Games for Windows Live - expanded and free - bit-tech.net Forums

CardJoe · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:04

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07...ded-and-free/1

Games for Windows Live - the PC mirror of the Xbox Live service, is going completely free and will be expanded to include new content.

kiwik · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:15

They finally realised it was ridiculous.

Tulatin · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:16

Finally. I guess MS clued in that apart from MMOs, where you really shouldn't be paying for the content, but rather the gameplay, nobody pays to play online.

Granted, in 90% of those cases, servers are privately hosted, but at least in private hosting, you don't always have to worry about being banned from one = bricked game.

I do wonder what this means for people sitting on a year of PC Gold Time.... do they get a refund, or shafted?

Mongoose132 · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:16

Never used it, but it's free, so it's better than before IMO

Hg · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:30

Live was and still should be an XBox only feature.
We PC gamers use a thing called the 'internet' to get demos. Wallpapers, News, Videos etc and best of all its free and simple!
Steam Will always win here as it allows Users to Host Games and dedicated servers for nothing, Live forces you to use their hosted servers etc this will always be there downfall.

Romirez · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:39

Only ever tried it on gears of war, and couldn't get past the second chapter of the single player because of it, either due to repeated crashes at the menu screen, or it deleting all my saves on the few occasions it actually worked. Free or not, it's still a sack of ****.

will. · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:53

Kinda worked ok for me, but when we have such easy access to the internet, it is pretty useless.

scarrmrcc · 23rd Jul 2008, 15:57

interestingly i just bought shadowrun (for 5 bucks)...now i can play it online for free (actually haven't installed it yet).

hope people still play it....

BlackMage23 · 23rd Jul 2008, 16:00

Just shows how good valve are if they made steam and are not really trying

1ad7 · 23rd Jul 2008, 16:43

I didnt know they had a live service for pc...... and Im still laughing that they charged for it.....they need to wake up on the 360 as well...

Oh and no worries about ppl with tons of gold time already bought, they all own macs anyway

"It wont install.... why"

Cadillac Ferd · 23rd Jul 2008, 17:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackMage23

Just shows how good valve are if they made steam and are not really trying

I'm pretty sure the reason that Valve is able to make such consistently good products is the fact that they are indeed trying.

seveneleven · 23rd Jul 2008, 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cadillac Ferd

I'm pretty sure the reason that Valve is able to make such consistently good products is the fact that they are indeed trying.

That's correct.All of their stuff is at such a high level of quality that it actually looks very easy when you look at how well all of the products come together but it's actually a very difficult and time consuming process.

samkiller42 · 23rd Jul 2008, 18:45

Yea, but those of us who have xbox live on our xbox's don't really get any benifits from this, considering we have already splashed out Â£35 for a years sub to play on our 360's. I don't actually mind paying Â£35 a year for a damn good service, that's never failed for me, and has so so much available on it, and that's expanding also. The only times i have problems with live is when my internet connection messes about.

Sam

Mentai · 23rd Jul 2008, 19:52

As outrageous as I find it, windows live is definitely earning M$ money on the xbox. I'm glad they finally realised the market is Significantly different on PC. Windows live drove me batsh*t insane when I was trying to play gears of war, I actually think I might still hate it even when it's free. Best of luck to them though, they'll certainly need it to beat the perfection that is steam.

r4tch3t · 23rd Jul 2008, 21:55

Personally I have never used Windows Live, as all my games are too old (about to buy Commander Keen

)
Steam should be the standard and should be licensed out to other companies, as long as they are still interoperable.

zimbloggy · 24th Jul 2008, 03:28

good, because it was getting so that if you didn't have windows live, you couldn't really do a lot of things for certain new games, ala gears of war for pc

rollo · 24th Jul 2008, 11:22

they finally relised how ludicras the charge is. Now all we need is it removed from xbox 360. Paying £35 a year or whatever it is. Is still really way too much consideirng most 360 games are hosted by the person who created the game

azrael- · 24th Jul 2008, 11:25

I've never tried Games for Windows Live, but I use Steam on a regular basis. While it has come a long way since being introduced in September 2003 there still are some major annoyances with the service. Only yesterday I repeatedly got booted off servers due to some "Steam connection lost" error. And the ClientRegistry.blob "fix" is almost legendary among Steam users...

Zut · 24th Jul 2008, 12:27

I didn't know there WAS a Games for Windows Live!! Though even if I did. I certainly wouldn't have paid for it.

I'll have to look into it.

23rd Jul 2008, 15:04	#1
CardJoe Player Character bit-tech Staff Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 7,960	Games for Windows Live - expanded and free http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07...ded-and-free/1 Games for Windows Live - the PC mirror of the Xbox Live service, is going completely free and will be expanded to include new content. __________________ this is joe's non-bit-tech blog

23rd Jul 2008, 15:16	#3
Tulatin The Froggy Poster Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 2,941	Finally. I guess MS clued in that apart from MMOs, where you really shouldn't be paying for the content, but rather the gameplay, nobody pays to play online. Granted, in 90% of those cases, servers are privately hosted, but at least in private hosting, you don't always have to worry about being banned from one = bricked game. I do wonder what this means for people sitting on a year of PC Gold Time.... do they get a refund, or shafted? __________________ Desky E8400 @ 4.0 1.42v; P5K-E WiFi; 4x1 Kingmax Mars 1066 @ 1129 CAS 5; 2x [TOO CHEAP TO SPONSOR] 4850 @ 675/1050; Enermax Liberty; WCing in a CM690

23rd Jul 2008, 15:16	#4
Mongoose132 Smiles are free-Use 'em :D Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: UK-Wendover Posts: 403	Never used it, but it's free, so it's better than before IMO __________________ 49 66 20 79 6f 75 27 72 65 20 72 65 61 64 69 6e 67 20 74 68 69 73 0d 0a 20 74 68 65 6e 20 79 6f 75 27 72 65 20 73 61 64 20 3d 5d Jamie: Mongoose - The binary in your signature was too long, I've fixed the typo and converted it to Hex. Whooops sorry

23rd Jul 2008, 15:30	#5
Hg The game known as life Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Stourport, UK Posts: 203	Live was and still should be an XBox only feature. We PC gamers use a thing called the 'internet' to get demos. Wallpapers, News, Videos etc and best of all its free and simple! Steam Will always win here as it allows Users to Host Games and dedicated servers for nothing, Live forces you to use their hosted servers etc this will always be there downfall. __________________ LIVE Gamertag: Hg80uk PSN: Hg80uk Showmyfps.com- Whats your FPS? Trident Case mod with custom cooling - Project Log

23rd Jul 2008, 15:39	#6
Romirez Minimodder Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Liverpool Posts: 34	Only ever tried it on gears of war, and couldn't get past the second chapter of the single player because of it, either due to repeated crashes at the menu screen, or it deleting all my saves on the few occasions it actually worked. Free or not, it's still a sack of ****. __________________ C2D E6600 \| BFG 8800GTX OC \| BFG nForce 680i SLI \| 2GB OCZ DDR2.. something or other. Shiny \| Dell 24" Wide

23rd Jul 2008, 15:15	#2
kiwik Minimodder Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Quebec, Canada Posts: 24	They finally realised it was ridiculous.

23rd Jul 2008, 15:53	#7
will. A motorbike of jealousy! Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Yorkshire! Posts: 4,403	Kinda worked ok for me, but when we have such easy access to the internet, it is pretty useless. __________________ work \| play \| blog PS3 & 360: willblack Flickr my twitter. Last.FM Check out my Last.FM & iToggle & Nav-o-Matic jQuery plugins.

23rd Jul 2008, 15:57	#8
scarrmrcc Modder Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 57	interestingly i just bought shadowrun (for 5 bucks)...now i can play it online for free (actually haven't installed it yet). hope people still play it....

23rd Jul 2008, 16:00	#9
BlackMage23 RPG Loving Freak Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Temple of Fiends Posts: 159	Just shows how good valve are if they made steam and are not really trying __________________ I am the Black Mage. I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!

23rd Jul 2008, 16:43	#10
1ad7 Multimodder Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Texas, United States Posts: 188	I didnt know they had a live service for pc...... and Im still laughing that they charged for it.....they need to wake up on the 360 as well... Oh and no worries about ppl with tons of gold time already bought, they all own macs anyway "It wont install.... why" __________________ E8500@ 4.3ghz on air->ASUS P5Q-E->4gb of OCZ DDR2 @1069-> 4890 @ 958 1080 ->ASUS Xonar D2->Win7 Ultimate 42" Polaroid LCD @ 1920x1080

23rd Jul 2008, 18:45	#13
samkiller42 KEEP IT CLEAN! Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Havant, Hampshire, England Posts: 3,183	Yea, but those of us who have xbox live on our xbox's don't really get any benifits from this, considering we have already splashed out Â£35 for a years sub to play on our 360's. I don't actually mind paying Â£35 a year for a damn good service, that's never failed for me, and has so so much available on it, and that's expanding also. The only times i have problems with live is when my internet connection messes about. Sam __________________ The Rig: i7 920 D0, Gigabyte EX58-UD5, 12GB DDR3 1600mhz, BFG GTX295, Samsung 64gb SSD, WD 640gb Black, Samsung F2 Eco 1TB, Dell 3007WFP, Windows 7 RC. The Netbook: Samsung NC10 Black, Intel Atom, 2gb DDR2 Xbox Live: samkiller42¦PSN: samkiller42¦Bungie: samkiller42

23rd Jul 2008, 19:52	#14
Mentai Supermodder Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 492	As outrageous as I find it, windows live is definitely earning M$ money on the xbox. I'm glad they finally realised the market is Significantly different on PC. Windows live drove me batsh*t insane when I was trying to play gears of war, I actually think I might still hate it even when it's free. Best of luck to them though, they'll certainly need it to beat the perfection that is steam.

23rd Jul 2008, 21:55	#15
r4tch3t hmmmm.... Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: New Zealand Posts: 2,883	Personally I have never used Windows Live, as all my games are too old (about to buy Commander Keen ) Steam should be the standard and should be licensed out to other companies, as long as they are still interoperable. __________________ Fight my Brute The quantum limit of reality might be scaled up because we're all holograms. Obviously. Once more we see that sufficiently advanced physics is indistinguishable from getting really stoned. From here

24th Jul 2008, 03:28	#16
zimbloggy Multimodder Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 75	good, because it was getting so that if you didn't have windows live, you couldn't really do a lot of things for certain new games, ala gears of war for pc

24th Jul 2008, 11:22	#17
rollo Multimodder Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 208	they finally relised how ludicras the charge is. Now all we need is it removed from xbox 360. Paying £35 a year or whatever it is. Is still really way too much consideirng most 360 games are hosted by the person who created the game

24th Jul 2008, 11:25	#18
azrael- Ex nihilo nihil fit Join Date: May 2008 Location: Aarhus, Denmark Posts: 1,172	I've never tried Games for Windows Live, but I use Steam on a regular basis. While it has come a long way since being introduced in September 2003 there still are some major annoyances with the service. Only yesterday I repeatedly got booted off servers due to some "Steam connection lost" error. And the ClientRegistry.blob "fix" is almost legendary among Steam users... __________________ ''Trying is the first step towards failure.'' - Homer Simpson

24th Jul 2008, 12:27	#19
Zut Multimodder Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Near Sheffield, UK Posts: 127	I didn't know there WAS a Games for Windows Live!! Though even if I did. I certainly wouldn't have paid for it. I'll have to look into it.