Sup fools, 
 
Eating a tasty Hershey's Symphony bar at the moment as I watch some people dressed as Batman fight on the street, fun fact...my State is the home of said chocolate company!, it got me thinking of that Batman game and how it uses GFWL.  It fucking sucks with how DRM focused it is and how I need to be signed onto XBL to play it.  Even worse is that the GOTY edition only has a four PC activation limit! 
 
I've often hear mixed signals from PC gamers, some users say that it's really bad but more and more PC gamers are starting to say it's very good since the new marketplace.   
 
I don't care either way as the games I buy are all on my Steam account...I do have a problem when it makes me download the XBL application for Windows 7 every time I download a GFWL game.  Nor do I care enough about achievements as I have a social life which doesn't involve me talking about what trophies or achievements I've gotten over the course of the week. 
 
So my fellow PC gamers, would you rather do without it, or keep it as it is? 
 

The only problem that I've had with GFWL is the activation limit on keys. Other than that though, I don't have a problem with the service.

Bad. Microsoft doesn't care about PC gamers. (Neither does Valve in the long run but I might just be paranoid.)

Bad. Microsoft doesn't care about PC gamers. (Neither does Valve in the long run but I might just be paranoid.)

Its almost aggressively average.

 
I fucking hate it.

Whats games windows for live?

I've never had a problem with it and I own about 8 games that use it, as far as I see its just a way for me to earn achievement points on my PC, I guess thats cool. I'm completely indifferent towards it.

Bad. It's cumbersome and inadequate. It has no benefits, it's just another hoop to jump through to get to your game. If they could make it worthwhile like Steam I would give it a chance.

I like achievements and having the friends list between XBL and PC unified. Microsoft had a pretty decent chance to do something interesting and cool with GFWL but they just haven't so far. Right now it's basically a bunch of half-assed features with an ugly UI that doesn't work most of the time.

It's not as good as Xbox Live, which is part of the problem.    Also some game saves can't be loaded without actually being connected to the live service which is also a hassle.   They really need to clean up that stuff before Windows 8 comes out which seems likes it's going to emphasize the Live functionality in the OS.

Never really understood the hate with it.  I have a few GFWL games and I've had no issues.  Anyone care to explain the hate?

 
I honestly don't understand why this shit exists ... and why its used in combination with steam ?
 
I mean , I already use Steam and I bought your fucking game ... why do I need to go through another layer of DRM and enter the fucking CD key ?

@Mikemcn said:

Bad. Microsoft doesn't care about PC gamers. (Neither does Valve in the long run but I might just be paranoid.)

I was gonna respond "Please, please, PLEASE don't tell me you think there is one that does".  ...but I refreshed before I did and your edit convinced me that you don't :)

Never really understood the hate with it.  I have a few GFWL games and I've had no issues.  Anyone care to explain the hate?

The state it is currently in ? Bad.
It could turn out something good though, but they don't improve it methinks. They've got a good thing going on milking the Xbox userbase for money.
Seriously, asking money for Multiplayer when all it is - is Peer-to-Peer hosting? Fuck off. You should be paying me for my hosting bandwidth!

It's mixed, really.  I like having a gamer score with PC games.  I know they have Steam achievements (now), but GFWL did it earlier, I believe. And GFWL is a good unifying service, for that sort of thing.  Frankly though, Steam is a better unifying service though.  Also, games that have support for the 360 controller are ALWAYS good.  The bad stuff is their  Marketplace, which is a poor, poor copy of Steam, only with not a lot of deals, and only about 6 exclusive games.  Granted those games are good (Gears of War 1, Halo 2, Viva Pinata, and a few others), but NOT enough to use the store on a regular basis.
 
One last thing, a lot of GFWL patching stuff, blows.  There was an issue with Red Faction Guerrilla where it wouldn't patch correctly.  You had to manually download a patch, sacrifice a goat, dance around the altar, in hoping of getting the game to actually work correctly, for a while.

The state it is currently in ? Bad.It could turn out something good though, but they don't improve it methinks. They've got a good thing going on milking the Xbox userbase for money.Seriously, asking money for Multiplayer when all it is - is Peer-to-Peer hosting? Fuck off. You should be paying me for my hosting bandwidth!

Seriously, asking money for Multiplayer when all it is - is Peer-to-Peer hosting?

While it's a great thing to have competition to keep prices down, if everyone is already on steam, a better service, there isn't much GFWL has to offer. GFWL is basically a shitty port of XBL.  
And worst of all, it's just a really shitty interface. Downloading Fallout 3 DLC was one of the worst experiences of my life, and now I refuse to get games with GFWL.
It's existence is a problem that needs to be removed.

Wait a sec. You guys hate it because you have to be signed on in order to play a game. Isn't that the same for Steam?

Wait a sec. You guys hate it because you have to be signed on in order to play a game. Isn't that the same for Steam?

I don't mind the interface in game, and I don't care about the store at all because it's inferior to steam. I don't mind GFWL, but it doesn't really do anything to change PC gaming as a whole after the whole Xbox/PC cross-platform play fell through completely. It just seems pointless at this point and thats why I think people are always getting in a fuss about it.

I like real achievement points, so I say yay to GFWL (or GWFL even).
 
@KaosAngel said:

@billnyethesciencepie said:

Whats games windows for live?

It's like Steam but for Xbox Live.

I don't mind the interface in game, and I don't care about the store at all because it's inferior to steam. I don't mind GFWL, but it doesn't really do anything to change PC gaming as a whole after the whole Xbox/PC cross-platform play fell through completely. It just seems pointless at this point and thats why I think people are always getting in a fuss about it.

When I start it up it makes my pc explode cus is hogs all the available ram, patches didn't fix it so I can't even be fucked to look at it nowadays.
 
Least Steam worked when I installed it.

Its almost aggressively average.

lol, totally bad.

It's on my computer, but really I have no problem with it. I mean it's there. It makes my games work and I get achievements. 
 
The storefront is a total joke still though. Also everything about GFWL just feels so disconnected, unlike Steam.

It's a pain and I don't like it. It's like if steam were awful. Especially with updating. I've yet to have a good experience with it, at best it's not too big of a nuisance.

Steamworks. Does everything better and more.
 
Fuck, Valve listens to their fan base and creates what they want. Not produce a service of what we might like.

I dont like it. Just think its useless.  It really just feels like DRM. 

DRM is bad. Originally Windows for Games was a subscription service I believe (ie also bad). So, yes its bad.