GTA IV On PC Goes Exclusive With 'Games For Windows Live'

Erik J writes "Microsoft has announced that the PC version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV will exclusively use Games for Windows Live for its multiplayer mode when it hits shelves November 18th. Rockstar founder Sam Houser explained the decision: 'As we work toward the release of the PC version, Games for Windows Live affords us the opportunity to seamlessly translate the multiplayer console experience for PC gamers, the service is a natural fit for the platform and we strongly believe it will help in building a strong online community around GTA IV PC.'" Wired is running a story suggesting that this release could save the rather unpopular Microsoft PC gaming platform.

Comments

Motherfuckers.

[nog_lorp]

Wired is running a story suggesting that this release could save the rather unpopular Microsoft PC gaming platform.

Motherfuckers.

Re:Motherfuckers.

[Bragador]

I agree with parent. This just forces games to be even more locked on a platform than before.

This is not about saving or helping the pc market. It's about selling windows.

Re:Motherfuckers.

[Scott Kevill]

This is not about saving or helping the pc market. It's about selling windows.

And poorly.

GFWL was originally Vista-only. The multiplayer support also used to have a yearly fee (aside from the gimped Silver plan), while disallowing developers to have any game features they considered competitive to GFWL's (eg. voice communication and achievements).

So they release a multiplayer-only game ported from a console version (Shadowrun) using GFWL Vista-only, pay-to-play multiplayer. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't sell.

They've back-pedalled somewhat now, making GFWL free and supporting XP, but they seriously shot themselves in the foot, and will have a long way to go before they reverse the damage done to the GFWL name in the minds of gamers.

Re:Motherfuckers.

[hairyfeet]

Bingo! I bought the GTA series because after you were done beating the games there was so much more you could do thanks to the mods. You could have your favorite real life cars,new areas to explore,hell there is even a few total conversions that are like getting a new game. By locking it down to Windows Live(Do I LOOK like I want my PC to act like an Xbox?) they have killed the mods and given me a reason not to buy it. Maybe if it sinks like Shadowrun they'll get hit by the clue stick and give us a REAL version. Until then I'll stick with my other 3 GTA games,thanks anyway.

Re:Motherfuckers.

[ozphx]

Why would I want some shitty in-house voice comm setup / achievements / server browser / login system?

Take a look at how well Steam works when you force people to use the "platform" services.

There is nothing worse than using some crappy server browser designed for a console without being able to do things like "click column headings to sort". Just like every damn EA driving game.

In fact I've always said that the best menu system for a game was a standard damn Windows Forms app with standard bloody common controls. Then fire up all the 3D goodness when I click "Join/Begin/Start Fellating". I don't need some shitty menu designed last minute by a bunch of artists "adding to my game experience".

Played GRID? Thats the kinda shit I'm talking about.

Re:Motherfuckers.

[hairyfeet]

And whose fault was that? They left the code for a SCREWING game in a game they KNOW is going to be looked at by modders! If they use that as an excuse to kill modding with that crappy live(again,if I wanted a freakin' Xbox I would have bought one,okay?) then the game deserves to tank.

I swear,more and more it is looking like those that make PC games don't want to make money. First EA with their "we'll screw them and make them pay full price for a rental!" and now Take2 puts one of the biggest mod games around on a platform that is so locked down it kills the entire community! Did they all get beat with a clueless stick or what?

It really says:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Games for Windows Live affords us the opportunity to seamlessly translate the multiplayer console experience for PC gamers" (Microsoft paid us like, a lot of money to do this, if you want to play it without errors get a console.)

Re:Popular, unpopular

[pushing-robot]

That's the point. It's not Games for Windows Live that sells GTA, it's GTA that sells Games for Windows Live.

On the plus side, I'm glad I didn't wait for GTA IV to be released before buying the rest of the series on Steam.

GFW - good GFW LIVE - bad

[wc_paladin]

I don't really have a big problem with the Games for Windows label. It helped developers get their acts together for 64-bit windows versions, and games now all save in the same area, so saves are separated among users. What I don't really like, however, is GFW LIVE. It seems really dumbed down from other PC gaming services. Whoever thought that PC gamers would pay a subscription fee for it is also insane. I think they dropped the subscriptions recently, but it still has the stigma of being Xbox LIVE, for Windows.

Re:GFW - good GFW LIVE - bad

[Dutch Gun]

Well, games that are writing to your user folder are doing the "correct" thing, according to Microsoft.

http://ati.amd.com/developer/SwedenTechDay/02_Preparing_Games_for_Windows_Vista.pdf

It's not just about sharing - it's about security practices as well. If you are not running with Administrator privileges (which normal users are *supposed* to be running at), then these user directories are the only legitimate places an application can freely write to. In Vista, writing to the program files directory will be virtualized and shunted to a user-specific location anyhow. Games today still can't ignore running well on XP, but neither can they ignore the requirements of Vista.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has been pretty inconsistent about the recommended location of these types of files in the past - it's a bit of a moving target - as the inconsistency of your game saves shows. And unfortunately, Windows users (your post illustrates this exactly) have been wrongly trained to expect user-specific data to simply be written to a subfolder under the program's install directory or something like that (because this mechanism just hasn't been used or enforced on the Windows platform previously).

I empathize with the "messiness" of it, though. Incidentally, are you aware that you can point your "My Documents" folder anywhere, even a separate partition, or a common folder on your C drive? That might help you to keep things organized a bit better.

Re:Popular, unpopular

[Decado]

Not being available on Steam reduces the chance that I will buy a PC game by about 90% these days. It is just so handy to have all my games in the same location, automatic patching, no need to worry about CD keys etc.

If GTA IV doesn't come on Steam I won't be buying it. That said I would take this announcement with a very large game of salt. Considering GTA IV was announced as being exclusive to pretty much every platform in existance before its release it is more likely that they have some little piddling exclusive for Games for Windows Live players that nobody will really miss.

Wait, what?

[ivan256]

Rockstar founder Sam Houser explained the decision: 'They paid us. Cash. A big green pile of the stuff. We had our own code for it, but nobody was paying us to use it. They said we have to spew some bullshit about how great it is without making it sound like it's about the money. Whatever. I can do that.'

There. Fixed that for him.

Re:Won't see 'Games for Mac' anytime soon

[Macthorpe]

Never mind the fact XGL and OpenGL are just as viable, if not more so, than the oh so resource-efficient MS implementations.

I sense sarcasm where there shouldn't be any. Do some research on OpenGL, specifically how it manages resources compared to DirectX, and you'll see why so many developers pick the latter. I'll also quote John Carmack:

"Actually, DX9 is really quite a good API level. Even with the D3D side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step - they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility - and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with."

Path of least resistance

[Scott Kevill]

GTA IV already used XBox Live on the 360. Given that the PC port was most likely from the 360 codebase, it would have taken more effort to not use GFWL than to use it. Of course the PR spin won't mention this.

Re:Won't see 'Games for Mac' anytime soon

[ardor]

OpenGL is really lagging behind DirectX now.

Actually, its not. OpenGL is on par with Direct3D. It the API that sucks, because the core API no longer accurately reflects modern hardware, and everything thats nice is in new 2.1 features + extensions, which are progressing into an object model similar to Longs Peak. Therefore, right now OpenGL is a mixed bag - state machine style initialization for textures, object model style initialization for pixel/vertex/framebuffer objects & shaders.

This is my corner, whore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft: Exclusively beating up hookers to sell Windows since 2008.

Re:Should have gone FOSS.

[JohnFluxx]

They could open source the code but not open source the graphics. That's what Id does. That way you still have to buy the game for the graphics.

Re:BSOD

[vacuum_tuber]

No, BSoD is a free, bundled feature of Windows.

Re:The multiplayer console experience

[LingNoi]

If the game supports xinput and you have two xbox controllers plugged in then it shouldn't be a problem.