You can backup and install steam games off line as well.
But you can't run the games if Steam has gone away. I've also seen a few people say that they used the Steam backup software and the file it generated wouldn't reinstall.
Until GoG closes and you have to reformat and can't actually download the game from them again.
There's thing thing called 'backups', dude. You see, Gog actually give you an installer file that installs the game, you don't have to download it from them every time you want to install it.
The summary here however is worded inflammatorily as "at least for now" and "letting you".
You really think that Microsoft -- a company with a proven history of pushing DRM schemes and then turning them off -- are going to keep GFWL running forever when it's so universally reviled that few, if any, new games are using it?
That's just not happening on PC. If you think supporting games on Windows is a nightmare, can't wait to see the whore story that is games on Linux.
Steam, I believe, only supports the Ubuntu LTS release, so there's only one version to worry about. Though games may break when the next LTS comes out.
Valve need an alternative to Windows now Microsoft are trying to kill their business model with their own 'app store'. So they're convincing more and more game developers to start releasing Linux versions of their games.
Think yourself lucky that they let you do so. I almost lost GTA4 when I discovered I'd forgotten the GFWL login after not playing it for a couple of years. Others on the Steam forums have said they lost their GFWL account completely after not logging in for a long time.
Not that it would have been a big loss given how bad GTA4 is, but the experience was bad enough that I've never bought another GFWL game since.
"no actual damage"? They could permanently blind pilots.
Look on the bright side. When they were blinded while flying fifty feet off the ground, they would only have about two seconds to worry about whether their eyesight would ever return.
Supposedly the RAF tactics were to let the Argentine fighter bombers complete their attack runs while the ships were defended with chaff and decoys.
And who, exactly, claims that?
I'm not aware of any Harrier pilot who's ever said they deliberately let the Argentinians attack ships before they engaged. Nor was speed a big issue when they were primarily using Sidewinder missiles, and the Argentinians didn't have enough fuel to fly supersonic for long and still attack.
so about as effective as the Harrier jump jets were in defending the fleet ?
Are you claiming they weren't?
Ships get sunk in wars. On at least one occasion a ship was hit because they refused to let the Harriers engage an incoming Argentinian attack and relied on their own missile systems instead... which then failed to fire.
I like to think that this is at least somewhat representative of a good portion of the gaming market, young, unemployed, and with parents that aren't willing to drop 1500$+ for a moderate gaming PC.
$1500 for a 'moderate' gaming PC?
I built a new gaming PC for $1500 last year. It has the second most powerful consumer CPU at that time, tons of RAM, an SSD, 3TB of hard drive space, and a mid to high-end GPU that plays most games maxed out at 1920x1080.
$700 should get you a 'moderate' gaming PC. After all, most PC games are ports of consoles with hardware equivalent to about a five-year old PC.
People that are dangerous when driving while using a phone are most likely those that are not stopped by a ban on phones.
That's one possibility. But it doesn't explain why accident rates didn't rise dramatically before phones were banned.
If phone use is that dangerous, then either accident rates should have risen, or the people who drive using phones were just as dangerous when they weren't using phones.
1. The government said 'SOMETHING MUST BE DONE about people using the phone while driving!' 2. Media began reporting that banning phone use while driving would eliminate about 200% of accidents (yeah, I don't remember the number, but it was a huge and stupid demonstration of journalistic innumeracy). 3. The government passed a law. 4. Accident rates didn't much change.
So, I'm not at all surprised to see others find that banning phone use while driving has little or no impact on road accidents. The biggest impact I saw was that idiots who previously drove with the phone stuck to their ear would now stop wherever they were on the road to take a call, so I'd then have to pass them on a blind bend or wait for them to finish their call.
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You can backup and install steam games off line as well.
But you can't run the games if Steam has gone away. I've also seen a few people say that they used the Steam backup software and the file it generated wouldn't reinstall.
And this is the kind of crap people love having to deal with when they just want to play a game that's installed on their PC, on their PC.
GFWL is the DRM scheme that makes other DRM schemes look good.
Until GoG closes and you have to reformat and can't actually download the game from them again.
There's thing thing called 'backups', dude. You see, Gog actually give you an installer file that installs the game, you don't have to download it from them every time you want to install it.
As for Live in its existing PC game activation form, please stop the FUD- that's going nowhere.
As for PlaysForSure in its existing form, please stop the FUD - that's going nowhere.
The summary here however is worded inflammatorily as "at least for now" and "letting you".
You really think that Microsoft -- a company with a proven history of pushing DRM schemes and then turning them off -- are going to keep GFWL running forever when it's so universally reviled that few, if any, new games are using it?
That's just not happening on PC. If you think supporting games on Windows is a nightmare, can't wait to see the whore story that is games on Linux.
Steam, I believe, only supports the Ubuntu LTS release, so there's only one version to worry about. Though games may break when the next LTS comes out.
You wouldn't have lost access to GTA 4, just your save games. All of which can be avoided if you make a LOCAL PROFILE on GFWL.
You can't play GTA4 without logging into GFWL.
Well, you can, but it runs in some kind of demo mode that won't let you save.
Web apps are so, like, 1999. Phone apps are now the future of computing.
Valve need an alternative to Windows now Microsoft are trying to kill their business model with their own 'app store'. So they're convincing more and more game developers to start releasing Linux versions of their games.
I'm thankful I'm being permitted to play the game I bought. Fortunately I only bought one game with that "windows live" abomination strapped onto it.
I heard they're going to rename it 'GamesForSure'.
Think yourself lucky that they let you do so. I almost lost GTA4 when I discovered I'd forgotten the GFWL login after not playing it for a couple of years. Others on the Steam forums have said they lost their GFWL account completely after not logging in for a long time.
Not that it would have been a big loss given how bad GTA4 is, but the experience was bad enough that I've never bought another GFWL game since.
No, you just install MATE (aka Gnome 2).
"no actual damage"? They could permanently blind pilots.
Look on the bright side. When they were blinded while flying fifty feet off the ground, they would only have about two seconds to worry about whether their eyesight would ever return.
Supposedly the RAF tactics were to let the Argentine fighter bombers complete their attack runs while the ships were defended with chaff and decoys.
And who, exactly, claims that?
I'm not aware of any Harrier pilot who's ever said they deliberately let the Argentinians attack ships before they engaged. Nor was speed a big issue when they were primarily using Sidewinder missiles, and the Argentinians didn't have enough fuel to fly supersonic for long and still attack.
so about as effective as the Harrier jump jets were in defending the fleet ?
Are you claiming they weren't?
Ships get sunk in wars. On at least one occasion a ship was hit because they refused to let the Harriers engage an incoming Argentinian attack and relied on their own missile systems instead... which then failed to fire.
I like to think that this is at least somewhat representative of a good portion of the gaming market, young, unemployed, and with parents that aren't willing to drop 1500$+ for a moderate gaming PC.
$1500 for a 'moderate' gaming PC?
I built a new gaming PC for $1500 last year. It has the second most powerful consumer CPU at that time, tons of RAM, an SSD, 3TB of hard drive space, and a mid to high-end GPU that plays most games maxed out at 1920x1080.
$700 should get you a 'moderate' gaming PC. After all, most PC games are ports of consoles with hardware equivalent to about a five-year old PC.
Perhaps looking out the window would prevent the said teenager from plowing into that guys truck at full speed.
Replacing the stop light with a roundabout certainly would have done.
People that are dangerous when driving while using a phone are most likely those that are not stopped by a ban on phones.
That's one possibility. But it doesn't explain why accident rates didn't rise dramatically before phones were banned.
If phone use is that dangerous, then either accident rates should have risen, or the people who drive using phones were just as dangerous when they weren't using phones.
Real studies - i.e. evaluating drivers making calls in comparision with not making calls show significant degredation in performance.
So why didn't accident rates fall dramatically when phone use while driving was banned? And why didn't they rise dramatically beforehand?
Here's what I remember happening in the UK:
1. The government said 'SOMETHING MUST BE DONE about people using the phone while driving!'
2. Media began reporting that banning phone use while driving would eliminate about 200% of accidents (yeah, I don't remember the number, but it was a huge and stupid demonstration of journalistic innumeracy).
3. The government passed a law.
4. Accident rates didn't much change.
So, I'm not at all surprised to see others find that banning phone use while driving has little or no impact on road accidents. The biggest impact I saw was that idiots who previously drove with the phone stuck to their ear would now stop wherever they were on the road to take a call, so I'd then have to pass them on a blind bend or wait for them to finish their call.
In the year 2000 cars will be able to drive themselves, so texting, talking, sleeping, or being drunk shouldn't have any affect on accident rates.
In the year 2000, oil will have run out, so no-one will be driving anywhere.
Oh. Very convenient. Though it shoudl be opt-in.
The whole point of opt-out systems is that they're used when few people would choose to opt-in.
This one fails dismally because they've made it so incredibly annoying that almost everyone goes to the trouble of figuring out how to disable them.
To be fair, the phone UI looks better than the new Office UI on PCs.
They do, but despite mathematics being compulsory for most CS courses .. geeks just don't get it.
Microsoft have a dominant market position in the smart phone and tablet markets?
You must be using some new branch of mathematics that I wasn't previously aware of.
The features listed sound more like 'Notepad for Android' to me.