Gearbox software, developers of such classics as Brothers in Arms, Borderlands and the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever, recently struck out at Valve and Microsoft for their handling of the PC gaming community.

 

According to CVG, the studio claims that Valve and Microsoft are “building silos” which ultimately hurts the PC industry.

 

Gearbox head of marketing, 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."

 

Gibson called on the companies to work together so customers can play together regardless of where or how they purchased their games.

 

“Right now we're like 'Please, work together'. 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,” said Gibson.

 

He also called on gamers to exert pressure on Valve and Microsoft to revise their strategies and to allow gamers who purchase games from different services, whether through online download or retail copy, to be able to play together.

 

In our opinion, allowing cross-service play is the least these companies can do, lest they split the already threatened PC gaming community into even smaller parts. How do you feel about cross-service play in PC games? Feel free to share your opinion in the comment box below.