Poll: Do you like or use Games for Windows - Live?

[RuralGamer]

I'm simply curious what peoples' thoughts are about this. I've only ever used it for one game, Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising and never had any problems with it, although since Retribution came out, I've only popped on it once in a while to message my friends on their Xboxes, so its rater defunct for me.
That said, there seem to be a very vocal group of critics and I'm curious as to why they hate it. If you do use it, what do you use it for?

Edit: darn, the poll seems to have failed.

 

[Findlebob]

I only ever used it for the same game and it wouldnt save my details or autolog me in which drove me crackers every time i tried to use it. The freind invite system was a bit stupid as well considering you had to go down all the people on the game to find the one person you wanted to go on with.

 

[Pyrosomniac]

I used it for one game, and one game only...

Bioshock 2...

I couldn't save otherwise, and to be honest I'm rather ashamed I bought it anyway! I really do not like the Unreal Engines texture drawing. Everything feels all blurry and crap, it really gets on my nerves for a game that practically sells itself on it's atmosphere alone! Ah well...

But yeah, I've used it and don't like it.

 

[Woodsey]

It is the biggest pile of fucking shit I have ever used, pushed by incompetent twats who can't tell their arse from their elbow.

 

[Xanadu84]

In every single experience that any of my friends have ever had with GFWL, the game they have bought has been rendered unplayable for some period of time, usually a few hours. In addition, there is not a single thing that GFWL does to benefit my play experience. There is no benefit whatsoever to its existence, as far as I can see. Ill play a game with GFWL, but it will have to be significantly better then a similar game without.

 

[Sacman]

It's Microsoft's most severe insult to PC gaming and gamers... it's an abomination...

 

[Timbydude]

I was forced to use it in order to play Fallout 3 on PC. It would constantly tell me that an update was available for my game, and then when I would click on the Update button, the GWFL client would crash, and that would screw with Fallout 3 and eventually force me to quit.

A year later, though, the updated version of the GWFL client seems to have taken care of most of these problems. Still, I would never use it over a superior game overlay like Steam.

The main reason it's annoying is that, as I just said, it's pretty much objectively inferior to Steam, which offers more. The only problem is that Microsoft has more money, and seems to keep paying companies to have it implement this awful overlay.

 

[BigText]

I had to deal with GFWL for Halo 2 years ago, and for BulletStorm recently. It didn't do anything except just kinda be in the way. The game wouldn't let me play it until I had signed into GFWL, which didn't seem to actually do anything. As far as I can tell, it's some stupid anti-piracy thing and maybe a half-assed attempt at getting Live! to PC's instead of just on Xbox platforms.

Except Steam ALREADY existed, so we didn't need something else getting in the way.

 

[Fooz]

i absolutely hate it, i had GTA:IV and the EFLC, and also had Batman Arkham Asylum, all these games used it.

And it would crash about 10 minutes after loading it up if i signed in to my Xbox Live Profile, i figured out that if you make an offline profile it would work fine, but then i wouldnt get achievements toward my gamerscore, so it might aswell have used Steam instead of GFWL

for me it is a big pile of shit and hasn't done anything for PC gaming, they should just drop GFWL, it doesnt benefit anyone in any way

 

[Nimcha]

It's making me unable to start up my copy of Fable III. Thanks for letting me wait 6 months for that, Microsoft.

 

[teqrevisited]

I've only ever used it for FO3 & NV, but since it's incompatible with FOSE I never use it now. Didn't encounter any problems with it whilst having it enabled though.

 

[Busdriver580]

GFWL is the only game overlay/matchmaking-thing I've ever used that regularly crashes, prevents me from playing games or requires me to manually install updates and reconfigure settings in order to do so, because the auto-update inevitably crashes every time.

 

[Continuity]

Bah, its awful and from a consumers perspective it serves no purpose other than to be another point of failure and another potential barrier between you and playing the game.

I own and play lots of games so i've been forced to use it about a dozen times.. every time painful and unnecessary.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I really don't like it, but if I want to play something that needs it, it doesn't stop me.

 

[Zipa]

Its a buggy pile o crap that is the ultimate insult from MS to PC gamers. Microsoft could of potentially rivaled steams might had they put some effort into it.

Integrate GFWL with MSN and a better online store and a decent interface, untold millions of people use MSN already so it would be in the mind/eye of millions of people.

Sadly though MS do not give a crap about the PC market and GFWL only proves that.

 

[Limecake]

I've played just about every game worth playing on GFWL and I can honestly say it's nothing special. a lot of games have issues with the software, quality games are released far too slowly and other than the fact you can unlock Xbox achievements in PC games it does everthing Steam does but far worse.

 

[EllEzDee]

I'd sooner put my own fucking fingers in my eyes and gouge them out until all that remains is a bloody, squishy hole.

If i have to use bloated adware, i'd rather use one with cheap game deals, á la Steam.

 

[linwolf]

Installed it, went into offline mode, never had a problem with it since. With is more than I can say about Steam.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

I use it for GTA IV on PC, it's fucking useless. I need to sign into my Xbox gamertag to load my game, I have no option to go appear offline either so I get bombed with messages and invites, each message likes to drop my framerate to zero for a few seconds. Modding is made that tiny bit more infuriating too with GFWL.

It's kinda nitpicky too, but what the fuck is up with logging into Steam, then Rockstar Social Club, and then GFWL just to play one game. Fuck all these middlemen let me just log the fuck in and play.