4 ms·

I hate the hoop jumping in modern games. I was playing Street Fighter 4 recently and it comes up with "oh, you want to save your single player game? You have to

by jiggy2011 14y ago

I hate the hoop jumping in modern games. I was playing Street Fighter 4 recently and it comes up with "oh, you want to save your single player game? You have to create a MicrosoftWindowsBingGamesPhone8ForXboxLive.Net account" . Then of course you have to wait for the damn thing to sign in every time you want to play the game "Connection failed, do you want to retry?"

Foy 14y ago
Short of doing extensive background research on a title, Steam has no indication of a game's dependence on some third party launcher or cloud service, so every time I run a new game for the first time I have to clench and pray the Windows Live overlay doesn't drop down. Meaning: I feel your pain, brother.
- rmc 14y ago
  Couldn't Steam pull the game from their shop? Prevent new people from buying it and remotely de-activate/remove existing installs of the game? Proponants of the walled garden 'App Store' model point out how it's good for users, since it's more secure. Well, is this a case for that? Will the closed app store model step up to the plate now? Or is the walled garden no better for users, but much better for the sellers of software?
  - billswift 14y ago
    When a walled garden actually is better for users, they could choose to participate. When users aren't allowed to choose, you can be pretty sure who the primary beneficiary is.
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    I just wish there was some option that would let Steam warn me if something like this was going to happen.
- wlesieutre 14y ago
  You sure about that? Section 8: Prejudice [1] (the only GFWL game I own) lists Games for Windows Live under 3rd party DRM. On the other hand, the Batman: Arkham Noun games [2,3] list SecuROM in 3rd party DRM but not GFWL. I'm told that these games are both GFWL titles. I don't know what's going on there, but it looks inconsistent. [1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/ [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/35140/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/35140/ [3] http://store.steampowered.com/app/57400/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/57400/
  - betterth 14y ago
    Arkham City requires GFWL, almost made me quit the game I bought and go pirate it. Still considering it, honestly. Not only did it fail to log me in the first time and totally dropped my first hour of gameplay, but I ended up having to reset a password and spend over half an hour trying to get Arkham City and GFWL live to work together. I lost over 1.5 hours of time to that bullshit, and a pirate would have lost 0 hours. I am ONCE AGAIN bitten in the ass for being a legitimate customer instead of a dirty pirate.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Batman: Arkham Asylum requires a Windows Live account, not sure about the new one. Perhaps it is not listed if it is only used to enable "social gaming" but DRM is done by some other software.
    - wlesieutre 14y ago
      Just spotted it, the Batman games hide it in the System requirements: > Online play requires log-in to Games For Windows – Live So I guess it's in the DRM list if you need it to play singleplayer, and in system reqs if you don't. Seems fair, but I'd still rather have it be consistent. No reason S8 couldn't list it in both spots.
      - Foy 14y ago
        Still, I habitually don't read System Reqs. I'd expect something more like one of the "Single Player", "Multi Player" bullets under the ESRB rating. "Requires 3rd party bullshit"
slavak 14y ago
I've found myself having to deal with roughly 100% more bullshit launcher-patch-launcher-settings-signup-login-wait crap since I've started buying games on Steam instead of just straight up pirating them like I did when I was dirt poor. Honestly, about 1 in every 2-3 games I play I find myself wondering why I didn't just pirate it to begin with. When your software has the kind of extra "features" that make your user base actually consider downloading a cracked, illegal copy after buying the real deal, you know you've royally fucked up somewhere along the way.

Foy 14y ago

Short of doing extensive background research on a title, Steam has no indication of a game's dependence on some third party launcher or cloud service, so every time I run a new game for the first time I have to clench and pray the Windows Live overlay doesn't drop down. Meaning: I feel your pain, brother.

rmc 14y ago
Couldn't Steam pull the game from their shop? Prevent new people from buying it and remotely de-activate/remove existing installs of the game? Proponants of the walled garden 'App Store' model point out how it's good for users, since it's more secure. Well, is this a case for that? Will the closed app store model step up to the plate now? Or is the walled garden no better for users, but much better for the sellers of software?
- billswift 14y ago
  When a walled garden actually is better for users, they could choose to participate. When users aren't allowed to choose, you can be pretty sure who the primary beneficiary is.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  I just wish there was some option that would let Steam warn me if something like this was going to happen.
wlesieutre 14y ago
You sure about that? Section 8: Prejudice [1] (the only GFWL game I own) lists Games for Windows Live under 3rd party DRM. On the other hand, the Batman: Arkham Noun games [2,3] list SecuROM in 3rd party DRM but not GFWL. I'm told that these games are both GFWL titles. I don't know what's going on there, but it looks inconsistent. [1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/ [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/35140/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/35140/ [3] http://store.steampowered.com/app/57400/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/57400/
- betterth 14y ago
  Arkham City requires GFWL, almost made me quit the game I bought and go pirate it. Still considering it, honestly. Not only did it fail to log me in the first time and totally dropped my first hour of gameplay, but I ended up having to reset a password and spend over half an hour trying to get Arkham City and GFWL live to work together. I lost over 1.5 hours of time to that bullshit, and a pirate would have lost 0 hours. I am ONCE AGAIN bitten in the ass for being a legitimate customer instead of a dirty pirate.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Batman: Arkham Asylum requires a Windows Live account, not sure about the new one. Perhaps it is not listed if it is only used to enable "social gaming" but DRM is done by some other software.
  - wlesieutre 14y ago
    Just spotted it, the Batman games hide it in the System requirements: > Online play requires log-in to Games For Windows – Live So I guess it's in the DRM list if you need it to play singleplayer, and in system reqs if you don't. Seems fair, but I'd still rather have it be consistent. No reason S8 couldn't list it in both spots.
    - Foy 14y ago
      Still, I habitually don't read System Reqs. I'd expect something more like one of the "Single Player", "Multi Player" bullets under the ESRB rating. "Requires 3rd party bullshit"

slavak 14y ago

I've found myself having to deal with roughly 100% more bullshit launcher-patch-launcher-settings-signup-login-wait crap since I've started buying games on Steam instead of just straight up pirating them like I did when I was dirt poor. Honestly, about 1 in every 2-3 games I play I find myself wondering why I didn't just pirate it to begin with. When your software has the kind of extra "features" that make your user base actually consider downloading a cracked, illegal copy after buying the real deal, you know you've royally fucked up somewhere along the way.