Forza Horizon 3

[Art Blade]

at least I had everything, except two HE offroad trucks which I wasn't interested in other than for my collection. In the end I had 425 cars, a few of them were doublets on purpose, so all in all, I was through with it anyway.

But man, it IS more than annoying to have spent something like $60+ on it and now being unable to use it due to MS's fault

[PZ]

Indeed 

I still like to go through some of my old games, and would be quite disappointed to learn that I was prevented from doing so by the developer. At least you got to enjoy the game for a long time.

[LowPolyOWG]

If they use SecuROM DRM, you're out of luck

[fragger]

I'm with you Art, vote with your feet and frack 'em

[Art Blade]

cheers, and yes, indeed

[BinnZ]

It's simply incredible. Freakin MS bastards

[LowPolyOWG]

It appears the store issues is indeed caused by how MS prioritize stuff.

This article explains it quite well. Phil Spencer, the current head of the Xbox division believes that gaming should be a part of Windows 10's ecosystem, not an afterthought. Unfortunately, the VPs/other execs treats Xbox as an afterthought, while Windows/Office/Azure gets the top priority. Microsoft have actually considered getting rid of the Xbox division. Now, he's on the executive team and can directly talk to Satya Nadella when it comes to funding etc. I would say the Xbox Live game service has a better functionality to download/play stuff than the Windows Store

This article suggest that MS can make Steam w0#k with their games. It all depends if they are willing to give Valve that 30% cut for whatever game they are developing and publishing.

[Art Blade]

ah, interesting. Thanks for that info

30% seem to be a lot but Valve offers instant access to millions of customers and provide "shipping" to the clients. They take care of all the rest. Ranging from payment both between customers and steam and between Valve and their clients, they provide servers, fast internet infrastructure, storage, cloud sync, patch update services, news updates and whatnot. It's there. All you need to do is give them a game, they do the rest. Which is probably why there are so many games in the steam store

[LowPolyOWG]

Yeah. I would happily give away 30%, seeing how Valve already got the infrastructure. No need to spend time investing in your own. Unless you want to have all the profits for yourself/control over distribution. For MS, it's kind of a way to make profits other than selling Windows. Being a service now, the money has to come in from somewhere, rather than OEM one-time software purchase.

I hope MS can do better this year, Phil did admit back in 2016 MS had to fix stuff. Being a part of the top execs, he has more power to get things done.

His promotion happened back into October last year. I expect some announcements at E3 2018 this year from Microsoft

[LowPolyOWG]

FH3 hit its EOL in August last year. So, due to licenses expiring, the game was delisted from the MS store permanently. Existing owners can still download and install the game.

[Art Blade]

what MS just did.. licences that have't got a "best before" warning but still got an expiring date, that's complete rubbish

[LowPolyOWG]

They have been doing this for years with the older Forza titles. It's kinda stupid, but I guess paying millions of license fees isn't in their interest and the possiblity of a legal battle, should a manufacturer stop producing a car model during the game's lifetime. R* solved it by making fictional models/brands, although I guess this wouldn't be appropriate for a racing sim franchise like Forza/Grand Turismo.

[Art Blade]

yep.. the licence deal is still *bleep*. Unbelievable that the auto industry is as greedy as the gaming industry.