Why do people hate GFWL so much?

Soldato
Joined
10 Apr 2012
Posts
8,982
I've been looking around Google and I honestly cannot say I've seen one person talk anything but bad about GFWL, yet I personally own several games on GFWL and haven't had a single issue, not one. Can anyone elaborate as to why its so hated? :confused:
 
I had a couple of login problems when I first started using it but since then other than server side issues (Similar to Steams occasional issues) I've not had any problems.

Quite a lot of people seem to get annoyed if a game is not on Steam these days. Not sure why though.
 
Let me think
1) extra bloat i don't need i gain no benefi for either if i have steam why do i need to load GFWL after?
2) Login Problems
3) says it downloading profile & save games yet it doesn't actually backup your saves anyway?
4) its quite buggy Has issue with steam overlay in certain games (batman)
5) i personally don't like all the extra steps just to play a GFWL game specially if you forget your password there emails take ages!.
6) runs extra services & automatic on startup if you put on manual you cannot play your games it HAS to be on Auto

only benefit GFWL gives is the game must support the Xbox Controller & thats nothing to do with the GFWL software!
 
Kept corrupting my Bioshock saves for no reason and it tries to charge you for changing your name on it. Lol, just lol.
 
I understand the Steam thing, it would be nice if every game was available on there and had Steam achievements etc, but the GFWL games still track play time in GFWL titles. I personally just treat GFWL as an extension of Steam.

Let me think
1) extra bloat i don't need i gain no benefi for either if i have steam why do i need to load GFWL after?
2) Login Problems
3) says it downloading profile & save games yet it doesn't actually backup your saves anyway?
4) its quite buggy Has issue with steam overlay in certain games (batman)
5) i personally don't like all the extra steps just to play a GFWL game specially if you forget your password there emails take ages!.

only benefit GFWL gives is the game must support the Xbox Controller & thats nothing to do with the GFWL software!

I see your points but have to question 4), GFWL overlay is older than Steam, so its really Steams responsibility to get them working together.
 
I've never had a problem with it, I don't hate GfWL.]

That's not to say that it couldn't offer a better service though.
 
I have no problem at all with it and actually love the service because I play on the Xbox 360 as well. It's most likely the vast majority of people that hate it either 1) Are a steam fanboy, and don't like the fact that another company provides another game client (god forbid anyone but Valve having an integrated client in PC games!) or 2) Are jumping on the hate bandwagon because they had a few problems with GFWL.

Steam has plenty of problems as it is and doesn't deserve anywhere as much credit as it deserves. Because of how busy the store is with the sales, I sometimes can't play my games because the servers are too busy. THE GAME IS ON MY HARD DRIVE.
 
I see your points but have to question 4), GFWL overlay is older than Steam, so its really Steams responsibility to get them working together.

GFWL was released 5 years after steam.

Steam has plenty of problems as it is and doesn't deserve anywhere as much credit as it deserves.

Derp.

I've not any major problems with GFWL. it is however slower and more cumbersome than steam in general.
 
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The only issue I've ever had with it is the fact that if you don't play a game for a while, it makes you download each update individually and restart the game between each one.

Never had any other problems.
 
I installed it 3 times. Twice to play Dawn of War 2 and once to play Batman. Each time my computer went ***'s up. So i dont bother with it any more. Ive never had any trouble with EA Origin, just tend not to use it because i cant back up my games like with Steam.
 
Steam doesn't let you back up your games any more than Origin does. Origin lets you save the installers.

Origin is actually pretty good for the most part. People just don't like it because they've got so much invested in Steam.

GFWL would be fine if it worked. Sadly it does not. Every single game I have tried to play with GFWL has had nothing but problems.
 
The only issue i have is the delay in openining the interface i.e homekey then wait a sec or two then the delays you get when navigating the menus just to send a game invite to a mate. Luckily SSF4AE has a inbuilt invite system which is a bit easier to use than gfwl.

Also the logging on is a bit of a delay as well. Would be nicer if it tried to log on sooner than like when you get to main menu for the game so by the time you get to actually do anything like use a menu to start the game you would be logged in by then but the delay to log in is rather annoying that it does it much later than it should i.e at the start/main menu.
 
Its just annoying, isnt it!

Its just in the way..

"Ohh yeah I think i'll play abit of GTA (double click).. WINDOWS LIVE GAMMEEES! .. Oh right, urmm yeah w/e Ok.. Sign in, Yes Play, obviously play, thats why I opened you...... game loads.. WWWIIWWINNNDWINDOWOOOOWWS LIVE PLAYYYYYY!!.. pops up again at top of screen... LOOOOOGOGIGOGG INNN!.............


RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

tumblr_m6re5yCKM41rqbd8d.gif
 
I'm not one to throw my toys out of the pram at these weird add-on softwares, DRM etc but it is quite annoying:

-Having to remember which account I should be using after reinstalling as it has somehow merged with other Microsoft stuff like Hotmail, Xbox etc.
-Having to wait for it to sign in when starting a game, sometimes it won't let me use some of the menu options until it has logged me into GFWL
-Popups randomly appearing me telling me I've earned 10 Gold or whatever, ruining the immersion (maybe I can disable this)
-I found the menu pretty cumbersome to use
-I seem to remember having some weird login issue that took ages to resolve a while back, had to completely uninstall and reinstall everything
-Unnecessary bloat as I never use any of this third party **** like friends, achievements, overlays, screenshots etc (note this isn't specific to GFWL, same goes for Steam, Origin etc)
-Some games force you to patch the game through GFWL, kinda annoying if I think I've got it fully up to date via Steam or whatever but then have to update through GFWL as well.
 
Maybe I've been lucky, but I'm yet to have any issues whatsoever with GFWL, though I would prefer if these systems weren't in place to begin with. I used it for the first time in an age last night, no problems.
 
Well 10 hours of SSFIV and 10 hours of GTAIV and I've yet to experience any issue, not even lag within servers. I think we're either lucky or people are doing it wrong. :p
 
its nothing i chase down and must have but i dont shy away from gfwl, ive got quite a few games that use it. Its had some issues like slow updates etc but ive had that with every games client.
I think its just fashionable to whine about it tbh
 
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