Games for Windows Live is dying, we check the life support of games
Microsoft announced last year that Games for Windows would shut down its marketplace features on August 22, 2013, signaling the beginning of the end for the service. Never quite achieving its desired critical mass, GFWL handled DRM, achievements, and multiplayer for a long list of games.
A since-deleted support article for Age of Empires Online stated that the GFWL service would be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although Microsoft has not yet made an official announcement on the matter, a number of developers took this to mean that their games would effectively become unplayable in July and began work to divorce them from GFWLs, often switching over to Steamworks.
However, a large number of developers remained quiet about plans, so Joystiq reached out to get the official word on what the future may hold for their games past July.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/17/ga...support-of-ga/
