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Page 1 of 2 In the begining, the digital distribution realm of PC gaming was a scary, disjointed, and often frusturating place. I recall my initial experiences, primarily with Half-life 2 on Steam back in 2004, and the prospects were certainly not pretty. Issues logging in, broken downloads, and an auto-patching system that was ify at best stand out most from that era. The potential was certainly visible, but the software to make it happen just wasn't there yet, even if the server infrastructure may have been.
Fast forward to 2010 and the PC download landscape has matured by leaps and bounds. The once floundering and often ridiculed Steam has grown to become the major player in the industry after a number of client software updates and some really, really good business decisions. Though Valve's solution is undoubtedly the dominating force in the industry, other secondary players have begun establishing themselves too. Direct2Drive immediately comes to mind, possessing a decent infrastructure and an "in it to win it" attitude. Impulse and GamersGate are two other similar competing services that spring to mind. Gog.com is dedicated to DRM-free versions of classic PC games, updated to play on todays hardware and operating systems. Even Gametap has expanded from a collection of classic arcade and console hits to a "day and date" destination for new PC releases.
The market for PC game downloads is hot, the competition is fierce, and the landscape is reaching a point where only the strongest players will survive. Why is it then that while every other service has enhanced itself in some respect, Microsofts solution, an On-Demand extension of the much criticized Games For Windows Live (GFWL) service, continues to flounder and has actually gotten worse over time?
It wasn't until very recently that Microsoft decided that solely carrying it's own "Games For Windows Live" branded titles didn't provide for an extensive purchase library. The decision was (finally!) made to carry Non-GFWL titles and moreover, to provide new releases "day and date" with their retail release counterparts and more importantly, with competing digital distribution outlets. The effort to carry back catalog and more casual titles was also expressed. After a couple months of this "new stance" on the market, the results can be classified as "almost, but not quite."
Some games on the service have in fact appeared on the release date. Others however are delayed by at least a couple of days, missing that extremely important "immediacy" group that quite a few PC gamers are a part of. Perhaps the naysayers are right in that despite occasional PR spin that suggests otherwise, Microsoft could care less about PC games and the folks who play them. On the other hand, perhaps the extra time is needed to fit the game download into GFWL's convoluted, irresilient, and at times outright broken system.
My experiences with the latter came from a recent purchase of Gears of War. Despite being a nearly three year old title, the game made its way onto the service just a week ago. Truth be told, I already bought the disk version back in 2007 and have thoroughly played and completed the game several times since then. The recent purchase of my Alienware M11x left me wanting to re-experience the title once again. The lack of an optical drive on this system makes playing the disk version impossible, lest I purchase an external DVD-ROM drive and thereby limit the "portability" of the system.
With an extra 1600 Microsoft Points in my account (which is actually really cool that the service lets you use these), I figured the digital download version of Gears of War was a sure thing. An established title, published by Microsoft themselves for a mere 20 bucks. What problems could I have? Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...
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