E3 Games for Windows Live announcements? Not so much!

I didn't mean the LIve Component just the Games for Windows branding and components.

The Live component is totally free now, and has been for like a year now.

"PC users has better get it through their heads that if they want the stuff the console gets, you have to meet the developers half way. NOT EVERYTHING can be free anymore - that model does not work for developers. Without developers, you would have no commerical games."

I'm sorry, but we (PC gamers) aren't prepared to spend $5-$15 on what often passes for "DLC" on your systems (skins, maps, characters, or multiplayer modes) simply because you say we should. For years the PC gaming community has been able to come up with content that either rivals or far surpasses what developers are officially able to come up with, so why should we be expected to pay for addon that isn't an official expansion pack?

Take the Black Mesa Source mod as an example. A handful of people have, in their free time with no outside financial assistance,recreated Half-Life using the Source engine. Most of the game's character, weapon, creature, and environmental models and textures were created from scratch; they've recreated the original game's sounds and have mixed their own music as well. They've also come up with most of their own animations. Though the mod isn't done yet (it's due for a release later this year), a casual observer would easily mistake it for an official Valve game. It'll be completely free. If Capcom owned the Half-life series and made a similar update, they'd charge you $69.99 CDN for it.

Multiplayer maps? Bungie expects you to shell out almost $10 for s handful of maps (some of them are recreations of those found in Halo's previous iterations). That sounds reasonable, until one considers that a PC game like UT3 has dozens of unofficial maps that rivals those Epic themselves have officially released. They cost also cost as much (i.e. not a single red cent).

Skins? Capcom expects $20 for a bunch of costumes that actually ship on the same disc as Street Fight IV that, IMHO, are pretty unremarkable. Remember that impressive Master Chief skin for UT3? That was a fan effort. I could literally go on for days giving you similar examples for different games. Hell, we often redo a game's official character skins because, out of the box, they aren't extremely impressive.
Case in point:
http://www.crymod.com/files/9066_screen_ce08becc73195df12d99d761bfbba68d.jpg
http://www.crymod.com/files/9067_screen_e88a49bccde359f0cabb40db83ba6080.jpg

So...no...we're not "going to meet developers half-way"; just because you console gamers have little choice in paying them for quick, half assed cash-ins doesn't mean we will since we're often able to come up with better content just from our own enthusiasm.

You can run any game through steam, Using the "Add Non-steam game" button, and finding the .EXE

Would I be able to access the my Steam friends list and whatnot from in-game then? And will it show my friends which game I'm playing, etc and let me send invites out to the game? I didn't even know this functionality was there.

Basically, I'm looking for something that does exactly the same thing Live does across all games, but on the PC.

If you just add the exe you can access your friends etc. from in game but you cannot directly invite or be joined through the friends list.

Just use Xfire.

THIS!

i downloaded the GFWL client the other day and was kind of underwhelmed with the layout. imo steam has it better with navigation. however when i logged in with my XBL gamer tag i was sold. buying GeoW 1 for my pc next chance i get.

Microsoft really needs to press this...hard. they are letting Steam have too much foot-in in this area!

Go to hell comment system.