Gearbox: Steam and Microsoft Should "Play Nice"

[Jacob.pederson]

At the recent London Games Festival, Gearbox's Steve Gibson said: "[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."

"If another guy bought it in a retail store, he can't play with the first two guys," he added.

Um... How true is this, exactly?

Second this. My copies of Dirt 2, Arkham Asylum, Fallout 3 and Dawn of War, all have absolutely no trouble running the Steam and GFWL overlays at the same time. They even helpfully appear on opposite sides of the screen, though I shudder to think of the missing processor cycles.

 

[TheDoomPenguin]

The Steam Version of Borderlands DOES use gamespy last time I played.

I just double checked, it does.

 

[TimeLord]

I like this idea.

But do something like it with the PS3 and 360!

I want to be able to kill my friends on MW2 who all have 360s while I use my PS3!

 

[TheDoomPenguin]

I want Steam to stop ripping off European customers.

Valve doesn't set global prices except on their own games. Publishers set their own prices.

 

[sunburst]

Should I go ahead and assume this means Gearbox won't be fixing their multiplayer interface anytime soon? It would be a waste of resources if you could instead blame your fuck-ups on someone else and get a bunch of thumbs up from the community since you're calling out those greedy and egotistical companies that aren't actually causing the problems you're talking about. It's good business, yeah?

 

[Woodsey]

Use Steam and don't use the piece of shit they call GfWL. It's not fucking complicated; most developers seem to be catching on.

Not that what he's saying makes sense anyway - if you buy a game from Steam it doesn't automatically use Steamworks, and if you buy a game in retail that does use Steamworks then you'll play on the same servers as someone who bought it from Steam.

There aren't different servers depending on where you bought the game from; you'd expect someone working in the bloody industry to have a little bit of a clue as to what they're on about.

"Playing nice" is something that would make multiplayer game developers like Gearbox happy, but is it really possible?

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=268880]

Permalink

Of course it's possible, that's what they do already! He doesn't have a clue xD

 

[Wandrecanada]

Without a neutral third party managing an open source architecture that is accessible by all platforms it will never happen. There is no corporate reason to ever support someone else's business over yours. It will take the likes of Firefox and years of pushing to topple the giants that are Microsoft and Sony. I strongly doubt we'll see the like for a long time now that the economy crapped out.

Edit: I'd just like to add that Apple, though not a game developer (yet) has currently lost the title of most used Smart phone to Google's Android. Android uses an open architecture. This idea does have legs but it needs heavy backing from deep pockets and major long term investing.

 

[Snotnarok]

Half this article doesn't make sense, I can play with people who bought steam versions of Bad Company 2 with my retail copy just fine. Unless I'm actually missing something.


Cross platform play with PC vs consoles would be a disaster, they recently did that with Modern Warfare 2 as I gather and the console players were very much stomped on. It's that added speed and accuracy with a mouse, I didn't think there was that much of a difference if you were used to it but I guess I was wrong.

Also Gearbox says they want things to be united but you can't update retail borderlands with DLC from steam, so maybe they should work on that before knockin' others.

 

[Last Bullet]

Should I go ahead and assume this means Gearbox won't be fixing their multiplayer interface anytime soon? It would be a waste of resources if you could instead blame your fuck-ups on someone else and get a bunch of thumbs up from the community since you're calling out those greedy and egotistical companies that aren't actually causing the problems you're talking about. It's good business, yeah?

Oorah. Still can't play Borderlands co-op with my friends without some massive hassle and multiple attempts.

Is this claim legitimate at all? Why would it matter if you bought retail or Steam, or *shudders* GFWL? Other posters have already claimed being able to disprove this, so... Hmn.

 

[Sebenko]

Or maybe we can just burn GFWL and be done with it.

 

[Professor James]

The games for windows and steam thing will not happen for awhile if at all Valve and Microsoft are having a "relationship problem" if you know what I mean

on a related topic I don't think that retail thing is true as mentioned above where did they get that Information

 

[elvor0]

So aside from the lack of PC to Xbox play (given PC can play with PS3 when portal comes out), everything he just said jst showed how out of touch he was, GFWL people can play with Steam, as there has never and never likely to be any segrigation between the two, case in point Fallout 3, which I have on steam and requires both steam and bastard GFWL to launch, (oh how I hate GFWL), besides, until the xbox allows mouse and keyboard support, there would be no point, we saw what happened with shadowrun.

Furthermore, given how MS appears to hate Valve, it's unlikely they're going to allow PC to Xbox play anytime soon, at least as far as Steam is concerned.

 

[GiantRedButton]

I want Steam to stop ripping off European customers.

Valve doesn't set global prices except on their own games. Publishers set their own prices.

Valve was charging 20 bucks for L4D2 to Europeans when spiting Microsoft with 6.50$ for entire pack.

Huh? No l4d2 was available for 7 euros in europe too, you missed the sale i guess. In germany it was available.
They can't undercut retailers with the regular price though, they would refuse to stock valve games then.
Still The deals are usually more expensive as the dollar is alot cheaper then the euro and only the 19% vat part of it is justified.

 

[Mcface]

Its a good idea.

 

[tk1989]

On the other hand, I don't think we would ever see cross-platform play between the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360,

Well, if the Xbox allowed Steam...like the Mac, PC and the PS3 have...

With the inclusion of steam on the PS3 allow PS3 owners to play cross platform with those on OSX/Windows? I am pretty sure it doesn't... There is a difference between having "Steam" and "Steamworks" unless I'm mistaken. Regardless, the Xbox 360 would never use Steamworks as it would conflict with services provided with Xbox Live.

 

[Sacman]

No don't play nice, fight for our love! I want better deals...