- JacobGRocks
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- Heroic Member
Most studios release their games digital and retail simintuanisly. Though, the main reason they wouldnt use GFWL is that they need to get updates approved by MS and they also need to pay for updates, unlike other digital distros or publishers. MS also controls it like the do XBL, with no mods (UT3), matchmaking and truskill (most multiplayer games), pay to play (when gfwl first came out, restrictions later removed), and publishers paying for updates.
That is also why they cant easily update h2v and other games, and why many publishers dont use it.
source
Shack: Do you know why Microsoft isn't showing more leadership on the platform?
Brad Wardell: I don't know. I started out as a big Games for Windows Live advocate. I intended for Elemental to be on Games for Windows Live, but then as we got closer, the Xbox group took it over more and more. And they have things where, oh, if you want to use Games for Windows Live to update your game, you have to go through [their] certification. And if you do it more than X number of times, you have to pay money. It's like, "My friends, you can't do that on the PC."
[ed- Microsoft refutes this point, saying that "we do not charge or have never charged for TU updates, not since GFW-LIVE was launched 3 years ago."]
On the console, I don't have to update my game because an anti-virus program got an update and is now identifying my VB scripts as viruses and I have to apply an emergency patch. That would just add insult to injury. We've had to upgrade our games plenty of times over the years, not because we found some bug, but because some third-party program, or driver, or whatever screwed it up. If Games for Windows Live maintains that strategy and they take over, I'm done. I'm not making PC games. I would be done.
IF ms really wanted to, they would remove limits.
[Edited on 12.23.2009 7:21 AM PST]