G+: You know what I hate

David Coles
You know what I hate. Games for Windows Live.

Turns out I had bought the DLC for Batman Arkham City through Steam a while back and didn't remember until now, so I figured out I'd try and find it. Doesn't seem to be any way to access the DLC from inside the game, so lets go search on line. OK, apparently the only way to download the DLC that I purchased through Steam is to have a GFWL account (despite the fact that I've completed the game, side quests, maxed out the stats and and about 90% of the Riddler trophies).

Ok, fine. I think I have an old Hotmail account I used for Fallout when it refused to let me sign it... OK. CD key... right lets just copy paste that from Steam's convenient dialog and... oh look, the GFWL window won't let you paste in a 25 digit alphanumeric product key... Right. So lets open the Steam overlay and type this in by hand... [At this stage of the process chugged the rest of my peppermint tea, grit my teeth a little and then let out a sigh. I really just want to play this one little bit of DLC...]

Ok. So now we're signing in and... "ERROR. Can't sign in. Please click here to resolve" This opens up a web browser (Internet Explorer naturally...) and a 404 on the Windows/XBox Live page. Fine, I'll log in myself. Done. OK, TOS change I need to agree to. OK. Now you want my billing details? I don't want to give you my...

You know what. Screw this. I just wanted to play some games tonight so I'm just going back and sign in offline and... where's my... offline profile... and... save game...

Open "My Documents\WB Games\Batman Arkham City\SaveData"... oh look at that. Empty. Clean as freshly fallen snow on a crisp winter's morning. Thank you GFWL. Thank you for ruining this evening and one of the best gaming experiences that I've had in quite a while... 

Also, now that I think of it, that acronym really should be GfWL. Though I think I've got a better word choice for "F"...

David Coles
Well, thankfully Windows had kept a backup version since it was stored in my profile, so at least I'm back to square one: http://forums.xbox.com/gfw/technical_support/f/253/p/293786/1534680.aspx#1534680

William Grant
I managed to transfer my offline Arkham City save to a new GFWL account a couple of weeks ago for the same reason. If you're still having trouble getting it across, I can try to remember how I managed it.