Lara and friends on GfW label

By Tom Bramwell Published 8 January, 2008

MS promises big 2008 on PC.

Although their existence won't come as a surprise to anyone, Microsoft has announced the names of a few upcoming games that have found their way into the Games for Windows line-up.

Might as well list all of them - Alone in the Dark (Atari), Bionic Commando (Capcom), Conflict: Denied Ops (Eidos), Empire: Total War (SEGA), LEGO Indiana Jones (LucasArts), Microsoft Train Simulator 2 (Microsoft, smarty man), Sins of a Solar Empire (Stardock), Space Siege (SEGA) and Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos).

They join the likes of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom/Eidos), Borderlands (2K), The Club (SEGA), Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks) and Frontlines: Fuel of War (THQ) on the GfW label, which is designed to ensure compatibility with Windows PCs and uses a similar front-end to Xbox Live, complete with unlockable Achievements/Gamerpoints and Gamertags.

Microsoft reckons GfW "thrived" in 2007. "We went from two titles in 2006 to a continually growing portfolio of over 60 titles here at CES 2008," said Kevin Unangst, who doesn't sound concerned about some of the crippling bugs that took a while to quash, and is senior global director for GfW. "We delivered on our promise one year ago to reinvigorate the PC gaming space and bring the best portfolio of games to Windows. And this is just the beginning. With our partners, we will continue to drive the resurgence of Windows-based gaming."

It's certainly a more impressive position to be in than they were at launch, when GfW was used to promote Windows Vista with Shadowrun and Halo 2 the only releases. Since then compatibility with Windows XP has been added officially after hackers embarrassed them by opening the aforementioned duo to the older operating system prematurely, and games on the label have improved considerably - with Viva Piņata and Gears of War among them.

Don Mattrick, Microsoft games boss-man, also sounds excited about it all in a leaked memo unearthed by the Mercury News, claiming: "In November alone, Games for Windows titles accounted for over 20 percent of all PC game sales at retail in the US."

So, get used to it, presumably.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Killerbee #1 4 years ago

    I'm very seriously looking at upgrading my PC this year (when funds allow) so MS getting a few more games onto the platform besides the usual FPS and RTS crowd will be very welcome indeed.

  • jaywalker3010 Verified Mastering Manager, Square Enix #2 4 years ago

    Theres a big difference between GFW and GFW Live.

    Conflict for example is GFW only, NOT Live.

    GFW means the installer and gaming experience is simplified/standardised for users. Live means the online server stuff and achievements

    Edit - skillian ta for pointing out i was putting 4 and F hehe :) proof should really read what just wrote before hitting send :)
    Edited by 3 at 08/01/08 @ 10:40

  • skillian #3 4 years ago

    GF4? Do you mean GFW?

    Anyway, it seems to me that all GFW has done has put a logo on the top of game boxes. Can anyone else point out how this is supposedly "reinvigorating the PC gaming space" and "driving the resurgence of Windows-based gaming"?

    GFW Live even seems to be doing the opposite, what with pay to play and enforced logins to save games.

  • Whizzo #4 4 years ago

    Er yeah there's a huge difference between GFW and GFWL, tons of games have GFW slapped on them and don't have anything to do with Live and achievements but they should adhere to the GFW standards such as native widescreen support and alt-tab properly.

    Tomb Raider Anniversary was a GFW title for example and had nothing to do with GFWL.

    Which is probably just as well as GFWL is rather crap.

  • afray #5 4 years ago

    To get the GFW logo on your box you need to jump through certain hoops, as you do for the TRCs for the consoles. One thing is the support of the xbox controller. It's not as strict as those are, but it's slightly more than marketing.

  • BlueDot #6 4 years ago

    "Microsoft Train Simulator 2" Whoohoo! Just hope it's not Vista only.

  • LeD #7 4 years ago

    MS abandoning the console market confirmed.

  • jaywalker3010 Verified Mastering Manager, Square Enix #8 4 years ago

    LeD ahh i see your pessimism is still here today :)

  • Artemus #9 4 years ago

    Live is a steaming pile of crap on PC. I couldn't even play Gears of War because it kept crashing it.

  • Darkedge #10 4 years ago

    LeD stop trolling or trying to justify your Sony salary here and go to 3speech instead.

    Considering the number of game released on PC this is still a very small number, but 20% of all sales is good..

  • miiiguel #11 4 years ago

    LeD,
    Yesterday was "oh my god! MS doing another console already! such a lame company!"
    Today "oh my god! MS droping console support"
    Tomorrow "oh my god! MS droping OS support and doing kitchen tables"
    Everyday "I sleep with my PS3, what a cool dildo it has..."

  • JonFE #12 4 years ago

    LeD accused of being on Sony payroll? I thought I'd never see the day...


    :)
    Edited by 1 at 08/01/08 @ 11:03

  • Freek #13 4 years ago

    That's nice MS, except why haven't you promoted any of it?
    There's no re-invigoration going on at all, they pretty much sent the brand out to die.

  • JonFE #14 4 years ago

    On a different note: Where is Alan Wake? Still asleep???

  • tripitaka #15 4 years ago

    Nobody is forcing you to 'pay to play' a GFW Live title.

    All games must support multiplayer with a free (Silver) account.

    It's only the extra features such as matchmaking and leaderboards that you have to pay for.

    I would suggest that if you don't know what you're talking about, you don't comment and avoid spreading misinformation.

  • Katsumoto #16 4 years ago

    The point is, though, that without paying you only have a really crippled multiplayer. It is extremely frustrating that when I want to play co-op GoW with my friend the only way to do it is over "Live List Play", where you have to scramble to click on the game before a random does or else you have to start the process all over again. Actually CHOOSING directly who you play with is for paying customers only. Why? I don't know, seeing as we've had stable server browsers with a host of options on games for over a decade now.

    Having to sign up for xbox live is an inconvenience as well, although once you've done it it's done so I guess it's not too bad. But the fact you have to sign in to be able to play even in single player is a joke. Rar!

    Also, for all this talk of GFW improving the ease of use, ensuring quality standards etc, Bioshock - my first GFW title, had all sorts of problems on release, which were only partially solved by the patch about 4-5 months down the line.

    Anyway, unusually pessimistic post for me, sorry! I just don't see how this is actually helping apart from 1) Having a shiny label at the top of the box and 2) Getting 360 pad support (the only tangible benefit as far as I can see).

  • tripitaka #17 4 years ago

    Many games require you to create a 'Profile' to save single player game progress though.
    GfW Live just avoids having to create a different one for every single game.
    There is no requirement to even tie this in to a Live account, either Silver or Gold.
    You can just create an offline profile, much as you would on the 360 if you didn't wish to use LIVE.

  • Katsumoto #18 4 years ago

    Hmmmmmmmmm. Trouble is, on GoW you can't even have more than one save game (unless i'm being thick). You have one single player game tied into your multiplayer, and you can't use the same game for multiplayer. In other words, if I try to host a multiplayer game with my friend over the free live list option, the game will start from where I got to in my single player game. And If I want to go back to my single player game, it will have progressed to where I got in my multiplayer game! So it ends up with you needing to create multiple profiles. Very annoying.

  • tripitaka #19 4 years ago

    There is no reason why a single profile shouldn't have multiple saves associated with it though, so in that case blame the publisher rather than LIVE.
    MS certainly do not require things to be implemented in that way.

  • skillian #20 4 years ago

    ^ Dude, it's rubbish, just admit it :p

  • YourMessageHere #21 4 years ago

    Man this is a ridiculous initiative. What the hell does it actually do? Simplifying installations? Bullshit, if you can't do something as simple as installing the average game, you have no business using a PC. Then again, Bioshock and all its activation fuckery (far from average) was a GfW branded product too. All I can see this doing is spoiling game box art.