8-bitDesign

So, I log in to play Fallout 3, being the wonderful little Alpha Geek that I am, and I hear that there’s some cool new expansion pack that I can download and play.

Awesome! I pop open the Games for Windows: Live account thingy, and… well, shit. I need to update it first.

So, I apply the update, which automatically quits the game for me (sans warning), and leaves no indication that it’s installed correctly.

After five minutes of reading blogs, I get impatient, load the game up again, and go back the the Games for Windows: Live… thingy. Great, now I can log in! Okay, so I go futz around for a bit, check out their really slick interface, and even IM some friends who are playing XBox games. All in all, very cool.

But I can’t find the interface to actually grab this expansion pack.

Back to the game, I see there’s a new item on the main menu, obtusely named “Downloads”. Okay, so I click that and up comes another menu with another obtusely named item, “NEW CONTENT AVAILABLE”.

…Sounds like what I’m looking for, I guess. I click on that item, and I get a Games for Windows: LIVE dialogue box, telling me that I’ll need to open another program to download this content. Fair enough, I click “Okay” and my game is minimized… and I get another dialogue box, telling me I need to apply a hotfix for WinXP.

Now, this computer is fully patched, according to Windows Update, so this is a bit odd. Additionally, this means I need to shut down my game, apply a system update, reboot my system, restart my game, navigate through the game’s menu to open another program, to view a page, to buy the fucking content.

Seriously? That’s just so… Microsofty.

Why can’t I just download this through Steam, which doesn’t require diddling with the core OS to function? Or, you know, just have the game point me to a damned webpage where I can fork over my cash all-bloody-ready.

UPDATE:
So I restart, I get the Games for Windows:LIVE program up and running, and I navigate to the Fallout 3 DLC section, and click “Buy”. Now, this is 800 Microsoft Points, and on my LIVE account, I have 240 points. This is really, really, really cool that points are shared on the account; I can add points on my XBox and they show up in Games for Windows: LIVE, and vice versa.

Being so very close to the end now, I click “Buy” and… well, I need to add points to my LIVE account, and apparently I can’t do this through the Games for Windows: LIVE program. The program tells me this, I hit “Okay”, and up pops… IE7.

I go to Add/Remove Programs, check the “Set Program Access & Defaults” tab to check what my system’s web browser is, because there’s no fucking way my default browser is IE7. Yes, it’s Chrome. Why IE7, a browser I never use, is popping up, is fucking beyond me.

So, looking at IE7, I need to log in again (can’t pass a security certificate back and forth?), add points, close the browser, go back to Games for Windows:LIVE, and close the “When you’re done buying points, click ‘Okay’” dialogue.

This is dumb.

Bethesda, seriously, cut your contract and just put this content on Steam for the love of all that’s good and holy.