An Overview of the Games For Windows Initiative

Writing for the Escapist, author Sean Sands takes a hard look at Microsoft's Games for Windows project. The PC version of Xbox live, as well as the coherent branding they've handed out to publishers, doesn't appear to be having the kind of effect they were hoping for. Most especially, Sands points out, when players have the recently released Steam Community as an alternative: "Valve's latest community features, while they don't connect PC to console, have offered virtually every other meaningful feature in a free and functional package. Steam isn't only beating Microsoft at its own game, it's taking Microsoft's lunch money and leaving it tied to the tether-ball pole."

Comments

I for one

[Paden]

Welcome our new Steam powered overlords.

Big Surprise

[Egonis]

I don't know if the Games for Windows / Xbox Live both cost money, or they are one in the same.

For the sake of this reply, I will assume that they are one in the same.

After so many years of Quake having a freely usable game finder, why is it that Microsoft decided to charge for their service? Yes, I have an account for my 360, but at the end of the day, the only major differences I see are that you can manage friend lists much like MSN, and chat via headset, which is also not a new technology. WoW users use that freeware voice chat server/client setup.

So at the end of the day, of course competitors are going to provide the same services for free, because afterall, it's about the games, not the services.

Re:Big Surprise

[Kelbear]

"After so many years of Quake having a freely usable game finder, why is it that Microsoft decided to charge for their service?"

Short answer? Because they can.

Long answer is that the Xbox360 is a closed system and is subject to their policies. The PC is an open system and is open to anyone who can put code on that hardware. PC gamers won't want to pay for game finding when other services can ofter comparable alternatives or the individual in-game browsers themselves.

However on the Xbox360, you have to pay for multiplayer, or you don't get to play online. There are advantages to the closed console system, this is just an example of a disadvantage. Whether or not you feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages as a whole determines which platform you're on, but clearly since both platforms have a player base there are those who feel they receive benefits from both.

Re:Big Surprise

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

its because some people actually want the matchmaking/leaderboard/trueskill rank services. I personally bought a copy of Shadowrun and payed for an xbox live subscription so that I could play online games with my brother who doesn't have a decent computer but has a 360. Unfortunately, I got boned by it because Shadowrun wasn't successful, and it doesn't look like there are any other games coming out with the cross-platform play. Lucky for me a year subscription is fairly cheap and I still use my live account for split screen capable 360 games. Tangents aside, I do enjoy not having to go through some of the BS of searching for games and copy pasting IPs to friends that is so common in the PC world. On top of that its nice to have the voip chatting with random other people without having to switch vent/teamspeak servers every time you change games.

Hurdles

[Joe U]

It's about time Microsoft has started a "Games for Windows" push, but they have a lot to overcome.

Software stores have almost completely given up on PC games. Gamestop is a good example of this. What used to be a PC store has turned into 2 wire racks of PC games.

While Microsoft has pushed video cards into DirectX, audio fell apart. Games need both.

Microsoft hurt itself with the Xbox. It should have been simple to port games between Windows and Xbox. Microsoft should have encouraged Windows/Xbox releases, but they didn't do much.

Microsoft had a decent home brand, and abandoned it, several times. Bring back Microsoft home with a vengeance.

If they can overcome these hurdles, you'll see a comeback in PC games.

games for windows

[musikit]

i dont know how true it is but i see "games for windows" and i just assume its vista only and move onto the next game.

Re:games for windows

[orkysoft]

To me it's a warning label that it won't work with wine/Cedega...

Re:games for windows

[PolyDwarf]

I thought exactly this with the PC version of Bioshock. A friend of mine asked me if I was playing it yet, and I said that I hadn't bothered picking it up because it was Vista only.. I then proceeded to nag at him for getting Vista.

He told me it ran on XP just fine, only without a couple of fancy DX10 options.

My guess is that Microsoft wants everyone to think exactly that, to get them to "upgrade" to Vista. They realize Vista's been a failure on its own merits, so they are trying to get everyone to "upgrade" by enticing them with ancillary stuff.

Microsoft charges to reduce griefing

[Blakey Rat]

If there is no cost to creating a new Xbox Live account, Microsoft would have a lot more trouble getting rid of griefers and cheaters from the system. As is, if you're booted from Xbox Live, you're out $50. That's basically the reason for the charge.

Besides, the number of free downloads you get during the course of a year of Xbox Live service is worth the charge, IMO. I think I have 6 free Xbox Live Arcade games on my console, and I've owned it less than a year. If you assume each Xbox Live Arcade game is worth $10, I've come out ahead already.

So...

[njfuzzy]

Am I right that they called it "Steam" just so journalists would have to keep using the phrases "Steam-powered" and "powered by steam" and "valve releases steam"? Think of the confusing sentences if they released a Castle Falkenstein game, and journos had to summarize that.

Predicated on false demand

[Bieeanda]

When I buy a game, I typically check reviews and with other gamers to make sure that it's going to scratch whatever itch I've got. Proper installation, playing nice with Windows and other applications... those are things that I tend to assume are going to happen, if the game is going to survive the aggregate review process. I don't really need MS telling me that a game will work on the platform it's intended for. Go figure. Auto-detection and reconfiguration based on whether you've got a controller plugged in or not is a cute touch, but ultimately gimmicky.

I hate to trot the 'console vs. pc players' thing out, but it's there. Yes, most modern consoles can handle a keyboard and mouse, and yes, computers can handle console controllers with a modicum of issue. At the same time, using a mouse on a couch is pretty damned awkward, and keyboards tend to violate the whole compact, elegant and self-contained idea that consoles operate around too. There's merit in convergence, sure, but KB/mouse works much better on a desktop than the same combination does on a couch.

I see the Games for Windows decal and shrug. I suspect that most gamers do the same thing, assuming they haven't moved entirely to consoles. In the end, it's a pretty empty gesture... if not an outright rude one.

Did MS think of the players?

[RichPowers]

No. GFW's failure is a classic example of Redmond's hubris.

It reminds me of how Sony initially used the PS3 to push Blu-Ray adoption instead of videogames. Likewise, MS used GFW to promote Vista and DX10 instead PC games.

If GFW was about providing gamers with an enjoyable experience, there'd be a bigger focus on XP and no Live fees. Making several "flagship" GFW titles Vista-only was incredibly stupid as well.

GFW's greatest achievement is an obnoxious, totally redundant banner on new PC games. Thanks, MS, I had no clue I was purchasing a Windows game.

These other issues notwithstanding, MS also did a poor job of marketing GFW and explaining how it benefits PC gaming.

Without the baggage of promoting a new OS or some other crap, Valve can focus on what gamers care about: games!

Re:Did MS think of the players?

[nutshell42]

I absolutely agree with you.

It reminds me of how Sony initially used the PS3 to push Blu-Ray adoption instead of videogames. Likewise, MS used GFW to promote Vista and DX10 instead PC games.

It's even worse because GfW lacks any coherent strategy to address the PC's biggest problems for gaming which are on-board graphics and requirements stickers half the size of the box.

You don't need a $4000 PC to play games. My current PC cost about 1000 three years ago and it can still play just about all games (even though I have to dial the settings way down on e.g. Bioshock ). When you buy a new PC every few years you have to pay a premium of about $300 to get a PC that's good at playing games instead of just office stuff, but not enough people are ready to pay that price.

I think one of the biggest problems here is that all too many have simply no idea what they'd have to buy to be able to play games, whether that game they're looking at will play on their PC and what's wrong if it doesn't.

The Vista performance rating would have been the ideal way to address this problem but unfortunately a marginally bigger and faster hard drive will have a bigger impact on your score than a switch from a 6600 to a 8800.

The other problem is that MS and the graphics card corps are incapable of solving the driver mess. I installed the Bioshock demo. Then I needed new beta drivers for my nvidia card. Then I had to find a fix for the old 60Hz problem that's still around (iirc at some point nvidia allowed games to set their own refresh rate. All too many don't and you're stuck at 60Hz. That's fine if you got a LCD but sucks dick if you don't, meaning you need a 3rd party tool -nvtweak- to activate the hidden entry in nvidia's control panel to force refresh rate overrides. Now try explaining that to some non-geek). Even better ten years ago you could install games on a different partition without problems, nowadays suddenly there are quite a few games that will break if you don't install them on C:.

I mean wtf, this is 2007, nvidia makes boatloads of money by selling gaming hardware, games cost tens of millions to produce and MS needs the early adopters because we're the guys who buy overpriced retail editions of Windows. You should think they'd be able to fix all that small stuff. But nooooo...

If GFW was about providing gamers with an enjoyable experience, there'd be a bigger focus on XP and no Live fees. Making several "flagship" GFW titles Vista-only was incredibly stupid as well.

When GfW was announced originally there were some tin-foil hat theories that it was MS' new plan to kill off PC gaming. As the Xbox provides the most PC-like games generally, the idea was that by killing PC gaming MS could gain Xbox customers.

I dismissed it originally but now I'm not so sure.

Games for Windows. So which Games for Windows did MS release to launch its bold new initative? A crappy port of a two year old game with subpar graphics, crappy performance and loads of bugs. And a worse port of a overpriced game with crippled controls, crappy performance, and metric fucktons of bugs. IGN reported it wouldn't even run on half their PCs. Wow. WTF? This is the bold new world of MS enforced console-style QA for the PC? But hey, it supported the 360 gamepad.

You'd have thought MS would have been able to produce one game that wasn't a port and wasn't a B- title, or at least give us Mass Effect at the same time as the 360.

And then of course there's GfWL. If you pay them you get half the features other corps offer for free. Great.

Long story short:

Without the baggage of promoting a new OS or some other crap, Valve can focus on what gamers care about: games!

Even more important, Valve (and others, e.g. Stardock, who are catering to a more niche audience but offer less drm crap) care about gamers.

MS has lost about $*7* *billion* on the Xbox ($4bn being the accepted figure for the original Xbox, plus the losses of their games division since the launch of the 360 -less a safety margin-, plus the $1bn to fix their POS), if they have to piss off 10 PC people to gain 1 new 360 customer who cares?

Re:Did MS think of the players?

[Blakey Rat]

What they should focus on, IMO, is getting rid of all the bullcrap that PC games try to pull. Games for Windows games should be prohibited from:

1) Requiring Admin access to run. No I do not want to give permissions to an internet-capable app with dubious coding that goes online.
2) Requiring that games either run directly from CD, or at the very least don't install crappy fake CD drivers to impose their anti-copy code. (And in the process, either break or disable perfectly legitimate software, like virtual CD software.)
3) Requiring at least the same level of QA that goes into console games. It's acceptable for PC games to crash your computer; this should not be acceptable.

Missing option

[theskipper]

Odd, while reading TFA I kept expecting to see some mention about MS simply buying Valve at some point. Valve is privately held but for a princely sum it could get done, probably even easier than if they were public. And isn't Mr. Newell ex-MS?

Outlandish?

Flagship game a flop

[Yuioup]

Well... there was supposed to be this amazing game that touted Windows and XBox compatibility under the Windows Live brand. Unfortunately it didn't get good ratings.

To make things worse the project lead of the game went on air to complain about how low a review score his game got.

That game of course was Shadowrun.

What a way to launch an on-line service. Make the customers pay too much for something that should be for free ... and then bitch and moan when customers are too smart to fall for it.

Y