Games for Widows - LIVE is Shitty

Ask a random stranger to express their opinion of Microsoft^(R), and odds are they'll respond with anything from profanity to the yawningly dickless "buy a Mac." Over the past 20 years that little company from Redmond has cemented itself as a 1000' tall lumbering Goliath of loathing, while millions of users the world over start spinning up their leather slings as they wrangle with yet another retarded feature which worked just fine under XP.

It's called "Add or Remove Programs", not "Programs and Features", arsehole!

Nevertheless, the unsung heroics of Linux notwithstanding, we've learnt to live with ol' Microsoft. We call it not so much "friend", but rather "devil we know". It's like that sweaty bastard from the IT department with the encyclopaedic knowledge of everything computer -- detestable but indispensable. The one who invites himself along when a group of you go to lunch, embarrassing the entire company by trying to chat up the chick at Noodle Box. Actually that analogy more fits Google...

Recently Microsoft has jumped on the Steam et.al. bandwagon and opened it's own games-on-demand site, called Games for Windows - LIVE. And in doing so Redmond has brought it's own special brand of bend-over-and-think-warm-thoughts to the online games marketplace, which I feel I must call them on.

Actually, this thing is linked to the Xbox LIVE site which has been around for a while. And it is immediately confusing as to what refers to what, since they freely mix nomenclatures between the two. For example, one has to buy "Xbox LIVE" points to download PC games, paradoxically. One must also keep logging in to the client (yes, there is a damn client) with shocking repetitiveness.

Anyway let's start by picking on the first title in LIVE's Marketplace list: Age of Empires III: Complete Collection. It's billed as "3 great games in 1", all for the low price of USD$69.95. Or is it $39.99? The AoE3 website and LIVE marketplace give different answers; but we'll go with the more expensive, since clicking "Buy it" on the website sends you to the LIVE client anyway.

Firstly, the Age of Empires III: Complete Collection is not 3 games in 1, you insufferable marketroids. It is a single game with 2 expansion packs included. Calling this thing "3 games in 1" is like calling my chinos "3 pants in 1", because they're slick enough to wear to work, to a bar, and to the track. It's like calling my missus "3 women in 1" because she cooks, cleans, and watches Babylon 5 reruns with me (and enjoys it).

Wait... there's an actual female watching us now? Riiiiiight....

This is 3 games in 1. By contrast, when I buy and install AoE3:CC I'm going to get 3 icons on my desktop which start the exact same game, only with slightly different graphics and additional campaigns. Not AoE3 and Spore and Super Mario Bros.

I mean, imagine if they started boxing the Lego X-Wing Fighter as "116 sets in 1", because you can like, take it apart and reassemble it into any number of vehicular mutants. Would Lego start winning awards for creative marketing? The hell they would.

Set #76: Super awesome X-wing-Eurofighter-submarine (with tip-mounted musket lasers)

Secondly, $69.95? Are you shitting me? For a 4-year-old game? From a freakin download site? I can go to my local EB store and buy the bloody thing cheaper, complete with disc so I don't have to back up the download myself. And with a pretty box. (Actually a crappy generic plastic case, which can hold a respectable number of ATM receipts.) Or I can buy it from a little-known website for half the effing price.

Now, I hate to rip on the whole AoE franchise; it's actually one of the finer things to come out of Redmond and pretty damn amiable. And, alright, Microsoft is not alone in committing the above sins. Coz, like, all the game manufacturers do it. Probably.

But it gets much much worse, and cuts close to the hearts of old-school gamers like moi. Later...