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Steve Gibson, Gearbox's head of marketing, wants Microsoft and Valve to "Play Nice."

...

The studio, which is readying PC gaming favourite Duke Nukem Forever for release on the format next year, claims that Steam and Microsoft are "building silos" which ultimately "hurt the PC industry".


"[We] want people to be able to play together and right now if a guy buys a game on Games for Windows and a guy buys a game on Steam - they can't play together," Gearbox's head of marketing Steve Gibson said at London Games Festival. "If another guy bought it in a retail store, he can't play with the first two guys."

Gibson called on Microsoft and Steam to work out a way where purchasers of their games could play simultaneously.

"Right now we're like 'Please, work together'," he said. "Our big concern right now is that these silos are being built. Everybody's separating out and it's really... as a developer who just wants gamers to be able to play games together, it's frustrating right now. Things like that are hurting the PC industry for gamers. This is frustrating for everybody right now."

Gibson asked gamers to put pressure on Steam and Microsoft to "play nice!".

...

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=268880

I honestly cannot think of a game where the bolded is true.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
This seems like nonsense. Hell Dawn of War 2 is both GFWL AND Steamworks at the same time and works fine regardless of where you buy it.
 

Zzoram

Member
Ya, Gearbox is just full of it. The only multiplayer game I have with GFW LIVE and Steamworks is Dawn of War 2, probably the biggest game to use both for multiplayer, and it doesn't matter where you buy it because all of them use both GFW LIVE and Steamworks for multiplayer. All the games that use Steamworks now only have a Steamworks version so there is no issue with multiplayer compatibility.

Besides, the market has spoken, GFW LIVE is on it's last legs and Steamworks is becoming an industry standard.

Aren't these the guys who complained Valve was going to leverage Steam to unfairly promote their games over other developers/publishers? Because that's also a crock of shit and makes no sense considering that Valve makes a lot of money selling other people's games on Steam. Every marketing tool Valve has available to them, they make available to other publishers on Steam as well. All the major releases have had giant splash page launches with pre-order promotions equal to what Valve has offered for their own games, other games are allowed to sell 4-packs, do free trial weekends, and betas for pre-ordering too.
 
I, on the other hand, wish gearbox would let me play gearbox's games with my friends easily by ditching fucking gamespy.
 

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Maybe he means being able to get friends into a game with you. Its annoying to run several friends lists so that its easy to invite them to whatever games run on what.

That said, GFWL should die. What a horrible service.
 

Zzoram

Member
TouchMyBox said:
I, on the other hand, wish gearbox would let me play gearbox's games with my friends easily by ditching fucking gamespy.

Gamespy is actually the worst online system they could've adopted, but Valve let them even for the Steam version because Valve doesn't force developers to do anything. Valve is good.

That said, GFWL should die. What a horrible service.

It's ok, the market has spoken, GFW LIVE is dying and Steamworks is the industry standard for all except Blizzard and Microsoft.
 

Zzoram

Member
Broadbandito said:
joke post?

If he bought it for PC online, it's not a joke. Gamespy is awful and my friends were finding it impossbile to play together. They should've used Steamworks, at least then their game would've worked.
 

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Discotheque said:
I bought Borderlands on sale for under 10 dollars and it still wasn't worth the money.
Shoulda gotten a friend to go in on it with you. The game is really good for coop. Single player it felt like a pointless grind, but with a buddy it feels like hanging out.
 
Broadbandito said:
joke post?

not really... the PC version was basically a straight console port with gamespy tacked on despite them touting otherwise.

What's Gearbox's beef with Valve in the first place? This isn't the first time they've called out Steam in a ridiculous manner.
 

Zzoram

Member
Gully State said:
not really... the PC version was basically a straight console port with gamespy tacked on despite them touting otherwise.

What's Gearbox's beef with Valve in the first place? This isn't the first time they've called out Steam in a ridiculous manner.

Gearbox is jealous. None of the stuff they say about Valve makes sense, and what they say is usually flat out wrong, such as the bolded in the OP.
 

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Gully State said:
What's Gearbox's beef with Valve in the first place? This isn't the first time they've called out Steam in a ridiculous manner.
Valve never admitted that Opposing Force was better than HL.
 

Talamius

Member
I guess I imagined all those RE5 co-op sessions using a copy I bought off Steam.

TouchMyBox said:
I, on the other hand, wish gearbox would let me play gearbox's games with my friends easily by ditching fucking gamespy.

Also this. Gamespy is an even more pointless service than GFWL.
 

Sai-kun

Banned
TouchMyBox said:
I, on the other hand, wish gearbox would let me play gearbox's games with my friends easily by ditching fucking gamespy.

avatar.jpg


my god, what an idea.
 
GFWL is a non issue at this point. It is rats deserting a sinking ship, the only games that will use it in the next few years will be Microsoft published titles.
Discotheque said:
I bought Borderlands on sale for under 10 dollars and it still wasn't worth the money.
So you disagree with what someone says and then that justifies you trolling them with off topic bullshit?

Didn't Lost Planet have some issue with the Steam version that removed cross platform play?
 

Zzoram

Member
Is CVG a blog or what? Why did their article not have commentary and investigation? About 2 minutes using Google would've told them that what Gearbox said is flat out wrong. Video game journalism :lol
 
BobsRevenge said:
Valve never admitted that Opposing Force was better than HL.
Also, they refuse to acknowledge OpFor and Adrian Shepard in the main HL games because OpFor had a bunch of noncanonical aliens in it.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Playing nice with Microsoft involves one of you bending over and taking it. Gearbox might be into that but you can't expect everybody else to be.
 

Rubezh

Member
I've never heard of this Gibson guy but he's categorically wrong on this. There is no "incompatability" between GFWL and Steam. What I think he may be referring to is having seperate friends lists, but if that's the case then why did Borderlands use GameSpy? Gearbox is guilty of the exact thing Gibson is describing. If somebody bought Borderlands on Steam or GFWL on Demand, they wouldn't be able to play with their friends either.
 
lol why you mad?

It's not off topic at all. The online system in Borderlands was shit, they shouldn't be criticizing other ones. And I played coop with a few friends, but it still wasn't very fun.
 
Gully State said:
not really... the PC version was basically a straight console port with gamespy tacked on despite them touting otherwise.

What's Gearbox's beef with Valve in the first place? This isn't the first time they've called out Steam in a ridiculous manner.

Maybe it has to do with Counter-Strike: Condition Zero? Condition Zero was originally being developed by Gearbox then Valve hired Ritual Studios to take on the project.
 

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
EmCeeGramr said:
Also, they refuse to acknowledge OpFor and Adrian Shepard in the main HL games because OpFor had a bunch of noncanonical aliens in it.
Yeah, that shit has to sting.
 

Zzoram

Member
Rubezh said:
I've never heard of this Gibson guy but he's categorically wrong on this. There is no "incompatability" between GFWL and Steam. What I think he may be referring to is having seperate friends lists, but if that's the case then why did Borderlands use GameSpy? Gearbox is guilty of the exact thing Gibson is describing. If somebody bought Borderlands on Steam or GFWL on Demand, they wouldn't be able to play with their friends either.

Yet CVG posted this as news without pointing out these things. I wonder how many other sites will copy and paste this as news without fact checking.
 
(1) This is the first I've heard of such incompatbilities.

(2) MS don't need to build a silo, there's no point. Valve have already won.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
I own Street Fighter IV and Dawn of War 2 on Steam. They work perfectly.

What the hell is this guy babbling about?
 
Broadbandito said:
Guess I didn't realize how fucked up the online was for it. My bad. I still loved it as a SP game on console.

First PC game I had to forward ports in a long ass time. That's gamespy for ya.

Why do companies still use them? I don't know a single gamer that actually thinks gamespy is adequate.
 

Jake

Member
It's not that surprising to see BluesNews pick up and post a statement made by the founder of Shacknews without a ton of criticism...
 

ghst

thanks for the laugh
pc gaming: if you can't find a problem, invent one.

probably why you're not getting minerva's den.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Zzoram said:
Is CVG a blog or what? Why did their article not have commentary and investigation? About 2 minutes using Google would've told them that what Gearbox said is flat out wrong. Video game journalism :lol

Two minutes of google. How about two fucking minutes of actually gaming on the PC.

Your new caretakers of DNF, folks. A worthy successor indeed.
 
Rather they all just used Gamespy, eh Steve?

Who do people so out of touch with the market and so clueless get put into such positions of authority? How the hell can you be "head of marketing" if you don't have the slightest clue how the market works? Dude must have some great friends.
 
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