Capcom has removed GFWL from a bunch of old delisted Steam releases

I own all these on Steam, so this is welcome news
 
What's GFWL if you don't mind asking? Some DRM-shit?
Games for Windows Live - aka Microsoft's DRM circa Windows 7, it was shut down ages ago
 
revenge of the sith episode 3 GIF by Star Wars
 
What's GFWL if you don't mind asking? Some DRM-shit?

Imagine the worst DRM ever created, and then imagine something 100x worse, that's what it was.

It was originally introduced because they wanted to make people pay for online gaming on PC and got all these 3rd party publishers on board with the idea. Their games were basically going to be used as leverage to get PC gamers to pay for online gaming.

Needless to say, PC gamers rejected it and it fell flat on its face.

Here was the initial announcement:

Like the console version of the online service, Games for Windows-Live will be offered in both Silver and Gold membership packages. Gold memberships will be a premium service priced at $49.95 per year. Subscribers to Xbox Live will have full access to Games for Windows-Live at no additional charge, and vice-versa. PC users will be able to take advantage of a unified system of voice and text chat, gamer profiles and gamertags with the Silver service, while those paying for Gold will have access to matchmaking services and thus cross-platform play.


And then when they eventually shut it down they quietly made it so that customers can no longer download any games purchased through them:



So this is why most long time PC gamers don't give a shit when they talk about the current windows store/xbox app, play anywhere or any of the other crap that they try and tempt people back to them with.
 
never experienced any issues with GFWL personally, and getting extra achievements was great, but they definitely should've removed it from all the games when MS sunsetted it.
 
Imagine the worst DRM ever created, and then imagine something 100x worse, that's what it was.

It was originally introduced because they wanted to make people pay for online gaming on PC and got all these 3rd party publishers on board with the idea. Their games were basically going to be used as leverage to get PC gamers to pay for online gaming.

Needless to say, PC gamers rejected it and it fell flat on its face.

Here was the initial announcement:




And then when they eventually shut it down they quietly made it so that customers can no longer download any games purchased through them:



So this is why most long time PC gamers don't give a shit when they talk about the current windows store/xbox app, play anywhere or any of the other crap that they try and tempt people back to them with.

StarForce was much worse.
 
I have memories of my friends and I trying to boot up Lost Planet 2 on PC a few years ago and the hoops we had to jump through to get around GFWL. We actually got it working and played through the campaign, but the initial setup was not a pleasant experience lol
 
StarForce was much worse.

I don't remember StarForce attempting to force me to pay for online gaming or making it impossible to download and play my purchased games.

I do remember it fucking up windows installs though, was probably trying to do us all a favour.
 
GFWL is the worse fucking DRM service created for PC
Imagine Pay for Online play in a PC game, 24 hour internet connection check,/w the most potato server in the world,glad gabe just take it over
 
Imagine the worst DRM ever created, and then imagine something 100x worse, that's what it was.

It was originally introduced because they wanted to make people pay for online gaming on PC and got all these 3rd party publishers on board with the idea. Their games were basically going to be used as leverage to get PC gamers to pay for online gaming.

Needless to say, PC gamers rejected it and it fell flat on its face.

Here was the initial announcement:




And then when they eventually shut it down they quietly made it so that customers can no longer download any games purchased through them:



So this is why most long time PC gamers don't give a shit when they talk about the current windows store/xbox app, play anywhere or any of the other crap that they try and tempt people back to them with.

Interesting bit of history. I'm fairly new in the PC space so I never knew any of this. I thought some of their initiatives like Play Anywhere and PC game pass are kinda good and consumer friendly but MS is such a nefarious company that it's difficult to trust them not having a shitty agenda behind it. And I don't really want to be locked down in their eco system even if it's on PC. And the Xbox app is terrible. So I just play most of their games through Steam and GoG.
 
Games for Windows Live - aka Microsoft's DRM circa Windows 7, it was shut down ages ago
That actually isn't true despite the reports in the media. The Games for Windows Live store was shut down a long time ago, but the actual service is still up and running (the same as the Xbox 360 in both respects). It's a slight hassle to get it up and running these days, but it works just fine even on Windows 11 once you get it installed correctly. You can log in, play online and do everything with it that you always could - including redeeming keys, from physical copies of games or otherwise, despite the marketplace closure. I would expect the core functionality of GfWL to be up and running until the day that the Xbox 360's online services are finally turned off completely.
 
I remember this program/service in GTA IV and Resident Evil 5, I never liked it. It would either cause problems with the game's saves or, in some cases, prevent the game from opening.
 
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