Did you catch the news yesterday that Microsoft's Games For Windows Live online service, which used to cost $50 a year for multiplayer privileges, is now completely free? We caught up with Microsoft Senior Global Director of Games For Windows, Kevin Unangst (pictured above) to talk about why the company chose free now, what it's planning with its new Marketplace service, and how it's attempting to redefine the PC as the premier gaming platform in the entertainment industry.
Game On: Can you talk in general about the new Games For Windows Live announcements and how they'll impact PC gamers?
Kevin Unangst: Sure, so the new announcement's of course making our multiplayer completely free, as well as I think a general shift on our side over the last year, all the learning we took, all the listening from both gamers and game developers on the PC side. How do we make this service, you know, something that PC gamers are really going to want, and developers are going to want to include in their games.
So the big change is moving to free, making the interface itself and the actual way you interact with the service much more designed and optimized for the PC. More mouse and keyboard friendly, drop-down menus, you know, not something that looks like it was from the Xbox and was brought over. These are all changes that when you get a team of people that are focused on PC gaming, who think about nothing but gaming on Windows, and iterate on the service in that way, I think we're super-excited about what we're doing this week.
GO: What prompted the decision to make the service free?
KU: It's us listening since we introduced the service last year, not only to the PC gamers, but also developers and saying, look, you know, the model on the PC is simply that baseline multiplayer is something consumers expect. They don't pay for that, they pay for the games. And I think we've continued to invest in technologies, we feel we've got the best multiplayer matchmaking system on the planet, whether it's on the console or on the PC. And we wanted to make that available to, simply put, the largest number of people possible. So following the model on the PC made sense, and is what got developers very excited about adding Games For Windows Live to even more of their games.
The other point is, and I'm not sure if this was crystal clear, but I think it's important: It's not just for new games moving ahead, right, although we're thrilled with games like Fallout 3 and with Dawn of War 2 and Battlestations Pacific that were announced at E3 that are coming and using Games For Windows Live. We also made the change for all the existing Games For Windows Live games, just on the back end, so even those existing games, Universe at War, Gears of War, you name it, those games automatically already as of yesterday, you don't have to have the gold subscription to access all the multiplayer features in those games.
In addition, there are two things we've done. One is on the server, we've been able to make that change on the back end, so the game developers didn't have to go back in and change the code. Those games just work now. You can access all of those features and the service thinks and knows that they're free. The other thing we've done is for people who did subscribe, for Windows gamers who bought a gold subscription and played only on Windows, we're actually proactively working right now to give those folks a refund of their gold subscription because we've changed the business model. So they'll be getting communication from Microsoft shortly. We're going to take care of them because we've changed the model.
GO: Drilling in on the downloadable content, at E3, as you know, Sony announced plans to offer shorter episodic extensions to existing first-tier franchises. Is that a part or component of what the new Marketplace is attempting to do?
KU: Yeah, I mean absolutely Marketplace is focused on making sure that Windows game developers can extend their games, can add on to their games, can either give them away for free or make them available for sale. They determine that, not us. Any enhancements they want to make, whether it's episodic content, whether it's just trailers and demos, you name it, that's the purpose of Marketplace, to make sure we start that focus on how do you extend the game experience in whatever way the developer wants to do it, and Marketplace is going to give them a simple way to make that happen.
GO: Do you plan to offer full downloadable games for sale as an alternative to retail?
KU: If you look at the trend in the PC market, offering digital distribution in any form is where the growth is, where the long-term revenue opportunities are for publishers. And so clearly with Marketplace, we're taking a pretty big first step, enabling game content, add-ons, demos, trailers, all those pieces. That is digital distribution. Certainly full game distribution is on our roadmap, and I think is a natural evolution, but not something we plan to deliver in the fall update of Games For Windows Live.
GO: Would you ever consider offering vintage PC games through GFW Live, e.g. something along the lines of the recently announced GOG initiative by The Witcher developer/publisher CD Projekt?
KU: Any time when you open a store, we always look at what kinds of things you're going to assort in that store, and there's a whole library of PC content that we could choose to use and make available. I think we haven't ruled out anything at all in terms of what kind of compelling content we bring to consumers. So no plans detailed on that particular direction yet, but I would say this week's announcements are the first great steps we're taking to making sure we have a service that really has a strong appeal to PC gamers. And whether that's new games, or catalog games, or anything else, like arcade games, you name it, there's all kinds of things we could do at some point in the future.
GO: Would you ever allow anything to be downloaded from the Marketplace that wouldn't bear the GFW logo, or does it by definition have to bear the GFW seal?
KU: By definition, our starting point, Games For Windows Live, is a superset of the Games For Windows requirements for quality and compatibility. So our initial focus of course and for the foreseeable future will be on games that meet that bar. The great news is we're seeing a whole lot of momentum in games that are meeting that bar. We've got over 85 titles that have either announced or shipped, some of the biggest titles of last year as well as some new titles coming up. I think we feel great about stuff like the new Call of Duty: World at War for example, and Crysis: Warhead. They'll all carry the branding.
GO: Are there any compatibility issues with GFW Live using a GFW title purchased through another download service?
KU: That already happens today, so I believe you can buy something like Universe at War on Steam today and it works just fine. No issues at all.
Next: The media death knell over PC gaming, the digital distribution boom, the new PC-centric GFW Live interface, what's coming in DirectX 11, and the possibility of Xbox Live free.
