GFW Live - Breaking out the sandbags

[Locker K]

At the Gamefest 2008 event on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that all Games for Windows Live multiplayer features are now free. These features -- including multiplayer achievements, matchmaking, cross-platform play with the Xbox 360, GFW voice chat, and more -- previously required a GFW Live Gold account. The change is effective immediately and across all GFW titles, both past and future.


In addition to making Games for Windows Live free, Microsoft will also be creating a brand new GFW marketplace this fall to rival the marketplace found on the Xbox 360. As with the Xbox Live Marketplace, GFW's will offer demos, videos, downloadable content, and more. The GFW interface will also receive some tech-friendly changes, lowering requirements for developers looking to make their games GFW compatible


To cap off the news, two new games were revealed to be receiving the Games for Windows branding: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3167328) and Battlestations: Pacific (http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3166729). So PC gamers finally get the totally free service they've been asking for since Games for Windows launched, but is it too little, too late to save Microsoft's attempt at a PC gaming service? And will this make 360 owners question why they have to pay?
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168931

This really does seem like too little too late, and all I can see it doing it enraging a small group of XBox Live gamers who will feel entitled to a free service as well. Of course, if Microsoft decides to lower the cost of XBox Live then I've got no complaints but I don't see it happening with all the added functionality they're planning to add this coming fall.

[stusser]

It's not too late if MS actually invests in the service, helps out developers, pushes retail marketing, etc. But they're not going to do that, are they?

[MSUSteve]

Relic spilled the beans about this on GFW Radio during one of the E3 episodes, at least to the extent that they said all GFW Live features, including MP and voice chat, would be provided free of charge. The only question left was whether or not that would extend across all GFW games. That's been answered now. It's a good move by MS, though obviously one that should've been in place to begin with.

[sluggo]

Here's the official announcement from MS:

Today Microsoft will make the following Windows gaming announcements from Gamefest 2008, the company’s annual game technology conference in Seattle, WA (www.xnagamefest.com).

Games for Windows – LIVE:

· Effective today, all Games for Windows – LIVE multiplayer features are now completely free. Achievements, enhanced TruSkill ® matchmaking, cross-platform play with XBOX 360 (in games that support it), voice and text chat, a friends list that is consistent across both Windows and XBOX 360 – everything – is now free to Windows gamers.

This change immediately affects all currently available Games for Windows – LIVE titles and all future titles.

Microsoft will also announce plans to deliver a Games for Windows – LIVE marketplace this fall, which will offer downloadable game content (free and paid, determined by the publisher), demos, trailers and more.

Microsoft is also making the Games for Windows – LIVE in-game interface much more PC friendly, and reducing the technical requirements for developers.

DirectX 11:

· Microsoft will disclose plans for DirectX 11 to game developers. DirectX 11 is a big step forward for gaming, adding features onto existing DirectX 10 (and 10.1) hardware. Direct3D 11, a key component of DirectX 11, will include:

Full support (including all DX11 hardware features) on Windows Vista as well as future versions of Windows

Compatibility with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as support for new DirectX 11 hardware

New compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor

Multi-threaded resource handling that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core machines

Support for tessellation, which blurs the line between super high quality pre-rendered scenes and scenes rendered in real-time, allowing game developers to refine models to be smoother and more attractive when seen up close
DirectX11. LOL.

[mono]

If it's free, and the service works well (server browser/match making), I can't see any problem. If they actually want to foster some sort of Live 'community' though, they'll need a stand-alone client that seamlessly allows for services from in or out of-game, even non-Live games.

[KMartin]

If it's free, and the service works well (server browser/match making), I can't see any problem. If they actually want to foster some sort of Live 'community' though, they'll need a stand-alone client that seamlessly allows for services from in or out of-game, even non-Live games.

Like Steam?

[malkav11]

Huh. Well, it's the right move. Maybe not timely enough, but the right move. Of course, I was originally under the impression that the only things that were supposed to be tied to Live Gold were multiplayer achievements and crossplatform play, which I could have lived without. So I dunno why they decided to go past that in the first place.

[Slainte Mhath]

It's a good strategy, if a little late in the execution. It still feels like a stepchild to the 360 version though. It's like with the 360 version it's all "how can you live without this?!" and on the PC it's more like "hey, here's a couple of nifty extras we were kind enough to toss in the box with your game".

[Moore]

Like Steam?

yeah.. I've only just gotten back into pc gaming, but what? Steam is fine. I dont see the point in GFWlive, except maybe I'll get a few non 360 achievos.

I also blown away that directx11 will be for windows! (what the fuck kind of announcement is that? DUH?!)

[Shadari]

I wonder how comprehensive the GFW marketplace will really be. Personally, I'm not overwhelmed by Steam's selection so far. I've heard from a number of devs that said that they couldn't reach a quick and reasonable deal with the folks at Valve.

[Hump]

I wasn't even aware they were still charging for it....lol.

I wonder how comprehensive the GFW marketplace will really be. Personally, I'm not overwhelmed by Steam's selection so far. I've heard from a number of devs that said that they couldn't reach a quick and reasonable deal with the folks at Valve.

Is it true valve gets about 50% of the gross sales?

[Quitch]

Like Steam?

When did Steam get matchmaking?

[Shadari]

Is it true valve gets about 50% of the gross sales?
The rumor is that it varies between 25% and 40%. But please take that with a few hundred tons of salt.

BTW, are there any Valve guys around here besides chet, who seems to have recently vanished. I'd love to get some input from them. I suppose they have their own forums though.

[Quitch]

A friend of mine was looking to put an Indie game through Steam and I believe they were looking for 40-50%.

[Kryten]

Dammit, I saw the thread title and immediately thought there was going to be a live broadcast of the Brodeo. Gutted.

[Moore]

When did Steam get matchmaking?

Please thats what XBL is for! PC's are single player!

[mono]

Like Steam?

Yeah. I'd have loved everyone to just line up behind Valve and Steamworks, but it's apparent it ain't gonna happen.

Even if you put aside Steam, what good are the community features of GFW if they only work once you've already launched the game? I don't play much on Xbox Live, but isn't the big attraction the ability to msg your friends to join a game, even if they're currently playing some other title, or watching a DVD?

[Shadari]

Steam is d0med? :)

[Podunk]

When did Steam get matchmaking?

They've been working on it. I think they're supposed to roll it out with Left 4 Dead.

[Rorschach]

Well Steamworks is "free" so you're more talking about the distribution fees being x% and not the community stuff right?

[NowhereDan]

Microsoft has this bizarre attitude where they think they can just shove a product out in a crappy state to build awareness of the brand, then slowly iterate that product into something usable. It's what they did with the Xbox and the Zune, and now with GFWL. The problem is that they often damage the brand with a reputation of craptacularness, and then you have a hell of a time trying to convince people it's any good even after they fix it up. Worst marketing plan ever.

[MikeSolita]

The rumor is that it varies between 25% and 40%. But please take that with a few hundred tons of salt.

BTW, are there any Valve guys around here besides chet, who seems to have recently vanished. I'd love to get some input from them. I suppose they have their own forums though.

I've read it's 30%. Somewhere in that ballpark sounds right. That's pretty harsh. I doubt console manufacturers even charge that much for licensing.

[MikeSolita]

Microsoft has this bizarre attitude where they think they can just shove a product out in a crappy state to build awareness of the brand, then slowly iterate that product into something usable. It's what they did with the Xbox and the Zune, and now with GFWL. The problem is that they often damage the brand with a reputation of craptacularness, and then you have a hell of a time trying to convince people it's any good even after they fix it up. Worst marketing plan ever.

The new Vista ads are just ... embarrassing.

[Kunikos]

The new Vista ads are just ... embarrassing.

I suppose that's an iterative improvement on the old ads which were just... insulting.

Also, did anyone else notice that they're adding vendor-agnostic tesselation support? Shit, it's been a LONG time coming. ATI has had this feature since what, the 9x00 series?

[jwtheiv]

Microsoft has this bizarre attitude where they think they can just shove a product out in a crappy state to build awareness of the brand, then slowly iterate that product into something usable. It's what they did with the Xbox and the Zune, and now with GFWL. The problem is that they often damage the brand with a reputation of craptacularness, and then you have a hell of a time trying to convince people it's any good even after they fix it up. Worst marketing plan ever.

Pretty much. I have Steam and I have Impulse. If MS wants me to go register for yet another service, they're going to have to bring something to the table to impress me.

[Tim James]

Pretty much. I have Steam and I have Impulse. If MS wants me to go register for yet another service, they're going to have to bring something to the table to impress me.
Clippy for games?

[Kunikos]

Pretty much. I have Steam and I have Impulse. If MS wants me to go register for yet another service, they're going to have to bring something to the table to impress me.

What the heck is Impulse? Googling turns up nada.

[Shadari]

What the heck is Impulse? Googling turns up nada.
Oh man, that's classic because you're the one always telling people to look shit up in Google whenever they ask a relatively simple question here on the forums.

Er, you weren't being serious, right???

If you were, then... look here (http://www.impulsedriven.com/).

[fuzzyslug]

What the heck is Impulse? Googling turns up nada.

It's StarDock's new thing (http://www.impulsedriven.com/).

[Shingro]

It's not exactly too late for GFW, Dawn of War 2 is going to be a GFW title and that's a promising game many PC gamers are going to be interested. This change by and large just means that steam vs GFW is not a forgone conclusion

[krise madsen]

I've read it's 30%. Somewhere in that ballpark sounds right. That's pretty harsh. I doubt console manufacturers even charge that much for licensing.

A dev told me it's about 40% for consoles.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[ravenight]

Pretty much. I have Steam and I have Impulse. If MS wants me to go register for yet another service, they're going to have to bring something to the table to impress me.

Why? Is it such a hassle to use a different marketplace, even if it's an app you have to fire up for free? All they have to bring to the table is a game you want that isn't on the other services, which is what MS already realized about the console wars, and what Sony seems deliberately blind to (though maybe MGS4 will help convince them). Compared to an exclusive game you are excited about, auxiliary features are pretty close to meaningless. Not that a full-blown buddy list / voip / matchmaking service integrated into games for free and then tied to a marketplace wouldn't have huge draw...it just isn't necessary.

I've read it's 30%. Somewhere in that ballpark sounds right. That's pretty harsh. I doubt console manufacturers even charge that much for licensing.

Well, assuming it is 30% (and I think it probably varies based on the specific title being sold), that is still an incredible deal when you consider the mark up retailers usually get and the fact that they are willing to deal with really small self-funded companies (who therefore can own their IP and not have to give a cut to a publisher).

MS pushing a digital distribution platform is probably going to cause that price to drop. It will force the other companies currently doing it to try to make their systems as easy to use as possible and give developers better deals, because it will by definition command a huge amount of market share. Since the current online distribution market has a bunch of different nooks and crannies, it currently makes sense to put your game on as many portals as possible, but if MS comes in and convinces 95% of those customers to install GFW Live (which, like I said, will probably happen automatically with any GFW Live game), then jumping through hoops to reach the other 5% makes little sense unless the hoops are really easy and the cut pretty good.

Microsoft has this bizarre attitude where they think they can just shove a product out in a crappy state to build awareness of the brand, then slowly iterate that product into something usable. It's what they did with the Xbox and the Zune, and now with GFWL. The problem is that they often damage the brand with a reputation of craptacularness, and then you have a hell of a time trying to convince people it's any good even after they fix it up. Worst marketing plan ever.

Wait, so you are holding up the XBox as an example of a brand that they screwed up? They did the same thing with DirectX too, btw.

The thing about MS is that they have a long history now of finding out what the real make or break question is for customers. They make deals with hardware resellers to package windows in with pre-built PCs, so everyone who goes to buy a new PC and not put it together themselves uses it. They make DirectX so that developing a game only for Windows is cheaper than doing it for multiple platforms. They leverage DirectX to make XBox development easier for PC game makers to slide into. They make XBox Live and a slew of deals with games, both for console-exclusive titles and just console-exclusive content to make the 360 an essential piece of hardware. And they beat Sony to market by making a cheaper, but just-good-enough product (perhaps even realizing that they don't need to have hardware as powerful as the PS3 if they have enough marketshare to force developers to make their games for both platforms, thus limiting how demanding the game can be), and then offering cheaper sticker prices by not including extras like a hard drive or controller charger or wireless internet.

Eventually, Vista will be the standard, once they've fixed it up, just like 95, 98 and XP were. And the default assumption at the moment has to be that GFW Live Marketplace will be the standard PC electronic distribution portal. The only thing that will stop it is if Steam can step up with enough games (and perhaps features and planned features) to make it seem like a fully second-rate option. Even then, MS likely wins that battle if they want to. The battle is good for the consumer and the developers, though, and perhaps MS will be hampered by relationships with retailers that Valve seems willing to ignore.

[RickH]

Wait, so you are holding up the XBox as an example of a brand that they screwed up?

He's holding it up as something they didn't get right the first time. Iteration is a MS tradition -- release, then fix. "Quality is job 1.1."

It's pretty clear they think of early adopters as "revenue-positive beta testers."

[mono]

Pretty much. I have Steam and I have Impulse. If MS wants me to go register for yet another service, they're going to have to bring something to the table to impress me.

Dawn of War 2 is pretty much all the convincing I need to roll with GFW.

[intruder]

Eventually, Vista will be the standard, once they've fixed it up, just like 95, 98 and XP were. And the default assumption at the moment has to be that GFW Live Marketplace will be the standard PC electronic distribution portal. The only thing that will stop it is if Steam can step up with enough games (and perhaps features and planned features) to make it seem like a fully second-rate option. Even then, MS likely wins that battle if they want to. The battle is good for the consumer and the developers, though, and perhaps MS will be hampered by relationships with retailers that Valve seems willing to ignore.

I see Vista more like Windows ME.
It's more or less useless to anyone that has a running XP besides maybe if you are a road warrior with a laptop (some mobile functions are nice e.g. connecting to a wireless network).
If Longhorn really comes out in 2010 then a lot of people will hold out.
I will only install Vista as dual-boot with XP once I get a new rig at home (probably in fall).

[Talorc]

If Games for Windows does ever turn out to be even a half viable competitor to Steam or Impulse....

How long till the DOJ opens up the anti trust case against Microsoft? Abusing their monopoly OS position to bust up competitors in a separate market isn't it? :-) Who wants to be Netscape?

[Fugitive]

If Games for Windows does ever turn out to be even a half viable competitor to Steam or Impulse....

How long till the DOJ opens up the anti trust case against Microsoft? Abusing their monopoly OS position to bust up competitors in a separate market isn't it? :-) Who wants to be Netscape?
The cases against them in the past for that kind of thing (e.g., Windows Media Player in Europe) have generally only been because it was bundled with the OS, though, as I understand it. They should be in the clear when it's offered as a separate download or install. And that might be why there isn't already a built-in user-friendly frontend to the Digital Locker stuff in Vista, just a link to the web store.

[Slainte Mhath]

I see Vista more like Windows ME.

A lot of people have this opinon. But you should be aware that Microsoft has stated many times over that the new version of Windows due in 2010 (so we'll call it late 2011, ha!) will resemble Vista a whole lot more than it does XP. While some of the "Vista will prepare you for the new OS" stuff is marketing BS aimed at getting folks to upgrade, the truth is that the new OS will be based off Vista and will simply incorporate a lot of the feature MS wanted to get into Vista the first go around but had to shelve for various reasons. It's going to be "Vista 2.0" more than "XP Ressurected".

[NowhereDan]

If Games for Windows does ever turn out to be even a half viable competitor to Steam or Impulse....

How long till the DOJ opens up the anti trust case against Microsoft? Abusing their monopoly OS position to bust up competitors in a separate market isn't it? :-) Who wants to be Netscape?

Actually, I think it would be pretty easy for MS to get around this. All they have to do is not bundle the software with the OS like they did with IE, and they're golden. Easy to get around though, since they can just bundle it with every game that uses it. Of course, in terms of snagging new users, they'd have to play fair, but they can still place links to it on every Windows desktop, offer it through Windows Update, etc.

[Scott Kevill]

A great GFWL interview done by Shawn Elliot. He's brutal:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168974

[Jonathan Blow]

I wish he'd been even harder, there. For example, having a followup to all the mealy-mouthing about how there is a lot of DX10 hardware penetration.

[Scott Kevill]

That's true, KU did dodge with that answer.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Unangst is such an improbable last name for someone trying to sell us on the need for GfW Live, even if it is free now.

I've gotta assume that when they say 60 million DX10 parts they are including the Intel X3100 in there, which is laughable. The X3100 isn't actually a bad part in the context of being a super cheap IGP, but nobody is going to use it to run DX10 games in the real world.

[footmunch]

Unangst is such an improbable last name for someone trying to sell us on the need for GfW Live, even if it is free now.

I've gotta assume that when they say 60 million DX10 parts they are including the Intel X3100 in there, which is laughable. The X3100 isn't actually a bad part in the context of being a super cheap IGP, but nobody is going to use it to run DX10 games in the real world.
Nvidia say they've shipped 30 million 8-series GPU's:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=148824&page=3

So, maybe 10-15 million AMD/ATi parts and the rest IGP?

[intruder]

[quote=intruder;1414819]I see Vista more like Windows ME.[\quote]

A lot of people have this opinon. But you should be aware that Microsoft has stated many times over that the new version of Windows due in 2010 (so we'll call it late 2011, ha!) will resemble Vista a whole lot more than it does XP. While some of the "Vista will prepare you for the new OS" stuff is marketing BS aimed at getting folks to upgrade, the truth is that the new OS will be based off Vista and will simply incorporate a lot of the feature MS wanted to get into Vista the first go around but had to shelve for various reasons. It's going to be "Vista 2.0" more than "XP Ressurected".

I think most people have no gripe with Vista per se.
Mainly the thing is that it doesn't offer anything revolutionary new that would make them jump the trusty XP ship.
Only thing they made worse imo is the settings (naming, logical order) which take me longer to find something but well that will change over time after getting some experiences with it.

Working with a Vista machine since 2 months now I exactly found 2 things that are nice:
1. The small video screen when a video is played minimized (if you mouse over it in the taskbar) -> nice for work to hide that you watch videos
2. Setting up an internet connection is easier than before especially to DSL via a router. Nice if you need to set it up for friends that have no clue about computers by phone.

For those 2 things I'm not gonna change.

In 2010 / 2011 however there hopefully will be some DX10 games that are looking way better than in DX9 and justify to go Vista / Longhorn for a gamer.