Some of these requirements are understandable, like DirectX and Adobe Flash updates. Others are not, like having to install Rockstar Social Club so that it can have a constantly-running app on your system tray or that you have to create a Games for Windows Live login to be able to even play the game.

These things aren’t easily redeemed, despite how Rockstar has tried to ease it all by allowing players to link the Rockstar Social Club with Games for Windows Live accounts. The fact is that it’s just plain obvious that both Rockstar and Microsoft are using Grand Theft Auto IV PC as part of a greater plan to drive people onto Games for Windows Live and to gather gameplay data from players.

If it were just one or the other system in play here then we might not make that big a deal of it, admittedly. Fallout 3 featured Games for Windows Live too and we didn’t hate that, for example. The problem though is that there are just so many things with so little a benefit – SecuROM and Rockstar Social Club and Games for Windows Live? It’s too much.

And what benefit is there to offset it? Well, the only appreciable one from the player's perspective is that you’ll be able to save videos and upload them to Rockstar Social Club, play around with them and so on. There’s a community around the Rockstar Social Club and they’ll rate your videos and watch them and so on.

You can read the entire article at Bit-Tech.