This might be simple and easy but I struggled to find it and wanted to post it in a place that might help others. The Social club window still comes up but does not ask you to log in, you can just click play and when in the game you can access the multiplayer lobbies from your phone as normal. This stated the same thing that Social Club was no longer needed to play online and would remove the launcher for it, which worked! (If you have the EFLC disc as well you will need the Episodes from Liberty City patch on that same page to do the same thing) I eventually found another patch Grand Theft Auto IV Patch 8 Title Update at this link. That 1.0.7.0 patch was a GFWL update that said Social Club was no longer needed to play online and would remove the launcher for it.

Rockstar support pages inform you to install the new Rockstar Games Launcher, however if you do that and input your product key it will download the latest version of the game from Rockstar which is the same as the Steam version - without GFWL. Google gave me a lot of results mainly for the Steam version that did not work for me, opening firewall ports, installing the 1.0.7.0 patch or updating to the latest Social Club patch for the game but any link to that was dead. Selecting to play offline on that screen will get you into the game and GFWL will work and unlock achievements, however you will not be able to enter multiplayer via the phone, it will say you need to log in to Social Club. I did however run into an issue when launching the game where a login box for Rockstar Social Club would come up and have three options - Cancel - Play (offline) - Play - where the play option is greyed out and the social club status was showing as social club unavailable play offline or try again

I recently tried to install the retail version of GTA IV on my laptop, install was fine, there is documented steps to get past the release date verification error (manually set system date to 2014). I struggled to find the correct information on this issue when searching Google so I will attempt to include as many search terms and keywords to allow anyone else with this issue to find this thread. If you have the EFLC disc as well you will need the Episodes from Liberty City patch on that same page to do the same thing

ĭownload and install this and Social Club will no longer require a login and MP can be accessed. I eventually found a patch Grand Theft Auto IV Patch 8 Title Update at this link.

Gta 4 rockstar launcher