Games for windows live

Age of Empires Online takes its last breaths today. The pseudo-MMO adaptation of Microsoft’s popular series never fully caught on thanks to its limited content and rather expensive cost of purchases, as well as the cheaper, more readily available alternative titles in the series. We learned last year in January that content development had ceased, and finally in October that the servers would come down in July due to the closure of Games for Windows Live services.

With full Age of Empires titles on sale for cheap, players found little reason to throw down $20 to unlock a single civilization. Following an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign for an RTS called Wildman, Gas Powered Games laid off a number of staff and sold off to Wargaming.net.

So, it turns out Games For Windows Live isn’t shutting down next week. According to a statement by Microsoft, you will still be able to download titles from the Games for Windows Live client as usual, however customers will not be able to purchase games or receive title updates.

“As previously announced, as part of the retirement of Microsoft Points the Xbox.com PC marketplace was closed. Although customers are unable to purchase new games from the marketplace or receive title updates, they can continue to enjoy previously purchased content by downloading them through the Games for Windows Live client as usual. We remain committed to investing in PC gaming in the years ahead, and look forward to sharing more in the future.”

Presumably features like achievements will continue to function as well, online play may be dependent on the game.

(Source: Eurogamer)