, but the Vista version somehow costs $7.95.
* Two of their whopping four GFW - Live games this year are ports of old Xbox 1 games.
* They are publishing exactly zero triple-A Windows exclusives this year.
* Don't take your premier PC developers like Ensemble Studios and have them make real-time strategy games (best suited for the PC) and task them with making an RTS exclusive to the Xbox 360 like Halo Wars.
* The Games for Windows branding and certification program is a good idea.

I will be very surprised if the current version of Games for Windows - Live is a success. I expect it to fail unless a major overhaul takes place. I polled over 800 people and almost half of them don't want to pay for a Gold membership. They don't want to pay for a service that has less features than they currently have.

I think all the game developers realize this. They see developing for GFW as a risky venture. Microsoft needs to make GFW an outstanding platform before other developers will jump on board. Game developers are showing more support for Xfire than they are GFW - Live.

Still, PC gaming is fun. We'll still have our old options like Xfire for us. However, we WILL be blocked from certain features in-game if we don't have the right subscription. That's discouraging.

Master Kim's picture

Interesting...

Submitted by Master Kim on Thu, 05/10/2007 - 5:11pm.

This article reveals some things I never knew about Windows Live--Live only runs while you're playing a game? That means you won't get some notice saying "rapture rapture wants you to play" while you're crusing the Internet?

Seriously, it seems to be an uphill battle for Games for Windows Live.

By the way, Xfire = win.

Oculus's picture

I have a feeling

Submitted by Oculus on Fri, 05/11/2007 - 4:35pm.

I have a feeling that the version of GFWL we are going to see this year will be very much different than what we'll see in years to come.

Heres what I would like with Games for Windows Live: Start up my computer, GFWL is automatically started up and an icon is place in my taskbar. If I get an invite, a message will be displayed over whatever I'm doing, and I can click on the invite and have the game launched automatically. I can be invited to voice chat/IM/video chat/whatever from any of my friends on my friends list.

Microsoft should drop the silly looking interface that they've got currently for GFWL. It's designed for consoles and should stay on a console. If I click on the taskbar icon there should be an option to go into full screen mode kindof like Windows Media Center.

This would be a start.

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Shout Box

rapture: 7 on 7th achievement available today in H3
[10/07-04:02pm]
D15AV0W3D: Instead of a Halo movie, they should make "Elite vs. Predator". Ha ha, just kidding...
[10/07-10:28am]
Celery: I just noticed how much the Elite is a rip off of the predator, they even cloak in one of the trailers! wtf
[10/07-05:27am]
Slayer: I haven't read that the controls are that terrible... surely they can't be any worse than BFME2.
[10/06-08:36pm]
Master Kim: Halo Wars trailer just makes me more depressed over how not awesome the controls are. :(
[10/06-08:16pm]
Mintz: Wow, Halo Wars trailer just makes me want a Halo movie.
[10/06-09:37am]
rapture: New Halo Wars trailer is great!
[10/05-12:30pm]
Slayer: Just watched it, I agree, and it reminds me of Halo 1 alot... sweet!
[10/05-12:16pm]
Midnight: new halo wars trailer at gametrailers is awesome
[10/05-11:20am]
D15AV0W3D: and he did it so nonchalantly
[10/03-10:00pm]
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