Grargar: The closest I can find is Games For Windows Live. From what I gather it doesn't seem to require anything more other than an offline serial check, similar to Universe at War.
dyscode: Yes it uses GFWL.
My advise simply would be to skip it unless you are sure to get the most of the game by July 14.
Even if it works after that, it will be a headache, Im convinced.
I bought some GFWL games just before the M$ announcement and I am definitely not going to put more money in that hole until they are have Steamworks or DRM Free or wahtever.
just my 2cents.
+1!
I do my very best to look at what DRM a game uses before I buy it, and while I prefer DRM-free games, I don't mind buying /some/ games with DRM so long as it is not draconian DRM that prevents me or /will/ prevent me completely from playing the game I bought at some point in the future for no other reason than "the company decided to not allow me and every other paying customer to play the game anymore", such as is the case with GFWL.
Sadly, I just started getting into the Grand Theft Auto games after a friend of mine convinced me to install GTA1 to have some retro fun and it inspired me to install all of the games in the series and have a test run through all of them to see how they progressed over time because I've never seen them all. I was having a blast looking at the progression in graphics and gameplay through them all one at a time and then I reached GTA IV...
I had just finished watching trailers on Youtube of people playing GTA4 with a Logitech G27 racing wheel and it looked friggen awesome. I plan on buying that wheel and was now mega pumped to play GTA4 once I have the wheel, and also pumped to buy and play GTA5 for PC when it comes out later this year (according to rumour). Watching someone play the console version of that with a driving wheel was mind boggling real looking. Drool.
After installing and running GTA4 I find out it requires GFWL and that somehow slipped by me when I purchased the GTA Complete pack in November from Amazon for $9.99. <sigh> I got a strong knot in my stomach and instantly felt ripped off like the company took the money right out of my pocket. It looks like the type of game I'd want to play for hours and hours and replay over time getting totally immersed into it. But, according to everything I read online, Rockstar has absolutely zero plans to update it to remove GFWL by the time Microsoft shuts down the service, and they've updated the legal statements on the game's Steam page (which I obviously totally missed when making my purchase decision, oops) to give vague statements that more or less wash their hands of having any concern about whether or not people can play the game anymore after July 2014.
So, now this super awesome game - and it's standalone 2 expansion packs (bundled together in Episodes from Liberty City) have a stopwatch ticking away as to how much time is left to play them and I feel like I rented the games and not bought them. Of course it is my own fault for not paying closer attention to the reality of the situation but it doesn't make it any less upsetting, and not just to me, but it upsets me to know that a multitude of other gamers out there will be equally just as disenfranchised. GTA4 is still in the Steam top 100 games played stats, and Rockstar has abandoned it and their customers along with it. ;o/
I also have to face the reality that in my mass game purchases in November onward I very well may have made other mistaken purchases where I didn't read the fine print nearly enough and there are other games in my collection lurking that wont work when I do actually go to play them. Such a horrible feeling to buy things and get a great fantastic feeling from collecting things you know you'll have fun with in the future and now having to accept the reality that someone might have taken the cake away before I get a chance to even look at it let alone eat it.
What can a gamer do? "Don't buy that shit" obviously, but it is a lot of work to painstakingly research every single game one at a time to find out what the DRM on it is/was, whether it is still a problem or not, whether it will be removed or not, etc. I have the "Big list of DRM on Steam" wiki page someone made bookmarked and use it, and that helps, but as a consumer, having to do an hour of research on google, forums, wikis to make sure I'm not going to be ripped off before I buy a game is such a huge burden that I'm just going to keep adding more and more companies to the "I'll never buy your games ever again" list.
These game companies have no idea how horrible of an experience they are giving their paying customers with the various toxic DRM used over time, and GFWL is just the latest example to highlight in a long line of failure of the industry over time.
Some people may criticize GOG for the decision to include regional pricing recently, but I for one want more DRM-free games regardless of that so I don't have to deal with bullshit like DRM. Even if I was on the list of countries got the shitty end of the stick on the regional pricing - that beats the fuck out of DRM and I'm not forced to buy anything against my will. If GOG's decision causes more companies to release their games on GOG and other DRM-free platforms in the future then that is a seriously massive step forward for gamers worldwide. Perhaps such a decision can be a cornerstone in eventually eliminating SecureROM, Starforce, Tages, and all other forms of crappy DRM in the future, and any of the other things people have concerns about such as regional pricing, central license key based multiplayer authentication systems and other annoyances are completely separate battles to fight out another time.
So, the way I'm feeling today at least is that I am putting a huge block on my wallet for now and not buying any more games for Steam from any retailers or even bundles unless I both have the time to research the DRM of every single game, check out its' forums etc. and actually have the inclination to do it too.
This customer harmful practice of intrusive DRM has to stop.
GOG.com: Keep fighting the fight for us, never compromise on DRM even if it means you have to make small compromises to some of the other strong preferences we all have such as global pricing and similar. There is always another day to fight those other battles, the bigger war is DRM. Never lose sight of this and keep fighting the fight for us all!
Rockstar: I'll never buy GTA5 or any other game you make ever again on any platform ever. Thank you for helping teach me a lesson on spending my money, it will now help me to avoid such knots in my stomach in the future and I truly appreciate it.
I'm going to go through the list of companies using GFWL still that haven't patched it out on
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_3rd_Party_DRM_on_Steam and add every company using GFWL or any other DRM schemes I disapprove of and every one of their games to my "dead to me, will never give my money to you" list (whether an individual game uses GFWL or not, it's easier to block by company than look up every single game individually).
Just look at all the money I'll have extra now to buy stuff from CD Projekt!
CD Projekt: Make more games and swag and well, just about anything so I have more 'stuff' to throw my money at with good concience! ;oP
blotunga: From what I know Rockstar games need some sort of Rockstar Social network right? Is this some always online DRM?
Yes, add that to my lengthy PSA about Rockstar above too, forgot about that.
blotunga: Ok, thanks! I would've tried LA Noire and MP3, but always online DRM is out of the question for me.
gbaz69: Im not sure exactly what Rockstar Social Club is... if it is yet another god damn client... always online connection... or a key activation.
I only hope I can play these games offline is all :(.
edit: looks very bad to me
http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/11/28/rockstar-talks-gta-iv-pc-drm how the hell can they have GFWL, securerom, and their own app running (if it was retail disk, +steam if it was from steam).
Wow, I bet the game loses 50% of its fps to run that crap.
The game engine runs fine, DRM doesn't use up CPU resources really, just minor crap doing minor things in the background, but yeah - it has basically 4 forms of DRM in GTA4 and Episodes from Liberty City. Steam, SecuROM, GFWL and Rockstar Social Club and you must use them all *and* you have a oldschool CD license key that you have to register the game with too. It saves your games "in the cloud" by default and while it has an offline mode, you have to set all that crap up to even be able to use it and even then it's going to die in July unless you hack around it with hacks and cracks from some random pirate site out there just to play the game you paid good cash for.
Now I know why their 3D game engine is called "RAGE".
