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Games for Windows Live shutting down July 1, 2014.

E

Eusis

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Koch Media and WB will face the same pressure.
Click to expand...
No, probably not.

It's always a possibility, mind, even with Nintendo they might suddenly be forced to stick with only Hanafuda cards, but as Koch Media's not related to other Koch companies and has had long term investment in gaming I don't see why they're likely to treat this as an experimental foray to ultimately back out of after a few years.
 
M

Mupod

Member
ib1dh8kgjQF4ud.gif
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
Aw that is just great, bought GTA IV on the steam summer sales and now a month after they are saying that they will discontinue their GFWL service? Hat means that my GTA IV and Dead Rising 2 is screwed, thanks alot MS. Last time I'm buying your stuff that isn't Windows -_-
 
M

MCD

Junior Member
They already have an app store in 8 and it will continue to exist with every major Windows release.
 
T

terrible

Banned
TronLight said:
If we will still be able to launch our GfWL games, you can always set up an Hamachi server for co-op play.
It should work right? At least for those games with local co-op, I think.
Click to expand...

Miker said:
RE5 actually has LAN support, so it should still be playable if you can get a tunneling service (eg Tunngle) working.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I had never even heard of that kind of thing. I'll bookmark this for later in case I need it. I know they're not exactly considered amazing games but I was still looking forward to playing them co-op.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Grief.exe said:
Holy shit they removed it!
Click to expand...
Guess they don't want us to know just yet, or are reconsidering their plans. Honestly I'd prefer them to stick with shutting down then BUT working with every developer/publisher to get their games off of GFWL (I make it sound like a drug addiction... though I guess you could argue this for achievements) and onto either other DRM (eurgh) or services if not just straight up going DRM free, while making their own affected games available on Steam even if they don't bother supporting online play. There, everyone wins, aside from some very serious achievement hunters who are going to have to demolish these games in the next year-ish.
 
T

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
so after July 2014 and if publisher don't patch their games/offer alternatives, what the word on legit owners of the games downloading the cracked versions? they already own the games after all and it got blocked from them by the service, is doing that consider piracy?
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
This is a point I've been making about major media companies entering gaming. They enter, they spend a fucking ton of cash, they buy up a bunch of companies, they generate good will... but after a few years shareholders say "What can you show me?" and if the answer isn't good enough, the company exits and moves to a license-only business. Some companies, like Disney, have done this several times. Koch Media and WB will face the same pressure.

If you are a company, and you have a department that's an endless money sink, you will be asked to cut that department. No company has a cultural attachment to anything. If Nintendo was making money selling hot dogs and losing money selling games, shareholders would want them to be a hot dog company long-term. That's how the system works.

With companies that only do one thing, you can trust that as long as they are solvent, they'll do that thing. Steam isn't shutting down unless Valve dies. Of course, when they die, it's all bets are off what happens because who knows how they will die. But for companies that do many things, each department needs to stand on its own.

So what I'm saying is that I don't think there's anything unique in MS's culture that makes them cut out losers. And in MS's case, their winners win so big that their losers face scrutiny. Whereas with, say, Sony, all of their departments are kind of oscillating between losing and winning so no one department gets the firing squad.

But the biggest conclusion is don't trust companies, and have a personal exit strategy.
Click to expand...

You should break your argument off into a seperate thread, maybe now that it's actually "real" that things in the DD space do shut down it can be discussed with a more open mind. (it was already real with that comic book service shutting down last year and everyone losing access to their comics)


Whenever this topic comes up people tend to bury their heads in the sand or write it off as worries for another day.

I hope GFWL's shuttering has some impact on Valve/Ubisoft etc's policies too tbh,
For now we can rely on the openness of the pc platform to have our own insurance (cracks as you mentioned) but that still doesn't solve online play properly, with tunggle being a poor bandaid that only works in games with lan support for when matchmaking servers go down.

Huge companies like EA no longer let the community host the infrastructure (battlelog as hub + EA partner server rentals online) and we are guaranteed to lose access to the battlefield games eventually, it's only a matter of when ,and it's likely to happen before the last of the community moves on.

And that's not even thinking about closed platforms as DD on those is a trap anyone should avoid.

Maybe you or someone else who is a lot more eloquent than me could try to get a seperate discussion started around this, and this time it might get treated more seriously and not get waved away as holding up a 'the end is nigh' sign.

On topic: if MS are even half aware they will move heaven and earth to accomodate GFWL users next year, they claim always online and DD is the future and this is showing people the exact opposite, it should be a PR nightmare for them in july next year and really throw a spanner in the works of their windows as a service and xbox one (180 aside) plans.
I'm rooting for them to fuck it up because if they damage control this things won't look good for us in the future.
 
oneils

oneils

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Games that will no longer be available for digital purchase in 3 days:
Gears of War for Windows
Halo 2 for Windows Vista
Click to expand...

They must be working on an alternative, right? I can't imagine Gears of War and Halo 2 no longer having a digital edition on PC. Right?

I'm assuming that they are only available on GFWL at the moment
 
E

Enkidu

Member
Eusis said:
No, probably not.

It's always a possibility, mind, even with Nintendo they might suddenly be forced to stick with only Hanafuda cards, but as Koch Media's not related to other Koch companies and has had long term investment in gaming I don't see why they're likely to treat this as an experimental foray to ultimately back out of after a few years.
Click to expand...
It's also a private company, so they are not going to have a bunch of shareholders to please either.
 
V

Version 3.0

Member
SteveWinwood said:
im stickin to my horses see how them newfangled cars break down sometimes

good luck with that "engine" future
Click to expand...

This analogy would be appropriate if all horses were nigh-immortal, immensely powerful Pegasus-type beings.

I still have my 2600 and every console since, which all play every game just fine. Come back in 2050 and you can laugh at me if Uplay, Origin, Steam, PSN, XBLA, etc and all their games all still work.
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
oneils said:
They must be working on an alternative, right? I can't imagine Gears of War and Halo 2 no longer having a digital edition on PC. Right?

I'm assuming that they are only available on GFWL at the moment
Click to expand...

Even gfwl does not have a digital version of Halo 2. Only Gears of War.
 
B

BarrettW

Neo Member
Microsoft isn't boneheaded enough to stop developers from being able to patch gfwl out or replace with steam works. Considering a couple of games have already done this it is probably not too difficult and with the low amount of games that use it there is plenty of time until July. I wouldn't worry about 2K Games at least, and Microsoft will take care of their own games. What sense would it make if MS takes all of the games that still make some money on and just stop selling them completely?
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Age of Empires Online was a good game, and it bums me out I won't get to play it anymore. :\

I had plans to buy Gears of War PC, but if it's not going to be available to download or anything next year... uh... hm.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Enkidu said:
It's also a private company, so they are not going to have a bunch of shareholders to please either.
Click to expand...
I get the impression that the environment for stockholders and investors in Germany is very different from the states anyway, so there probably wasn't going to be as much concern there regardless. But yeah, it's still absolutely a valid concern with WB given the fates of Fox and Disney's forays.
 
P

Poetic.Injustice

Member
This is some BS, I play AE everyday. And there's no way so far to upgrade to Ultra so I'm gonna have to fork over 40 bucks for a few new characters. Outside of a big commotion I don't see many of these companies spending the resources to port their game to Steamworks especially Namco.
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
Leondexter said:
This analogy would be appropriate if all horses were nigh-immortal, immensely powerful Pegasus-type beings.

I still have my 2600 and every console since, which all play every game just fine. Come back in 2050 and you can laugh at me if Uplay, Origin, Steam, PSN, XBLA, etc and all their games all still work.
Click to expand...

35 year ban bet, DO IT :p
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
Leondexter said:
This analogy would be appropriate if all horses were nigh-immortal, immensely powerful Pegasus-type beings.

I still have my 2600 and every console since, which all play every game just fine. Come back in 2050 and you can laugh at me if Uplay, Origin, Steam, PSN, XBLA, etc and all their games all still work.
Click to expand...

I think as long as pc gaming is around steam will be for sure. not sure about origin and uplay. i rather not have all games wasting space in my house,they get disk rot too.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Grief.exe said:
Let's not jump to conclusions here people.

With GFWL shutting down, you probably won't be able to earn achievement points (authentications servers down), play online, and message friends.

You will still be able to play offline. Games you own will still function.

Hopefully, more publishers elect to rip the service out entirely in favor of Steamworks.
Click to expand...

Did you ever install a GFWL game? The ones I own (SFIV, SSFIVAE, RE5 and Dark Souls) all ask for the CD-key and register online on the first run. Unless they have some sort of remote switch which disabled the registration requirement, I won't be able to install those games in the future without using a crack.
 
E

Eusis

Member
michaelius said:
Now imagine same situation with xbox one authentication servers after generation ends.
Click to expand...
This IS highlighting why so many of us found the DRM abhorrent and why the Steam comparisons were absolute bullshit. If Microsoft really were to run this stuff like Valve would we wouldn't have this discussion, hell more likely GFWL would've actually taken off and people would instead be going "but look how great GFWL is! They're just doing the same thing on Xbox One why are you freaking out over this?" Frankly, the fact NO ONE brought up GFWL for contrast was probably in and of itself damning for XB1 if anything.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
M3d10n said:
Did you ever install a GFWL game? The ones I own (SFIV, SSFIVAE, RE5 and Dark Souls) all ask for the CD-key and register online on the first run. Unless they have some sort of remote switch which disabled the registration requirement, I won't be able to install those games in the future without using a crack.
Click to expand...

If you follow my later posts, I argued that Microsoft would probably release a patch to remove that server-side authentication.
They could host it on the Microsoft website like they do with GFWL updates now.

Keep in mind, this isn't just Microsoft at play here. These are major publishers with releases spanning back the better part of a decade. And you are playing with a person's property rights.
Something will get done.

Now to go in offline mode and play Spelunky.
 
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