Stardock Slams Games For Windows Live

Sins of a Solar Empire developer Stardock has taken a swipe at Microsoft’s Games For Windows Live service.In an interview with Shack, Stardock’s Brad Wardell explained that, despite initially supporting Microsoft’s effort to standardise PC gaming, now he is not so enamoured with the service.“I don’t know. I started out as a big Games for Windows Live advocate,” he said.“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.”He went on to explain that it is often necessary to update a game because of conflicts caused by updates to other PC programs.“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,” he said.“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.”Most recently, Stardock is responsible for strategy titles Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod and is currently working on a new turn-based fantasy strategy game, Elemental: War of Magic.