Namco Bandai has announced Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition for the PC. They then immediately make it clear that they do not understand their PC fans by announcing Games for Windows Live integration. Fans turn to yet another petition.
I must give Namco Bandai credit for their overall great business practice, but sometimes heads just happen to collide with desks.
Dark Souls was released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 recently and was critically lauded for not shying away from difficulty. PC Gamers, desiring a game that would be merciless to them, set up a petition for the game to be ported to their platform of choice. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die was announced earlier this month at least partially in response to the petition.
Unfortunately, Games for Windows Live would be integrated.
No… no… no…
What could the internet do but write another petition? I mean, no sense letting Namco Bandai be confused why their game would not sell as well as the original petition would suggest.
That is one of the problems with fan service: they are your best customers and your harshest critics. If you go in for a penny, you really must go in for a pound. You will be rewarded in kind.
The PC-exclusive Dark Souls: Prepare to Die is expected to launch August 24th.
I understand why they are
I understand why they are doing it, however, having recently re-installed a GFWL game to a new machine I was appalled at how severely GFWL had fucked up the game.
First you got to remember your email/password, which is managed by xbox.com not a GFWL website, and your key is only valid once. Oh and “Windows Live” is an entirely different system. But let’s presume that’s not your problem: The game’s first launch hangs for about a minute, DRM initialization is my best guess. Do you have .NET updated? That’s a crash. Now you’ve got to patch the game, which isn’t auto-patched despite being managed by a content distribution service. The patcher requires a login, and only patches incrementally, after restarts. So if there’s 5 patches, you got to login-download-restart 5 times. Patches typically fail for no reason. If you have GFWL installed but not recently updated, you’ll crash. If you don’t have GFWL client installed, you’ll crash. It will never tell you that, it’ll just crash. And yet the client isn’t required to acquire & install the game. So once you get both the game and the GFWL client fully patched you have to go through a not-even-pretending-to-be-PC xbox live interface wherein console-friends will invite you to play games with them that are impossible to join; it’ll let them try and let you fail though! Hooking up with someone not yet on your list is another problem, did you give your real name in registration? Yeah, that’s on your public profile now. Go to xbox.com and change it if you want- but first you really need to initialize your xbox live settings. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.
At its best, worse than origin at its worst, no contest.
Petitions are asinine, but
Petitions are asinine, but GFWL is like a hideous parasite.
Although I was sad to see
Although I was sad to see this, I can understand why they have, There’s going to be a lot less work(And money) involved in porting it from x-box to GFWL. But I feel it’s going to hurt sales and probably increase piracy due to GFWL crazy ass region restriction which will just confirm Namco’s original thoughts of everyone pirating their game. It’s sad to know this is going to happen, It’s still an awesome game and I’m prepared to put up with GFWL for it, however I fear many others won’t.
What?
GFWL is nothing but an
What?
GFWL is nothing but an overlay. It’s an afterthought in a game’s development cycle. It actually will take more effort to add it in than it will to leave it out.
I’ve not heard of it until this petition, and if GFWL is on it, I won’t even bother figuring out what this game is.
This is hilarious! 😀
This is hilarious! 😀
Dark Souls is the best game I
Dark Souls is the best game I have ever played (Final Fantasy 7 is now #2). I never play console, but I recently picked up Dark Souls used from Gamestop to play on my roommates PS3 after seeing how good the reviews are. I’ve beat the game twice already…..it’s insanely good and insanely hard.
I’m staying away from any
I’m staying away from any games that are connected with GFWL. I didn’t use my account for about 6 months, and when I tried to log in, it said my account has been blocked. I’ve tried fixing the problem, but technical support is no help. They will tell you the Live division is impossible to contact by phone. They told me even the highest level employees in the technical support division do not have access to a phone number to call those in charge of live accounts. They told me the only way the live department can be contacted is through email, and any attempts to contact them in this way has resulted in two identical emails saying my account doesn’t exist, and that I should create a new account. It’s a bunch of BS because now I can’t play ANY of the games I’ve purchased on Xbox live or PC that are tied to that account… So again, if a game requires GFWL, I won’t play it unless someone is able to crack and torrent it.