To those who want the game removed from GFWL and integrated into Steam.

[MoleMad]

"And, as a guesstimate, the 200 grand to do so is just going to materialize out of thin air?"

"I am not kidding. If anything I'm lowballing it. You have to bring a code-base out of the closet, dust it off, get new programmers familiar with it, do the actual changes, recertify it - and that's a big one, and then publish the changes, retail and Steam. And then there are all those existing retail discs. No bringing those back so in the end you would have to support two different versions of the game."

"It's not going to happen."

-headkase, 2K Moderator

Source:http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?214581-2K-in-Bioshock-2-please-remove-Games-for-Windows-LIVE-and-replace-it-with-Steamworks

[Azrael]

That was obvious that it was not going to happen. BTW, this should help though, for the people having issues with GFWL, "Bioshock 2 fake xlive". From the readme.txt:

"A fake version of xlive.dll that allows you to play bioshock 2 single player without having games for windows - live installed. It should be compatible with both retail and digital distributions of the game. It fairly obviously isn't compatible with multiplayer. (Although since multiplayer is a separate exe in a different directory tree, installing this shouldn't effect it.)"

http://timeslip.users.sourceforge.net/

[January 2035]

200k sounds like a fair portion of the costs to develop the game from scratch....

[Pocket]

Funny thing is, there's evidence that 2K are already working on this. There are two closed betas going on (probably for singleplayer and multiplayer), and we know for a fact that Steam achievements are coming. Why would they go to the trouble of doing that if they weren't at least afraid they wouldn't be able to rely on GFWL in the future?

[Eon]

Oh, how silly the OP and mod look now....Course now im curious if retail owners like myself, especially those who bought the LCE (like myself) will be left out in the dust n have to rebuy the game and/or dlc...Tried to ask 2k but they couldnt/wouldnt tell me straight 'yes or no' to the questions "should i get dlc now or can i get it later" and "will retail have to rebuy for any new locations of DLC purchase?" :( Conflicted on whether to buy dlc now before 22nd or wait for the (hopefully) inevitable steam transition...and whether or not ill have to rebuy :/

[Sol]

Microsoft is closing the Games for Windows Live service by July 2014.

The information was leaked during an Age of Empires Online announcement, which has since been taken down. Microsoft intends to sell new games in the Windows 8 integrated storefront, and few, if any older games, will make the transition. Some games will flat out stop working as they require online authorization and DRM checks and their developers/publishers are defunct.

Here's some of the titles that will be affected:

Arkham Asylum
Arkham City
Bioshock 2
Bulletstorm
Dark Souls
Dawn of War 2
Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising
Fable 3
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Street Fighter 4
Street Fighter x Tekken
Resident Evil 5
Section 8: Prejudice
World of Goo

You can find the full list below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Live_titles

If left without a patch, these games will lose multiplayer features, and some will not work at all. You will no longer be able to purchase DLC for any of them, either.

I am emailing this to developers and publishers involved in the affected games, and posting it in the relevant forums. If you care about the ownership of your games, please pass this along. If you're a developer or publisher, please consider taking steps to prevent us from no longer being able to play the games we paid for.

Thank you.

[Eon]

Nice list...but you can take off world of goo. Steam ownership/purchases of it use steamworks and not GFWL. World of goo only matters if purchased from GFWL store...

[MoleMad]

Counterpoint Time:

"This news isn't nearly as exciting as it might sound. GFWL isn't shutting down. The marketplace is. I know it's confusing to people, because with Steam the store and the platform are the same thing. But with GFWL the store is basically a horrible broken webpage (at least, last time I tried to use it) and the platform is a difficult and obtuse little hanger-on that runs on top of your game. The closing of the marketplace is not a big deal. It barely worked and I doubt it did all that much business. Most people didn't buy games through the marketplace. Instead, they bought the game in the store or on Steam and GFWL came along for the ride."

Read more at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/10534-Games-for-Windows-Die?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all#LbbfwQWPw760CA2c.99

[Eon]

Let's hope he's right, and the '2014 shutdown date' was a fluke and/or it will/has been rescinded cause if not? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. MAAAJOR ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Hell, losing the DLC alone for quite a few games would be an issue but...codemasters n 2k have both said they've got stuff planned and/or are looking into things so...perhaps other devs will as well? We also know arkham games are likely transitioning to steam same as BS2...
Some games no longer have original devs/publishers, so if GFWL really does disappear for good in 2014, be even worse for those games cause even less chance for them to get patched/adjusted for usability in offline play (RF Guerrilla springs to mind as an instant example). Then theres the MS sponsored games to think bout (viva, tinker, aoeo...), and if they shut down GFWL, perfect excuse to shutter in shutting down those games too :X

All in all, im worried the 2014 date is still in effect...but hesitantly hopeful they'll rescind it before next summer, or at the least dlc will be available another way....

[TheLastLion]

Talking about retail copies. As far as I remember there was some sort of a problem with the retail copies of The Witcher 2 in Russia or CIS countries. A reminder here, the retail copies of The Witcher 2 are not steamworks games. Anyway the developers had a simple solution by allowing people to activate their copies on Steam which means that the same could happen to retail copies of BS2. No need to "support two different versions of the game."

[Pocket]

Allowing CD keys to be activated through Steam and pushing some kind of update through LIVE that pops up a message recommending they do so sounds like a reasonable solution and not too difficult to do.

[Death_Masta187]

Originally posted by LT3Eon - Meow:

Let's hope he's right, and the '2014 shutdown date' was a fluke and/or it will/has been rescinded cause if not? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. MAAAJOR ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Hell, losing the DLC alone for quite a few games would be an issue but...codemasters n 2k have both said they've got stuff planned and/or are looking into things so...perhaps other devs will as well? We also know arkham games are likely transitioning to steam same as BS2...
Some games no longer have original devs/publishers, so if GFWL really does disappear for good in 2014, be even worse for those games cause even less chance for them to get patched/adjusted for usability in offline play (RF Guerrilla springs to mind as an instant example). Then theres the MS sponsored games to think bout (viva, tinker, aoeo...), and if they shut down GFWL, perfect excuse to shutter in shutting down those games too :X

All in all, im worried the 2014 date is still in effect...but hesitantly hopeful they'll rescind it before next summer, or at the least dlc will be available another way....

If we have to lose a few features in a few games just so no more games in the future ever get infected with GFWL I’m willing to take that hit.
I can’t think of a single GFWL game that still has an active multiplayer (maybe DoW2). All other GFWL games I tried playing MP in have been graveyards within 2 months.

[Eon]

It's not so much the MP as the just being able to play. FO3, Guerrilla, DoW2 series...Viva pinata...a fair few others...all would be nigh unplayable (Except fo3 with that fake gfwl dll fix or w/e) because they'd require live connection to verify key and/or to access saves...hell, most GFWL games would be outright unredeemable, which means if they shut it down...they'd have to refund stores n recall every retail disc not yet sold or...legally settle with every retail purchase of a game after summer 2014 because the box implies use (no GFWL discs say or imply they're keys/discs to a license that may be revoked at any time, that comes after ToS, WHICH if GFWL is shut down...wont be seen...wont be legally valid) as does purchase, and every sale would be a legal 'lie' if program wasnt adjusted to allow offline play and/or something wasnt done to disable the requirement to identify keys with GFWL before use of game/saves.

[Pocket]

Luckily a lot of these games still make a decent amount of money from being sold on Steam. The threat of being removed from Steam, at the very least, and lose a potential source of free money, should give publishers an incentive to make the minimal amount of effort to keep the games playable.

[Eon]

Hopefully that remains true froh...though for a few, they're MS products so if they're taking em down, it'll be from GFWL not the game itself (probably)...as for a few others, their original devs/pubs are long gone, so the new pubs would just be there to reap the profits as long as possible. "we didnt make it, why should we care" could be thought to be the thought process behind some of them (its happened before with prior IPs being dropped/ignored digitally on PC n console)

[nekov4ego]

Tell this mod to check the news :3