Was Skyrim ever going to use Games For Windows Live?
Posted on 18th Aug 2011 at 14:59 by Clive Webster with 36 comments
The news that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will definitely use Steamworks rather than Games For Windows Live has shot around the Internet today, but (and with the greatest of respect to those reporting the story) it doesn’t appear as if Skyrim was ever going to use GFWL.
That hasn’t stopped the rumour of GFWL rubbishness afflicting the nextScrolls Elder Scrolls game (that is confusing, isn’t it?), resulting in the Elder Scrolls Twitter stating that ‘We can confirm today that we're using Steamworks for Skyrim’
The confusion came from the promotion picture for Skyrim, where the PC version was placed behind the Xbox 360 and PS3 boxes. The Games For Windows logo was showing and many people worried that the word ‘Live’ might be on the end. However, the Games For Windows logo features on a lot of game boxes and merely means… actually, I’m not sure what it means, or guarantees and implies. That the game doesn’t run on Linux and Mac?
The cause of the confusion.
Anyway, the point is, this logo is harmless and does not mean you have to use GFWL. Moreover, the Games for Windows Live logo is larger, with the Live bit underneath the word Games. It’s easy to spot, and therefore avoid when possible, as these images show:
Games For Windows is harmless; possibly meaningless too.
Eeek! Online authentication required!
Quite why Microsoft insists on such stringent online authentication and activation procedures on the PC and is so much more relaxed on the Xbox 360 is beyond me – piracy is as much of a problem on console as on PC and yet it’s PC gamers that have to suffer the counter-measures. Anyhoo, hope the above helps when you’re out shopping, or looking at future cross-platform release photography!
Check our GamesCom 2011 news hub for all the information from Cologne this year.
That hasn’t stopped the rumour of GFWL rubbishness afflicting the next
The confusion came from the promotion picture for Skyrim, where the PC version was placed behind the Xbox 360 and PS3 boxes. The Games For Windows logo was showing and many people worried that the word ‘Live’ might be on the end. However, the Games For Windows logo features on a lot of game boxes and merely means… actually, I’m not sure what it means, or guarantees and implies. That the game doesn’t run on Linux and Mac?
The cause of the confusion.
Anyway, the point is, this logo is harmless and does not mean you have to use GFWL. Moreover, the Games for Windows Live logo is larger, with the Live bit underneath the word Games. It’s easy to spot, and therefore avoid when possible, as these images show:
Games For Windows is harmless; possibly meaningless too.
Eeek! Online authentication required!
Quite why Microsoft insists on such stringent online authentication and activation procedures on the PC and is so much more relaxed on the Xbox 360 is beyond me – piracy is as much of a problem on console as on PC and yet it’s PC gamers that have to suffer the counter-measures. Anyhoo, hope the above helps when you’re out shopping, or looking at future cross-platform release photography!
Check our GamesCom 2011 news hub for all the information from Cologne this year.
36 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyAnd as anyone who played RE5 on PC knows, to be honest, it was trying to do me a favour.
Then again, I only ever play at home on my gaming desktop, so the whole always on thing just doesn't bother me.
Yeah, it's a standards thing like 80 PLUS for PSUs. 360 controller, easy install and some other guff.
No, I get why they did that on steam, else we'd all be swapping accounts and it would be a form of piracy. My problem with the situation is that it is a multi-platform arrangement where if i am on my pc, playing a particular game, noone can play on my xbox online. It's no like i can download and install a pc game on my xbox, while playing an xbox game on my pc. If there had been a warning that the two accounts were to be merged, then i would of created a second profile, on which i would not be expected to pay £40 a year for.
Why they even have to make it multi platform, i have no idea. There's only one game that i can think of that pitted xbox users against pc gamers and that was a flop. I don't even recall it's name. Stormreach? Stormfall? Xbox live and GFWL should of been kept seperate.
+1. What i ment to say, but then went off on a rant...
Plus updates for GFWL itself that you can't avoid, but then either don't download at all or cause your pc to crash once they do download.
I gifted someone that helps me out quite a bit with some mod work BulletStorm which uses GFWL on steam. Fine, then down the road I was gonna get him the DLC too, but seems you can't by that on Steam, only frigging GFWL, and you can't gift it.
Grrrr.
Sad to see Bethesda screwing over their customers like this - up to now they've been "sort-of" reasonable on the DRM-side.
Yes GFWL may be a pile of shite (never used it personally) but anything requiring online activation means customers can't choose where/when they play and lose out when support stops - and Steam has a few other nasty possibilities too.
You can play steam games in offline mode.
No, I get the impression that he just dislikes limiting DRM in general.
As painful as it is to say, Steam is the least of the many evils when it comes to modern DRM.
Steam achievements arn't the same for me personally.
I know I'm totally out numbered on this but I do like it. Definately agree that MS need to invest a bit more on it and listen to the consumers...
I'll second that!!! I just tried to install/play Age of Empires Online and the Live product activation key I was given didn't work! Live sucks!
not to worry about anything
Steam does have some nasty extra downsides due to every purchased game being linked to a single account but these have been discussed elsewhere.
Another way that the new content system improves the bandwidth picture is by requiring each user to download less data. With the Steam content system thats been in place for a few years now, if an individual file on disk were modified by a game update, your client had to download the whole file. That can be painful when the file in question is really large. The new system supports delivering only the differences between the old and new files, meaning game updates will be much smaller overall.
PC graphics with xbox pad and xbox live social features is great for me.