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33. |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Jul 1, 2011, 15:53 |
Rockn-Roll |
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LOL @ "suprise"
It's been like that for some time...at least account wise. A GFWL account is the same thing as an XBox.com account. I remember going through a hassle with BioShock 2 and trying to get support for GFWL and being directed to XBox.com forums and it accepted my GFWL account (and of course presented the store page and tried to make it my browser's home page as if purchasing console games was the main priority in my life).
GFWL should never have been approved by gaming companies who wanted to keep their PC game customers. Microsoft must have provided unprescedented incentives for companies to snub Steam and go with a buggy console port. Now more than ever game companies should realize that GFWL is going to die at some point and not be supported which means their games will stop working and their customers will be very angry.
I think any game which uses GFWL from now on is basically saying that they don't care about their PC gamers. I bet most game companies think it would be so much better if we all just bought console systems and stopped using PCs as a gaming platform...at least that's what it looks like to me. An example of this message is that game companies are now developing for console systems then porting the code to the PC. In otherwords the largest development effort is made to make the game work good on consoles...then hacked to work on the PC.
In my expert opinion, with nearly 30 years of software development, this is backwards from how the game design should be approached. PC systems are not locked into specific hardware or software platforms which means that the application designs need to be engineered to be more general in their application...including the narrow requirements of console systems. Once the general design has been written and working then the code doesn't need to be changed at all to support console systems because the design already allowed for it.
When games are developed first for the narrow requirements of consoles then ported to the PC then some of the PC features are buggy or won't work at all...the most obvious is the graphics output or more specifically the selection of resolutions supported. It is rare to find a game that actually supports native multi-monitor widescreen internally. I think just 2 of the 50 modern games I own support my native Windows 5040x1050x32 resolution on the Matrox Digital TH2Go with three widescreen monitors. All the rest are like 3840x1024 or some such and most of them had to be patched for that resolution or was just being faked by zooming the output and cutting off the top and bottom of the output which causes the very unpleasant tunnel vision.
As for the comments about Steam...if any of you were around at the time...then you would remember the services which rose and fell in an attempt to provide multiplayer connectivity. Some of the major services were Kali, Gamespy, mPlayer, Total Entertainment Network (TEN), HEAT, and World Opponent Network (WON). Almost all game companies at that time had to build their own connectivity for their multiplayer games...these services were linking with the games through commandline parameters, scripts, or just plain hacks. Steam was just another service, but with some very big differences...it was free! And, Steam provided game developers with an Application Programmer Interface (API) so that they could cleanly use the system. Nobody was complaining at all when Steam was first available...just the opposite...we were all burned by the thousands of dollars we poured into those other services just for them to fail later. Nobody really knew if Steam would stay alive (especially since it was free), but at least it was risk free. Some games continued to provide built-in connectivity...for example idsoftare games...while others went with gamespy arcade or GFWL. But, of those services there is only one of them that I am now sure will always be there for us...Steam...made by gamers for gamers.
This comment was edited on Jul 1, 2011, 16:24. |
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Subject |
Author |
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1. |
Jul 1, 12:04 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
necrosis |
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2. |
Jul 1, 12:06 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
nin |
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3. |
Jul 1, 12:10 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Prez |
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11. |
Jul 1, 13:10 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Parallax Abstraction |
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16. |
Jul 1, 13:24 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Rigs |
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24. |
Jul 1, 13:59 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Prez |
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25. |
Jul 1, 14:02 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
TurdFergasun |
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26. |
Jul 1, 14:06 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Rhett |
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27. |
Jul 1, 14:12 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
nin |
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29. |
Jul 1, 14:47 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
necrosis |
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30. |
Jul 1, 14:53 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Parallax Abstraction |
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5. |
Jul 1, 12:20 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
killer_roach |
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6. |
Jul 1, 12:25 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Prez |
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12. |
Jul 1, 13:17 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
MajorD |
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8. |
Jul 1, 12:57 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Atomic |
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15. |
Jul 1, 13:22 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
NoBS |
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4. |
Jul 1, 12:19 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Downer28 |
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17. |
Jul 1, 13:26 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
necrosis |
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7. |
Jul 1, 12:27 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
^Drag0n^ |
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9. |
Jul 1, 13:04 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Creston |
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10. |
Jul 1, 13:07 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Blackhawk |
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13. |
Jul 1, 13:17 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Rigs |
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14. |
Jul 1, 13:22 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Beelzebud |
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18. |
Jul 1, 13:28 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
necrosis |
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22. |
Jul 1, 13:50 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Creston |
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19. |
Jul 1, 13:34 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
MajorD |
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39. |
Jul 1, 22:18 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Wookiestick |
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21. |
Jul 1, 13:48 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Creston |
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23. |
Jul 1, 13:56 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
DG |
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20. |
Jul 1, 13:40 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Tumbler |
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31. |
Jul 1, 14:57 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
DangerDog |
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32. |
Jul 1, 15:24 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Cutter |
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28. |
Jul 1, 14:26 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Hump |
>> |
33. |
Jul 1, 15:53 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Rockn-Roll |
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34. |
Jul 1, 16:20 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Creston |
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47. |
Jul 3, 23:13 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Jerykk |
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38. |
Jul 1, 19:47 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Mashiki Amiketo |
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44. |
Jul 2, 09:34 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
WaltC |
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45. |
Jul 2, 09:49 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
CythrawL |
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46. |
Jul 3, 07:08 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Fantaz |
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35. |
Jul 1, 17:46 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Ruffiana |
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36. |
Jul 1, 18:15 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
HorrorScope |
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37. |
Jul 1, 19:41 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Dades |
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40. |
Jul 1, 22:34 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Dev |
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41. |
Jul 2, 00:35 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Tanto Edge |
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42. |
Jul 2, 01:19 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Bumpy |
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43. |
Jul 2, 01:56 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
nin |
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48. |
Jul 4, 09:13 |
Re: GFW and Xbox.com Marketplaces Merging |
Verno |
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