Oh, silly GFWL

[ObsessiveSketch]

Senior producer of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, Kevin Unangst, tries to excuse the service's shortcomings by insisting that there weren't enough good games to truly get Games For Windows Live off the ground.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/09/microsoft-games-for-windows-live-needs-great-games-to-take-advantage/

Meanwhile, in "reality", the long list of comments below the story show the near-internet-wide loathing of Microsoft's digital distribution system. I myself have several games that I bought through Steam, but also required GFWL to play. Needless to say, they have since gone untouched, laying useless and forgotten on my desktop.

So, fellow Escapists, what are your experiences with M$'s alternate to Steam? Are there redeeming qualities, or should the whole thing just be scrapped and forgotten about?

 

[little.09]

this should be scrapped whenever my internet gets capped i cant play half my games. F**K YOU MICROSOFT

 

[PlasmaFrog]

Scrapped. I've never used it though, I've only heard horror stories.

 

[SwimmingRock]

Senior producer of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, Kevin Unangst, tries to excuse the service's shortcomings by insisting that there weren't enough good games to truly get Games For Windows Live off the ground.

Classic example of the horse<->cart problem. None of the good games were released through GFWL because it was shit.

 

[Worgen]

Ive used it and its crap, utter crap, they would pretty much have to scrap it and start over

 

[FalloutJack]

I never hear anything positive about this thing. Evan an optimist has to be going "Oh fuck." at all this.

 

[Jaker the Baker]

I, my friend, will stick with steam

 

[octafish]

It stops me buying games I have a little interest in, but aren't necessarily a must-buy. Case in point while Bulletstorm looks like it could be a bit of fun, I won't get it because of GFWL. Best Fallout 3 mod of all time is the one that mods out GFWL.

 

[Musicfreak]

I've had the misfortune of using GFWL 3 times. Every single time I had to spend hours trying to get it to work. Worst part is I don't want any of the stupid bullshit it provides but I still have to install it anyway. O right I almost forgot, GFWL also corrupted my save files when I played Bioshock 2. The deepest circle of hell is not punishment enough for GFWL.

 

[LogicNProportion]

Never had a problem with GFWL. Kind of liked it actually.

I use Steam, too.

It's whatever...

 

[thiosk]

Scrapped. The GFWL network is a heavy-handed and retarded attempt to support PC gaming culture.

It is essentially an intrusive and annoying DRM system. Some people make the same claim about steam, but no one talks to those people because they live in their mother's collective basements.

It stops me buying games I have a little interest in, but aren't necessarily a must-buy. Case in point while Bulletstorm looks like it could be a bit of fun, I won't get it because of GFWL. Best Fallout 3 mod of all time is the one that mods out GFWL.

steam version requires gfwl?? please no?

 

[Zhukov]

It's a bloody nuisance.

Especially when you buy a game from retail or on Steam and then the fucking thing requires you to use GFWL anyway!! Jesus Christ Microsoft, I have already paid for the damn product. Now get the hell out of the way.

So, in my opinion, GFWL can choke on its own shit and die. The sooner the better.

(PS. In before that one guy on here with the robot bird avatar who always defends it.)

 

[onewheeled]

I have never had a positive experience with GFWL.

In the Age of Empires 3 sale, when it was only 10 cents for the entire game plus two expansions, I had to wait several days for my key, since they "didn't have enough". And that only took me about three hours to finally get working.

Then, about a week later, I decided to download the demo for Viva Pinata, since I was considering buying it, and wanted to try it first. No matter how many times I downloaded, checked, deleted and redownloaded the demo, there was NO WAY to play it. None whatsoever.

Plus, the client itself is just a piece of total ass. No positive attributes, whatsoever.

 

[octafish]

Scrapped. The GFWL network is a heavy-handed and retarded attempt to support PC gaming culture.

It is essentially an intrusive and annoying DRM system. Some people make the same claim about steam, but no one talks to those people because they live in their mother's collective basements.

It stops me buying games I have a little interest in, but aren't necessarily a must-buy. Case in point while Bulletstorm looks like it could be a bit of fun, I won't get it because of GFWL. Best Fallout 3 mod of all time is the one that mods out GFWL.

steam version requires gfwl?? please no?

I think so, Dawn of War 2 certainly did when purchased through Steam.

 

[thiosk]

Scrapped. The GFWL network is a heavy-handed and retarded attempt to support PC gaming culture.

It is essentially an intrusive and annoying DRM system. Some people make the same claim about steam, but no one talks to those people because they live in their mother's collective basements.

It stops me buying games I have a little interest in, but aren't necessarily a must-buy. Case in point while Bulletstorm looks like it could be a bit of fun, I won't get it because of GFWL. Best Fallout 3 mod of all time is the one that mods out GFWL.

steam version requires gfwl?? please no?

I think so, Dawn of War 2 certainly did when purchased through Steam.

I have a moderatly strict no-gfwl policy.

Looks like DOW2 is off the buy list, as is bulletstorm. I'm too busy to play em anyway.

Perhaps the Duke will be the crazyshooter I pick up.

 

[Zhukov]

It stops me buying games I have a little interest in, but aren't necessarily a must-buy. Case in point while Bulletstorm looks like it could be a bit of fun, I won't get it because of GFWL. Best Fallout 3 mod of all time is the one that mods out GFWL.

steam version requires gfwl?? please no?

Yup.

You can't even get to the main menu without signing up for a GFWL account.

 

[King Kupofried]

I bought Age of Empires 3 for I think it was.. $0.10 or so during one of their deals from several months ago. This was my first time interacting with GFWL.
I have yet to actually play the game though.
Every attempt to download it usually results in the program slowing my entire computer to the point where it is essentially useless until I kill GFWL. On the worse occasions it simply crashes itself or my computer. This is despite various attempted 'fixes'. I am not the most computer savvy person in the world, so there may have been a way to get it working had I persisted, but eventually I just decided that ten cents was not enough of an investment to be worth the hassle and just purged this atrocity from my hard drive.

On the otherside, I have used and absolutely adored Steam for years. Steam has never, not even once, given me a single technical problem despite frequent use on various computers.

So, as far as I am concerned, GFWL is a failure and I wish to never interact with it again. Please scrap it.

 

[Summerstorm]

GFWL is disgusting. I read about it "bringing the console-feeling of multiplayer to the PC". Whaaa? Why would you want to do it?

Well, my experience is: It allowed me to play Street Fighter IV online. So good so far. Then i switched to Windows 7. And now i can't play anymore. (It can't get a connection) Changed nothing, ports are open,no firewall, no other program has ANY problems. So yeah, now i can't play the ONE game i needed this crap program for.

Also if i set someone to: "FUCK of, i won't play with this rude mic-spamming bastard", GFWL still matches me with him. It doesn't display latencies as NUMBERS but as crude bars. The control is optimzed on 3 buttons, even if we have a damn mouse and full keyboard. Eugh... the damn thing is just weird.

 

[samjc3]

I hope someday Yahtzee gets a game that forces him to use this, not because I want him to endure the pain of it, but because it would be very gratifying to see him verbally punish it in a review.

Until then, I shall simply say that it should be murdered very very violently. I would never have believed that a piece of software could make me wish the devs to death, but thanks to GFWL, now I do. When I buy a game, I expect to be able to play it. GFWL generally prevents this, in one way or another. For example:

Flatout: UC requires a log in to play, as all titles do. however, it crashed out a shit ton, and when I finally got it stable enough, the log in overlay thing had no mouse pointer, and it took spectacularly long to highlight a text box, and when I did, I could not input text. Fuck that, didnt ever play.

Red Faction: Guerilla Just crashes out. Game works fine, but as soon as GFWL rears its nasty head, the whole thing goes up in flames.

Bulletstorm took about 3 downloads, patches, and more to even get it playable. Then GFWL was murdering performance very thoroughly.

Fallout 3: Thank god for the mod that fixed it.

Yes, GFWL should surely die. I have never had a game with it where it has not fucked my experience pretty extensively, from making games totally unplayable to simply making them very annoying.

 

[archvile93]

It's a horrible piece of worthless code, and to this day I beg my computer for forgivness for the unspeakable crime of cruely subjecting it to such a terrible program. It still won't talk to me.