Games for Windows Live...

DJ Splendid · 20 Jul 2009 at 03:35

Hi Folks,

I Have a Games for Windows Live account (created when I started playing DoW2) with gamerscore/unlockables and contacts associated with it. Many hours of investment..

I have an Xbox Live account with lots of gamerscore/ms money/unlockables and contacts associated with it. Again, many hours of investment.

[By-the-by, I have a '90s hotmail account which i think became a '.NET passport' and subsequently yet another 'live' account, which has lots of IM contacts associated with it.]

OBJECTIVE:

Merge/aggregate the GFWL and Xbox Live accounts ro create ONE, single identity for the microsoft platform(s).
Ideally, I'd want the contacts from the hotmaily account merging, too.

PROBLEM:

There seems to be no support to acheive this.
Which immediately strikes me as *&%ing spaktarded.

There's LOTS of investment in both gaming idenities which I simply am not prepared - and shouldn't have to re-grind or purchase again in a 'main' account having abandonned the 'secondary' one in order to enjoy the content I've earned.

I can't beleive I'm alone in this. Has anyone found a neat solution?

Arghh,
Steam account, EA online account, gfwl account, battle.net account, novaworld, gamespy, xbl..
****ty commercial battle is really bugging me.

FlukeRogi · 20 Jul 2009 at 03:50

DJ Splendid said:
Hi Folks,

I Have a Games for Windows Live account (created when I started playing DoW2) with gamerscore/unlockables and contacts associated with it. Many hours of investment..

I have an Xbox Live account with lots of gamerscore/ms money/unlockables and contacts associated with it. Again, many hours of investment.

I can't beleive I'm alone in this. Has anyone found a neat solution?

What you should have done is log into Windows Live using your XBox Live ID instead of creating a separate account for Windows Live. All your PC & XBox achievements then appear under the one account.

Don't know of any solutions to merge two different accounts I'm afraid.

orderoftheflame · 20 Jul 2009 at 07:27

Seems like you completely missed the point of them being a unified system with one single account.

There isn't a system for it, as sad as it sounds, you'd end up with people selling achievements on ebay. Anything that stops that doesn't sound retarded to me, even if it's removing functionality.

ConceptBoz · 20 Jul 2009 at 12:05

Why create a seperate account to begin with?

uv · 20 Jul 2009 at 13:03

DJ Splendid said:
Arghh,
Steam account, EA online account, gfwl account, battle.net account, novaworld, gamespy, xbl..
****ty commercial battle is really bugging me.

So you'd rather there was one proprietary monopoly?

AWPC · 20 Jul 2009 at 13:48

FlukeRogi said:
What you should have done is log into Windows Live using your XBox Live ID instead of creating a separate account for Windows Live. All your PC & XBox achievements then appear under the one account.

Don't know of any solutions to merge two different accounts I'm afraid.

This.

If you had thought about it for 2 mins before earning achievements on PC games you could have done what I did in 2007 when GFWL launched and just use the same gamertag for both systems.

MS are very stict with gamertag auctions so would not go there incase they reset your GS score (which they have done to some who have gone down this route!).

Xenoxide · 20 Jul 2009 at 13:48

uv said:
So you'd rather there was one proprietary monopoly?

How about the open equivalent, like OpenID? A distributed peer-to-peer platform?

DJ Splendid · 20 Jul 2009 at 20:22

orderoftheflame said:
Seems like you completely missed the point of them being a unified system with one single account.

There isn't a system for it, as sad as it sounds, you'd end up with people selling achievements on ebay. Anything that stops that doesn't sound retarded to me, even if it's removing functionality.

There's the problem of older XBL accounts not being 'visible' to GFWL at the time I wanted to play DoW. GFWL did not accept my known-good credentials. I was forced to create an account; or not play.

This in itself makes my blood boil. Gaming was annonymous for years, I do not accept that it needs to be otherwise. No-where on the box says I have to jump through hoops to play. We are being forced into complicity that supports corporate flag-flying and 'branded' gaming.

Also don't acccept that buying/selling accounts is problematic. Who cares? Why? I stopped to think about it, but I really can't see a material negative ethical or financial implication for manufacturer or consumer.

Xenoxide said:
How about the open equivalent, like OpenID? A distributed peer-to-peer platform?

Exactly. Corporate user-base wars are detracting from all that was nice about the original era of multiplayer gaming. We are not as free as we were. That should be enough to irk anyone.

As a genreal point though, I still find it insane that I can't firstly prove that I am owner of account A at organisation 1 and owner of account B at organisation 1, and then simply aggregate them to eliminate unnecessary duplicate function, unnecessary faffing and pointless data fragmentation.

The status quo IS retarded. It detracts from usability. It detracts from the quality of information gleaned from mining account data. It offers no advantage we'd lose by being able to aggregate accounts.

It's bonkers. It's winding me up. You can tell

Just consider one GFWL game for eg. DoW2.
My unlockables in DoW2 are linked not to DoW2 or THQ; but to Microsoft. I sit and play the game and my actions are rewarded via microsoft; not THQ, the authors. If I create a new GFWL account or whatever, I will actually LOSE part of the product I paid for (ie, unlocked armour for online play). This IS retarded. And it's not stated on the box.

It's like knowing that changing address will result in your alloy wheels being taken off you by the estate agents.

This really is bonkers.