EvaUnit02 on 6/8/2009 at 07:44
(
http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/aboutGFW/pages/gfw3intro.aspx)
In-game Marketplace, blah, blah, blah. The real point of note is this:-
Quote:
Anti-piracy Protection
Starting with new title releases this fall, publishers can optionally take advantage of two new methods to ensure everyone's playing with a legitimate copy of their games.
* Server Side Authentication links the game license to your Gamertag. The advantage of this method is that it allows installation of the game onto any PC, anywhere — only you can access the LIVE service from the game. Server Side Authentication has no affect on offline play.
* Zero Day Piracy Protection keeps games from launching before the street date the publisher has set for the game.
Previously GfWL's DRM was pretty shit, license keys had a finite number of activations, the problem is that MS told nobody about it nor offered any way of revoking the activations other than phoning MS tech support.
Now these keys can be forever tied to your .NET login, if publishers choose to do so.
This does eliminate the second hand resale viability of the title however, but meh.
june gloom on 6/8/2009 at 08:27
Well that's suprising news.
You know, I've never quite gotten the second-hand resalability thing. I never buy a game off Steam that I'm not absolutely sure I want to keep. Which means I never buy a game off Steam that isn't from Valve. Or Monolith, in the case of FEAR 2.
Xenith on 6/8/2009 at 09:12
Yarr! A pirate doesn't need fancy chests when all he cares about is the booty! Yahaharr!
Heh, so they took on some things from Steam. That doesn't change the fact that GFWL adds to the probability of a game crashing.
van HellSing on 6/8/2009 at 09:30
One piece of shit DRM platform takes features from another piece of shit DRM platform. Yay.
mothra on 6/8/2009 at 10:08
GFWL is a worse program to install, maintain, configure and use than STEAM. TRY TO BEAT THAT ! only MS can.
Volitions Advocate on 6/8/2009 at 13:28
The installation and configuration of Steam has never taken me more than a couple of minutes and has been bascially hassle free. I've never had to do any kind of "maintenance" on my steam install.
The only thing I wish it had was a better download manager.
GFWL still just seems like bloatware to me, because it does nothing useful. At least not for a single player game like Fallout 3.
mothra on 6/8/2009 at 13:38
GFWL: if you install it on your system it automatically uses the language of your FORMAT settings (not region or OS language). it doesn't give you anything besides a bad internet explorer window browsing an marketplace.
btw, on my system it does not show any flash content and only half of the website gets rendered since I only use firefox and never even started IE8 that it seems to use. MS has billions of money and they come up with something far worse than a gaming fansite without any money.......
bloatware is really the right name for it......
not that I endorse steam or think it's the 2nd coming of christ, atm it's just the best "service" around game downloads. The best site for "just" buying a game is gog imo.
Sulphur on 6/8/2009 at 19:50
It was only a matter of time until this happened. I thought it was pretty easy to see this coming. Not that I accept it with open arms; if GfWL is anything, it's bloated and annoying crap that no one with a PC really needs.
van HellSing on 6/8/2009 at 20:14
Just like Steam.
Sulphur on 6/8/2009 at 20:16
No, not like Steam. With Steam you at least have some choice: apart from Valve titles, very few games at the moment actually require Steam to be installed if you bought 'em retail.
With GfWL, it's either install it or GTFO.
