An Open Letter to Microsoft

To Whom it may Concern,

Wow, so Microsoft finally got into the direct-to-PC gaming market. Congrats. I'm sure you are going to make a killing with all 18 games you have available. You launch right before the Christmas season, when thousands of kids will be getting games from their parents, and that's your library: eighteen games, half of which are casual and/or have been out for a year, and all of which you can get on Steam. Great business plan.

And it was really smart of you to sell all of your games at full price right off the bat, especially for the holidays. That's really going to encourage people to switch over to an unproven platform. I'm sure I have many reasons to buy the original Fallout 3 for $50 from you and then all the add-ons for another $30 when I can get the whole thing on Steam for $37.49, I just can't think of them yet.

Although I guess it's good that you only have eighteen games considering that you can't even search the library. You guys seriously launch an entire search engine, and you can't even include a search feature on your games browser. That's lovely. And then even as you so completely fail to provide any reason to use your client, you leave no way for people to suggest features or improvements. There is no e-mail support on the WindowsLive page, and Games for Windows is not listed under any of your support options. I had to Google "Windows Live Support" to even get a Microsoft address that even looks remotely helpful, and it's an invitation-only affair.

Good luck with this half-hearted venture, but I doubt you will make any money if this is your business plan.

-Reece