Games For Windows and Steam Must Get Along, Gearbox Says

Gearbox Software, developer of the critically acclaimed Borderlands and of the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever, wants the two main distribution services for the PC, Steam and Games for Windows, to get along and work together for the good of PC gaming.

PC gaming has been often proclaimed as doomed, but Gearbox is continuing its support, and has brought all of its titles for the platform, including those in the Brothers in Arms series, the recent Borderlands and the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever.

But in order for PC gaming to really make a comeback, the two main distribution platforms, Valve's Steam and Microsoft's Games for Windows must work together for the benefit of the end user.

According to Gearbox's head of marketing, Steve Gibson, gamers should be able to play together even if they purchased their titles from Games for Windows or from Steam.

"[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," Gibson said at London Games Festival. "If another guy bought it in a retail store, he can't play with the first two guys."

But while that notion may seem a bit far fetched, at least for the moment, Gibson also says that the PC platform is too separated into camps and this causes a lot of suffering for both developers and gamers.

"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."

According to the Gearbox executive, gamers should encourage Microsoft and Valve to "play nice", for the sake of PC gaming as a whole.

Valve is continuing its support for the platform through massive promotions on its Steam digital content delivery platform, while Microsoft admitted that its support hasn't been the best in recent times, and promised that it will get better in the future.