Drew Johnston is the GPM for the Live Engagement Team on Windows. His work covers Games for Windows — LIVE and Windows 7. He will be speaking at this year’s GDC about the next stage of Games for Windows — LIVE, expected to launch this summer.

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Community/NewsArticles/Pages/gfwldrewinterview.aspx

In this article posted on the front page of www.gamesforwindows.com Drew Johnston discusses the important future of GfWL. I believe the issue of Games for Windows is just as important though. If you read the article you’ll learn how they’re trying to spruce the service up to shape it into a reputable online service for PC gamers.

More after the jump.

From its inception Games for Windows Live, or even Games for Windows itself, has taken a lot of backlash from the community. It just doesn’t size up to other online communities or digital storefronts such as Xfire, Steam, or Direct2Drive. It seems with Version 3 of the GfWL client they will be listening to the community which they have stated they have been reading the forums.

Johnston states that Version 3 will focus on three areas but to me it all seems to point to piracy reduction. Following in the footsteps of Steam they are implementing server side authentication whilst the offline copy protection will be up to the publisher. An exciting part of this is you can play on an unlimited amount of computers, and your game saves will be stored online much like Steam Cloud. But now that I put more thought into it is it all that exciting? Have we come full circle back to the days where we had unlimited installs as long as we had the CD key? And finally in game content purchases which is great for cutting out all the hoops of buying points, downloading from a storefront, installing, and then launching the game.

It’s great that Microsoft is putting forth effort into this service. I do think more could be done. I hate to keep comparing this to Steam but its hard to avoid. Valve constantly works on the Steam client and there games and makes an effort to update their service as soon as possible. Having monthly updates isn’t really going to cut it in this day and age of PC gaming where things like patches and new content can be delivered to the the consumer in a much more productive fashion. I think Microsoft has a gold mine that they haven’t fully tapped into. Windows Media Center for example is a great media portal which could be used as a more accessible service for users to build a community and launch games to cater towards those who prefer an Xbox 360 like experience. We’ll have to see what Microsoft has in store for us this summer when Version 3 of Games for Windows Live launches.

www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Community/NewsArticles/Pages/gfwldrewinterview.aspx