In a surprising move, just over a week before the official Games for Windows Live shutdown date of July 1st, Microsoft has pledged support for the ailing platform, meaning games that require it to operate, like Dawn of War II, will see continued usage after the cut off date.
While not officially announced, Microsoft stated last year through a support post that on July 1st 2014 we'd see the GFWL service shut down and therefore games that required it would be shuttered for good. However, now it seems to have done an about turn and changed that. The PC marketplace is gone and willl remain so, but GFWL games will still work in the future.
"As previously announced, as part of the retirement of Microsoft Points the Xbox.com PC marketplace was closed," a spokesperson said to Game Informer. "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."
This is good news for gamers, but will likely be an annoyance for developers that have spent time and resources switching their older games over to new standards like Steamworks, in order to maintain functionality for their customers going forward.
What's interesting though, is that Twisted Pixel recently announced a move for Ms. Sposion Man to Steam, from GFWL and it's a Microsoft first party studio. Clearly even with continuing support for the platform, no one expects it to be around forever.
