Dead Game News Related: Launcher Hell

[nimdok]

I was looking through my Steam library a couple weeks ago for something to play. I have a lot of games I got in sales or through bundles so I wanted to try one out. A couple years ago I bought Resident Evil 5 but didn’t get around to playing it, so I decided to download and play it. After it downloaded I went to play it but when you go to launch it through Steam, Steam launches Games for Windows Live (GFWL) instead, and GFWL launches the game. But it turns out that Microsoft doesn’t support GFWL anymore, and the last update for it was in 2014. So when I go to launch Resident Evil 5 it tries to install GFWL and I get something like this



The installer attempts to install GFWL but it fails because Microsoft shut down the servers for GFWL, and I can’t launch Resident Evil 5 through Steam. I can’t refund this game because I bought it years ago. So I’ve got two options:

1. I can try to find the installer for GFWL somewhere else.
   
2. I can find a crack for the game
   

If I wanted to go the route of finding the installer for GFWL, I found this guide in a Microsoft forum. I skimmed through it and found this line hilarious:

Now with GFWL this doesn't have a 100% success rate.  However you can try the exact same steps and it'll work the second or third time you do it.  Pretty annoying, but at least you get to play your game.

So I could try to install GFWL and it might not even work the first time, and if I want to try to play it again years later it might break even more because GFWL is not supported by Microsoft anymore.

I chose instead to go with the game crack. I found this website that has a bunch of simple steps to follow to get Resident Evil 5 to work. Not only does it patch out the broken launcher, it also has a bunch of quality of life fixes and bug fixes.

You can still buy Resident Evil 5 through Steam. They will sell you a broken game, though new buyers can just refund it when they realize it’s broken. There’s a bunch of other games that were integrated with GFWL, some I have in my library and have also not played yet. I found a list of GFWL enabled games that are on Steam here.

Recently a bunch of other game developers have been making their own special launchers for their own games. I just saw that the XCOM series just integrated a new special launcher in Steam when I went to play XCOM 2 recently. It made me think: How many of these launchers are still going to work 10 years from now?

Have you guys had any experiences like this?

 

[potty_admiral_bop]

Yeah, GFWL was shittiest asshole I ever saw.

But I don't have any issues with launchers, what are you - steamboy or something? I like how HARD is it for steamboys to launch a game from a desktop icon. The HARDEST thing in the world. They want steam monopoly only because it is VERY HARD to see just another launcher despite that their fat god saying that Epic is a good company.

Steam retards want to give 90% of their money not to developers, but to the most anti-consumer digital distribution store - steam.

Fucking scam.

 

[Lumberjackson]

Wow i had no idea that RE 5 is still using GFWL, i bought it on Humble Bundle a couple of years ago (maybe late 2015?) through on of those Capcom bundles that seemed to be a good value proposition (came with RE4, RE5 + DLC, Devil May Cry, Ultra Street Fighter IV among others), but i still haven't installed it yet.
I remember the Steam version of Fallout 3 being a bit of a pain to get running due to GFWL, though. I somehow got around those issues, but that was back on Windows 7.