Now how can I twist these words and blow them out of preportion?

You see that. That's a clear statement that Stardock plans to boycott all Microsoft products and ban their mail system. You heard it here first folks...

j/k Brad

I really need to take a screenshot of what I said on facebook that instigated that whole UPS nonsense so people can see just how ridiculous it was.

While I also like the concept of GFWL, it is not very popular.

Threads at Amazon, Steam, and popular gaming sites are filled with anti-GFWL sentiment. One criticism of GFWL that I find valid is the new account locking that Microsoft has implemented. GFWL is now a DRM platform of sorts, as it locks CD keys to user accounts, which in effect is a source of "double DRM" (assuming that some other sort of DRM is present, such as Steamworks, see Dawn of War II), and major no-no in pro-consumer practices.

Thus, GFWL is an additional barrier to resale, which in no way helps the PC platform (consoles will always be more attractive if they have a used game market and we are forced to buy new). With a few tweaks and the removal of the account locking requirement, I would support GFWL with far greater enthusiasm.

Should I have used the [sarcasm] tags for my post? I thought the emoticon was enough...

I don't know, but it seems like I should have!

I don't like GFWL and GFWL supported games because it only supports 26 countries in the world and my country is not one of them (Turkey). I bought GTA 4 and Dawn of War 2 but I can't play them online because my country is not supported. This is really annoying, they are selling their game in my country but I can't use all features. I won't buy any GFWL titles in future. I hope Stardock and other companies won't use that console thing in their games. I don't think but I hope Microsoft will support all around the world.

GFWL leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I won't get into why, because it will be a long tirade, but terrible programs like GFWL make me dislike Impulse as well. I don't want to have Steam, Impulse, GFWL, EA Download Manager, and 100 other programs downloaded onto my computer to make my gaming and updating experience "easier" from every decent sized company. The crappy programs make me loathe the system, which makes me dislike all similar programs, including the ones that work fine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

In this aspect, I would one program that lets me update my game, search for new titles, etc. That single program used to be called the Internet, but that version wasn't good enough so it got "improved." I don't mean I want Steam or Impulse to rule the Market either, since there are obvious downfalls with that idea too, but when it comes to adding new features and programs to "help" me that I don't get to choose, control, or have any choice in their installation, less is more.

I'm still using Steam and Impulse, but I won't use games that require GFWL (such as GTAIV), and I avoid EA for a few reasons. It wouldn't take more than 1 bad experience to turn me off of either of those programs though, because of bad experiences with programs just like them.

Well as I mentioned somwhere else, when GFWL came out and was talking about charging the users, I pretty much dismissed it entirely and never looked back. Now it's being mentioned by Brad and I think Richard (Gearbox) so info is circulating around again, and I still don't get it. I prefer Direct IP above anything else. The multiplayer games that I enjoy with Direct IP still work, the ones that relied on some sort of service, don't without work arounds like Hamachi because those service provdiers are gone. Direct IP + something else is fine as I know finding games is an issue for some, but paying for that service, getting locked to that service and only that service, no thank you.

what really sucks about GFWL is that its a half hearted attempt at changing the way gaming is done on the pc.

as it stands right now pc gaming is not broken and works very well. In game server browsers works very well  and the third party server browsers offer a great alternative to finding even more online gaming goodness.

GFWL attempt at changing this is one big pile of Fail . It offers nothing that improves or makes finding games to play online better than what is currently offered. What is realy sad about this is that there is no reason for it, as the bar is not that high.

Unfortuneatly it appears microsoft does not want to invest the neccassry efforts to make GFWL a viable system for hooking gamers up to each other . and instead they are focusing on policies and restrictions that hampers gamers from enjoying their games .

Until Microsoft actually shows  something that at least rivals steam  i will not be conveinced that they are serious about the pc as a gaming platform.

and lets not forget they once held the key to a service that woul have been the keystones in building a real GFWL service with a community match making and online market. It was called The Zone .

But they killed it .

and i beleive they are going to do the same thing to GFWL as they will fail to implement a system that should be very easy to implement  because  they dont have the desire to follow through with it.

and its ashame because microsoft could do it if they really wanted to.

I agree with Nesrie, the sheer number of hardware combinations makes PC Gaming a nightmare in some cases, and solutions like GFWL help overcome that burden somewhat and ensure a smooth(er) play experience for all involved. Just look at Demigod's own launch as proof of what can happen without some kind of standard system in place.

However, as Brad pointed out, Microsoft are trying to control this platform outside of what is necessary - requiring third party certification for updates to your own program slows down the process of updating, and adds a completely pointless hoop for developers to jump through into to provide customer support. I doubt a developer is going to release a harmful update to their own software, and they understand their own program better than Microsoft's people ever could, so I see no benefit from either the customers point of view or from the developers point of view - however, if Microsoft charge for this certification, I see a great benefit for them.

I also have to agree with Kodiak888 in that it seems every day another download manager, another background program updater, another third party application burning through my computer's resources is added to my list of startup programs - everyone appears to want to have their own standard platform, and aren't willing to sign onto anyone elses - Steam and Impulse are the exceptions, of course.

Now, Impulse is how a platform should be - I can turn the damn thing off when I want to and still enjoy my games. Steam, on the otherhand, needs to run in the background at all times. Even in offline mode. EA Download Manager has a nasty habbit of re-activating itself in my startup programs list, even after I've uninstalled all EA Games from my machine, and I often wonder why my PC takes longer to start until I see that little green tray icon. And Blizzard's background downloader can go to hell as it loves to suck up monthly bandwidth without even asking or informing me in any way that it's doing so.

GFWL is a good idea that went horribly wrong.

On the Xbox, making a multiplayer game requires less work then on the PC (or PS3) because a lot of the necessary stuff is already built and provided by Xbox Live. It's a good thing. Doing something like that on the PC would also be a good thing for game developers that don't want to have to deal with all that stuff (it'd also mean that if it works in one game, it should work in all of them, since its the same network code).

Unfortunately first they screwed it up with user fees that almost nobody was willing to pay. Then they talked about this update certification nonsense. You can tell its being run by the console guys, because they completely miss the point. They don't have the forced lock in that they have on the Xbox, acting like a dictator will just send developers to some other platform.

Until they figure that out and start to behave like a partner, GFWL will be a failure.