Guys were supposed to remove that horrible, sitty service-sorry, obstacle i meant, in early summer. Yet, quite some time ago, they made new announcements, along those lines:

"We will not remove it, we will keep offering this or a new similar service (hindrance) to players on pc".

Please let me know, if you know for certain, whether or not this giant bugger and bummer has finally perished? People report being unable to play legit purchased games, because this service is currently, neither removed, nor fully working. I have one or two retail games of great quality i am itching to play again, but before installing them (are very large games) and deciding to stomach their abhorrent securom (is terrible on its own already), i would like to know beforehand, just how futile and vain my desires and efforts are simply going to be...

As far as I know, it's still alive.

Oooh... :( thanks for letting me know. Seems i have to stretch exercizing my patience for one or two more years.

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/windows/pc-marketplace-closing

Don't know if that helps.. initially I thought they'll shut down the DRM portion but it seems it affects only the marketplace.

Out of curiosity: what are the games you have?

It's still around and working - as at last check I could still play DR2 / DR2:OtR and Bulletstorm - games which have had no indication that they'll even attempt to patch it out / rerelease without GfWL

The shutdown was supposed to occur this summer. The marketplace, meanwhile, was shut down last year.

At least some developers are patching it out. I'm especially glad that RELIC have patched it out of the Dawn of War games. I would not have been a happy camper if I couldn't play them now and then.

It's not dead, but no further games will use it and some devs are patching it out of select games (mostly ones with some kind of multiplayer focus, or they have other games in the franchise running Steamworks and want parity between games).

Still alive and kicking on a bunch of games.