Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014

HangTime said:
It does of course prompt an interesting debate in terms of how far back it is reasonable to expect a game to be 'fixed' when issues like this occur - especially given that older games are now easier to buy (due to DD) than they used to be as there is no need for stores to maintain a physical inventory of them. Online multiplayer servers getting shut down may give us some pointers, though.
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The other interesting thing is the rise of sites like gog. I know they focus on games that are no longer compatible with modern OS's but they also tend to be games the original developer has long since stopped bothering with and so most if not everything they bring out (I could be wrong) is DRM free.

If places like this continue to thrive, you don't know if it means we'll get to access more and more games without DRM (not just old and/or indie games) and so free of some potentially limited lifetime or whether it'll help developers realise it's worth supporting older titles in their catalogue because there remains a keen audience.
 
Witcher1979 said:
Did they actually give proper notice though? I thought they removed the wording saying it was going, or did they actually release a proper statement that they did not retract. They may have to the companies but the joe public have no statement as far as I know just the removed age of empires thing.

Might be wrong
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That's a very good point. I thought they had released a statement but that was for the store closing down. From what I can see, they haven't specifically said that they are turning off all the GFWL servers. They did say they were turning off 'a server' which would cause Age of Empires Online to stop working on the 1st July 2014 (a comment which they have since removed). But they haven't specifically said that all of GFWL will be shutting down.

However, I would imagine that they have confirmed this with devs/publishers since they've felt it's worth their time to patch out GFWL.
 
The wording on the age of empires page said (and note the clarity of the first sentence):
"Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down."
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So Microsoft haven't confirmed it to the public (because they want games on GFWL to still be selling right up to the last moment), but they will have confirmed it to developers.

Major developers have converted some games from GFWL to steamworks. They would not have put in the development effort (that's time and money) to do this without confirming with microsoft that GFWL was indeed shutting down.
 
How do I reset CD-keys on GFWL found out today when trying to play RE5 that my cd-key no longer works, my gta 4 key also dosn't work, I still managed to go on RE5 using my flatout key (old glitch I found out about years ago) but I want the other 2 keys reset

also I only just found out about this shutdown today, will be nice if they finally replace it with a better system
 
QlimaxUK said:
How do I reset CD-keys on GFWL found out today when trying to play RE5 that my cd-key no longer works, my gta 4 key also dosn't work, I still managed to go on RE5 using my flatout key (old glitch I found out about years ago) but I want the other 2 keys reset

also I only just found out about this shutdown today, will be nice if they finally replace it with a better system
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Who would buy into the replacement?

Why not just fix what they have and make it better?

Whatever they replace it with we cant trust them not to support it or junk it again when its not doing that well.
 
I still can't believe they're being allowed to do this.

People have paid money for a lot of these games - if Microsoft want to junk GFWL that's their call but they should be legally obliged to either fix it or issue full refunds.

It wouldn't be allowed with any other product.
 
Just vote with your wallet - only way companies will listen. I am surprised that it doesnt seem that MS has given any assistance to devs to get GfWL taken out - its pretty shambolic...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
Well its an inception of shambolicness I guess - people wonder why I dont give any rope to MS regards the XO, this is part of the reason. Awful treatment of unwitting customers...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
MS cannot give any assistance to developers to remove GFWL as they fired most of the small team behind it in Summer 2011 the others were moved onto Xbox LIVE For Windows (which is even worse).

Jason Holtman now runs MS PC gaming division as he was the guy who made Steam what it is today you would think he could persuade MS execs to keep the GFWL servers running a few more years as that's pocket change to them to do so :rolleyes:
 
Calabi said:
Who would buy into the replacement?

Why not just fix what they have and make it better?

Whatever they replace it with we cant trust them not to support it or junk it again when its not doing that well.
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The games I have on GFWL are on my steam so steamworks would be the replacement for them if an alternative is not found, as the games where purchased through steam it would surly fall to them to patch/fix these games right??
 
QlimaxUK said:
The games I have on GFWL are on my steam so steamworks would be the replacement for them if an alternative is not found, as the games where purchased through steam it would surly fall to them to patch/fix these games right??
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How can Valve fix them, they have no access to any of the code. There just a store.

The responsibility is with the Developers, Publishers whom made the game or Microsoft. They can add any extra DRM they want and Valve can't do nothing about it. Just like Ubisofts Uplay if they suddenly stop supporting that then those games are junk as well.
 
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Either way you look at it, Microsoft has made a hell of a mess. It's their 'technology' but it's up to the game developers to clean up after them. I'm not sure who's more to blame, Microsoft for coming up with that abortion or developers who thought it would be a good idea to use it instead of Steam.
 
This is starting to impact things a little someone on Steam forums noticed the following have all gone missing to buy from the Steam store (Fable 3 apparently because Valve cannot get anymore GFWL keys from MS for their own game :rolleyes:).

Fuel
Dirt 2
Fable 3
Section 8
 
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