Games For Windows Live is now free.

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CAGiversary!
At the Gamefest 2008 event on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that all Games for Windows Live multiplayer features are now free. These features -- including multiplayer achievements, matchmaking, cross-platform play with the Xbox 360, GFW voice chat, and more -- previously required a GFW Live Gold account. The change is effective immediately and across all GFW titles, both past and future.

In addition to making Games for Windows Live free, Microsoft will also be creating a brand new GFW marketplace this fall to rival the marketplace found on the Xbox 360. As with the Xbox Live Marketplace, GFW's will offer demos, videos, downloadable content, and more. The GFW interface will also receive some tech-friendly changes, lowering requirements for developers looking to make their games GFW compatible.

To cap off the news, two new games were revealed to be receiving the Games for Windows branding: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and Battlestations: Pacific. So PC gamers finally get the totally free service they've been asking for since Games for Windows launched, but is it too little, too late to save Microsoft's attempt at a PC gaming service? And will this make 360 owners question why they have to pay?
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yeh just saw this today, i have gears of war for the pc, so now my friend can finally play without having to do those 48 hr codes for him... :D
 
Yea, I never understood why people had to pay for Live because it's not like each game has their own dedicated servers anyway. Just look at what happened during the Halo 3 launch...Live was borked for a couple days.

Then again it is a lot better than Sony/Nintendo's offerings...

Now that PC gamers are getting the exact same service for free, I bet people will complain a lot, just like that article says.
 
Free is the only way MS can successfully market Live on the PC. PC gamers are used to free match-making services. Unless you can one-up Steam or Battle.net in terms of features and connectivity, how can you honestly charge for traditional matchmaking services? (To be fair, I know part of the old GFW: Live was about playing with Xbox players, but that, IMHO, is hardly worth the asking price.)
 
[quote name='rpnguyen']
Then again it is a lot better than Sony/Nintendo's offerings...[/quote]

And...what's wrong with PSN again?

If I knew anybody who was a PC gamer, I'm sure they'd be pretty happy. I'm glad for them, I guess. Enjoy your free online play. :S
 
If you have live on the 360 this really doesnt matter. You pay for live so you get it on GFW and the 360.
 
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