A new interview with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell is quite revelatory on the inner workings of Microsoft and its Games for Windows LIVE policies. If you're not acquainted with the service, it's the PC equivalent of Xbox LIVE, featuring all the goodies console gamers have come to appreciate like achievements, patches, news, demos, and most everything else.
As it turns out, Microsoft charges for services like patch hosting once a developer reaches a certain quota -- certainly not the kind of treatment studios are used to on the platform, and equally harmful to the adoption of LIVE as a standard service in the PC gaming realm, which is really needed, especially given the service's quality requirements. Wardell says:
"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.'"
This behaviour is consistent with Microsoft's charging for DLC against a developer and/or publisher's wishes, the most recent case being the Left 4 Dead "Crash Course" content. Our feeling is if the corporation wants PC gaming to grow like it says it does with Windows 7, GfWL, etc., they'll just have to face up and axe charges like this. They've already shown leniency by making LIVE a free service to gamers; now it's the developers and publishers they need to accomodate. Wardell seems to agree, explaining why these changes are necessary:
"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."
Would many studios follow his lead? Possibly. Either way, risking it isn't smart, particularly with a company like Stardock who seem to know and support the business very well. That, and as we all know, console gaming is good for PC gaming, and vice-versa.
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