Why Relic dropped Games for Windows Live in Dawn of War 2: Retribution

Dawn of War Retribution is almost here. It won't be using Games for Windows Live. We've been talking to Relic about their decision to drop the service and go with Steamworks alone for Dawn of War 2: Retribution.

Producer Jeff Lydell explains why Relic dumped Games for Windows Live. "The biggest reason was making people log in to two different services to play the game was never something we were happy with, but that started with Live. At the time when we were making the decision of which online service to use Steamworks wasn't announced, and then when they did announce, they didn't include the type of network components that we needed, and we would have had to build a whole lot more, whereas Live had that out of the box."

"Then as we got closer to ship it came down from on high that we needed some sort of anti-piracy connection, and out of all the anti-piracy solutions that were out there, the only one that we were satisfied with from a user perspective was Steam because it's the only one that actually gives you the benefit of being able to pull your game down anywhere, install it and not have to rely on the disc, so that marriage was a thing of convenience, then we went through two products. We weren't happy with that split, that you had to register twice, and this time around we were able to take a look at the numbers, and what it would cost for us to do that and it just made sense."

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is due out on March 1 and the game's available to pre-order now. Stay tuned for our review of the game before release. Until then, check out our Dawn of War 2: Retribution preview , which takes a look at the new Imperial Guard army. Are you glad that Relic have dropped Games for Windows Live?