Games for Windows Live Shutting down

[Sasha_Blue]

http://www.gametrailers.com/side-missio ... -next-july

I don't own any games on this platform. However, I do own Dark Souls on PC through Steam and that requires GFWL to activate. What is going to happen to my game? I hope it goes DRM free. I do have some older PC games that require an online activation. As soon as the servers where shut down for those games they became DRM free. Campaign and other single player functions still worked for the exception of online modes of course. What are your thought on this?

[theclaw]

To think in less than 48 hours, the original US PC version of Blazblue will be gone from purchase.
It was a GFWL exclusive release at now-absurd $35 price.

[Gunstar Green]

I never used Windows Live but I'm interested in seeing how the shutdown of one of these services is handled.

On the bright side, they're finally doing away with the stupid Microsoft Points.

[dsheinem]

I never used Windows Live but I'm interested in seeing how the shutdown of one of these services is handled.

On the bright side, they're finally doing away with the stupid Microsoft Points.

I liked MS points because they'd occasionally go on sale for silly deals. Earlier this year, for example, I bought about $150 worth for $50 online using a coupon code on MS' own site. Stores sometimes put them on discount racks. Newegg has discounted them heavily before. Now that they'll have actual monetary value listed on them, those days may be over

[Gunstar Green]

I'm betting there will still be Xbox gift cards and occasional gift card sales so don't get too worried about that just yet.

[Sasha_Blue]

The microsoft points are being done away with in favor for real currency.

I also found out that my Dark Souls game may still function, it's only the online feature that will cease to exist. That doesn't bother me since I never play online with that game.

[fastbilly1]

It worries me for some games. ie. Iron Brigade uses GFWL for its multiplayer, which was the part that always broke. So if Doublefine gets to fix it to use Steam matchmaking it will be perfect. But more than likely it will be cut out and become singleplayer only.

Edit:
Actually this worries me alot about games like Dawn of War 2. Since it uses GFWL and the company does not exist anymore to fix it.

[Cronozilla]

My thoughts are that I'm pissed.

I knew when they announced Live they'd be shutting it down at some point, but I thought since its tied to 360's Live, it wouldn't be until the entire thing was going away.

But further more, they've spent that entire time interweaving Live into these PC games to such a degree that they will be legally unplayable without the service.

If there is no update to the games, or Live service that fixes the crutch of games requiring it (like emulating some layer in Steam or something), then games will simply not authenticate once the servers are offline. This means you can't play the games that require Live. At all. Furthermore, a lot of games require you to be signed into Live just to save the single player game. (which was always nonsense).

And that's not even getting to the fact that it's eliminating local hosted multiplayer on a platform that has a long history of playing old games online.

Live doesn't even actually do that much, which makes it even more aggravating ... it basically acts like a gatekeeper to behavior the game you bought already has that it will do on a local system level ... and they're saying now you can't do that anymore.

You can get around not signing into live and authentications through illegal means and spoofing the Live dlls. But that's hardly a solution.

At the end of the day, this news means I'm losing games I paid about $500 for all in total because of some bullshit that I never wanted in the first place. This is not something I will be taking lying down.

[noiseredux]

This is not something I will be taking lying down.

what are you going to do?

[MrPopo]

At the end of the day, this news means I'm losing I might lose games I paid about $500 for all in total because of some bullshit that I never wanted in the first place. This is not something I will be taking lying down.

Fixed that for you. It's a bit early to start waving the torches. Wait for some real details to come out.