The Fallout games are a wonder to play on PC, but Fallout 3 has always come with a big old asterisk next to its name. Anyone who wanted to play the classic 2008 title would also have to install one of the worst gaming services out there: Games For Windows Live. Thankfully, a patch released for the game, put out over a decade after it initially launched, has removed the nightmarish service from Fallout 3 entirely.
Games For Windows Live initially launched in 2007, meant as a way to connect the people playing their games on the Xbox 360 and those playing on PC. The entire thing backfired. Instead of improving the PC gaming experience whatsoever, Games For Windows Live made playing games a headache whenever it was involved. Players had to deal with an unoptimized, unintuitive UI that generally slowed down getting to actually playing.
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Thankfully, players won’t have to deal with the service when they try to play Fallout 3 on PC anymore. An extremely brief patch for Fallout 3 released just yesterday removed the service. The patch notes further clarify that Fallout 3 “no longer installs Games for Windows Live dependencies. If Fallout 3 was previously installed on Steam, we suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the title.”
While Games For Windows Live can now claim one less victim, the service has still caused issues as recently as last year. In January of 2020, Rockstar lost the ability to sell any more copies of Grand Theft Auto IV on Steam because the company couldn’t generate more keys to sell, which could only be done through Games For Windows Live. The service is largely gone for good, having been discontinued in 2014.
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