Boycott Games For Windows Live

I can't help but feel a successful campaign will need something a little stronger than a single page of dense text - an entirely ineffectual online petition and detailed instructions on exactly where to post jiffy bags full of dog poo, perhaps - but hell, it's a start. I'm generally a little too resigned to Microsoft despotism to get terribly upset about their damn-fool misfires, but Games For Windows Live is one thing that really does make me want to take the hose to Redmond executives.

We shouldn't have to pay to play PC games online as we please. We shouldn't have to login and be nagged by big, garish Microsoft screens even if we don't want to play online. And we certainly shouldn't have Microsoft dictating how PC games should be.

So, here's NGOHQ self-promoting themselves with a big, bolshy Boycott GFWL page and cut-out'n'keep URL. Yes, linking to it probably achieves very little other than hits for them, so I'm irritated at myself for doing it, but who knows. Maybe helping to stir up just a little more righteous ire amongst PC gamers really will gain the beast's attention.

The idea is to convince folk not to buy any game that's got a horrible GFWL growth on it. Not too much of a problem for a Halo 2, The Club or Kane & Lynch, but following the boycott campaign to the letter would may mean not playing Mass Effect on PC once it's released. Ah. I'm going to have to be like one of those vegetarians who eats fish, aren't I?