Randy Pitchford Talks Borderlands, Piracy, and Why He Doesn’t Trust Valve
Posted 10/07/09 at 12:30:00 PM by Will Smith
We chat with Gearbox's CEO about the state of PC gaming, the problem with Steam, and a little game called Borderlands
From the first time we saw Borderlands, we were intrigued. By mixing a fast-paced first-person shooter with the procedurally generated weapon system of a loot-hoarding RPG like Diablo, and letting you play the game cooperatively with three of your pals, the kids at Gearbox have made a game we simply can’t wait to play. We went down to Plano, Texas to play the first three hours of the game and to chat with Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford about what the future holds for PC gaming, why Steam is not an ideal method of distribution, and why Randy loves Wal-Mart.
On Borderlands
Maximum PC: We see a lot of games developed simultaneously on multiple platforms, where the PC is very clearly a second-class citizen compared to the Xbox and PS3 SKUs. What have you guys done differently with Borderlands?
Randy Pitchford: The first thing is that we author our content on the PC. With Borderlands, we’re not porting the game to the PC, we’re starting there. The PC is our development platform.
The best-looking version of the game that you’re going to get is on PC. We target a high-end PC, but it’s scalable so you’ll still have a great experience on a 2-year-old PC. A 2-year-old PC will be comparable to the Xbox experience.
MPC: So people who can play Team Fortress 2 or Left4Dead will be in good shape to play Borderlands?
RP: Absolutely! We author on the PC, so the console versions are kind of reduced sets of the ideal content. Having said that, it is a first person shooter, which feels natural to play with the mouse and keyboard. Gearbox’s roots are in PC development, so we think a lot about that. We have a separate set of guys who are entirely focused on the PC version. Lots of games that are multi-platform don’t account for the mouse, in the menus, in the inventory screens, and the rest of the game.
For example, when we helped Activision bring Tony Hawk to the PC, they had this weird virtual keyboard. I didn’t need to use a joystick to navigate to the letter on the virtual keyboard because my PC already had a keyboard! We understand what people expect on the PC. With Borderlands, it’s different. We’re not porting the game to the PC, we’re starting there.
MPC: Borderlands is a multiplayer-focused game, but there aren’t any lobbies?
RP: All the modes that you can play are actually inside the game. In most games, you have the campaign, which is one thing, then you have competitive multiplayer, which is another. In Borderlands, if you want to play with a friend, you can just invite him to join you, but from that point on, there’s no lobby.
If a friend joins you, he’ll be doing your missions, he can take missions once he’s in the game, but you’re your game. Or, you can join him and take part in his experience. Or, you can start a game together, using the characters you’ve built up from other play sessions. Doing that doesn’t mean you’ve lost whatever progress you made when you were playing alone. Your character is persistent across all play sessions, if you want it to be. You can also create multiple characters. You can carry your character’s progression through all the games you play, or your friends, or whatever you want to do. You can move that persistent character around through all those different game experiences.
In addition, if you’re playing with friends in the cooperative mode, you can also compete with them. There are a couple of ways to do this: One is the duel, where you can smack someone in the head, then if that person smacks you back, you can just throw down right there. It’s just a quick way to go, “Alright bitch, I’ve had enough of you—let’s see who’s got it.” There are also arenas, which are like the Thunderdome from the Mad Max franchise. You go into the arena and you can set up a more organized competitive match. Instead of a free-for-all deathmatch, you can play a kind of rocket arena or team DM.
MPC: But a team deathmatch would be two players vs. two players, right?
RP: Yeah, the arena is designed specifically for… specifically for… a type of battle. It’s like fighting in a Quake map. It’s not a random world, it’s like a duel.
MPC: Like Rocket Arena?
RP: Exactly! Rocket Arena is a huge influence. We’ve never had a commercial Rocket Arena, just mods.
MPC: So how do you do with the different levels in the game? Say I’ve been playing a while and I’m level 40, but my buddy is new and level 10. Can we play together?
RP: If you guys want to do that, go for it! It depends on whose game you’re playing in. If you’re playing in his game and you’re playing in the newbie area, you’ll essentially be a god, killing everything. But, you’ll also leech off most of the experience and rewards. So it will be a hard way for the low-level guy to grind. You can help people through the harder areas by doing that, just like you can in WoW or other games, and that’s fine! A lot of games won’t allow that, but you paid your $60, so we think you should be able to play with whoever you want.
MPC: Obvious influences: Diablo and World of Warcraft…
RP: Yes
MPC: Hardcore first-person shooters…
RP: Yes
MPC: Something with cars?
RP: Actually, I was having a hard time explaining that. We use vehicles kind of the same way Halo uses vehicles. There are some missions that are vehicle-centric, and there are interludes with big Road Warrior–style combat, but it’s not a racing game. Vehicles are kind of like gravy.
Settlements, like this one, serve as quest hubs in Borderlands. Places where you'll come to get new missions, upgrade your gear, and recharge your health.
MPC: What happens when you beat Borderlands?
RP: If you go through the story missions, and you’ve beaten them all, and ended the story, you have a couple of choices. You can go back and complete the optional missions, and level up your character and become more powerful and get better gear. Alternately, if you’ve completed the story, you can replay the game, but everything’s harder, and all the bosses are tougher.
The other thing is that you can reach the level cap (level 50), and there are some end-game content places where it’s fun to grind for gear. We’re not announcing anything yet, but I can hint that there will be DLC for Borderlands, as well.
MPC: For PC too?
RP: Yeah, for all platforms.
MPC: How are you going to do downloadable content for PC? You’re not using Steam or Games for Windows.
RP: I did say we’re not doing Games for Windows. We haven’t said anything about Steam yet.
Cross console play?
Submitted by jml4970 on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 11:37am
Does anyone know if I will be able to play Boarderlands on my PC with my friend playing on his XBOX / PS3?
Submitted by MixedNuts on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 12:01pm
There is a pretty decent look at the article here, which tries to look at Pitchford's points a little more and examine them.
Submitted by brainwins on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 5:28pm
Cool. There is an article based on your interview in Gamespot:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6232484.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6232484
Submitted by aben2 on Fri, 10/09/2009 - 12:23am
-Technology... will kill us one day.....
Personaly i Think steam is Pretty hard to comit to piracy, and wal-mart... will be sold as CD-Roms which pirate bay and, their hackers, will soon be able to play for free... steam however seems only a few games can be pirated without notice.
Submitted by djfreex on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 1:03pm
Everytime I saw this guy make a statement, a strange sadness fills me. I wonder when will someone interview Randy about BIA:HH multiplayer disaster. How would any serious game company could let a third party develop the multiplayer component to one of their flagship franchises in the world of Call of Duty 4/WaW and Halo 3 is beyond me.
First, you failed us all BIA fans and let Infinity Ward imitator Treyarch to run over us and declare BIA is not even in the same category as COD:WaW then you make statements about Valve and Steam? Unless you forgot Randy, when nobody was doing anything about digital distribution, Valve put a lot of effort to put together probably the best digital distribution service out there. In the meantime, they did not outsource their multiplayer components and killed their flagship franchises. No sir, they improved on their masterpiece franchises HL2 and launched other masterpiece MULTIPLAYER masterpieces like L4D and Team Fortress. Valve never failed to deliver.
No, Randy. I do not trust you when you talk about multiplayer, because I know its just another overpromised statement that you will underdeliver. You could not even decide on if Borderlands' graphic style until late in the dev cycle; now you expect us to believe in Borderlands. It is time for Gearbox to reconsider its leadership.
Submitted by danielHjelmtorp on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 12:21am
As one of the competitor of Steam, the big thing we see that can be a problem is how the Steamworks software, is implemented in many big new titles. The Features they have are great, DRM, Autopatching, Mutliplayer functionallity and more. But the problem is that you have to be tied to Steam, something that customers in the end doen't like! We at GamersGate have taken the policy not to sell games that includes Steamworks, as they are a competitor for us, and we don't want to "give away" our customers to Steam. And this is starting to be a big issue, not only for us. I hear from people in the industry that they are starting to have problem selling in games that include Steam not only to digital distribution stores, but also regular retails!
With GamersGate.com we have had the end user in mind then developing our service, not to force any software to be installed and run in the background when they buy and wanna play their games from us. A more open approach, that differs from Steams "Locking in" mentality.
The PC and Mac digital distribution growth is really great! The only thing worrying is that Steam gets to much attention when media rights about digital distribution. Sure they are the biggest, but no market works well when one have monopoly. The Digital distribution platform is great for Publishers and Developers who can get more reveune % out of their games than retail, and its easier to work with.
GamersGate started the same way as Steam, developed by Paradox Interactive, but we have now split the companies to seperate entities operating independent. We try to focus much of our attention of our business on retail mentality, constantly working in pricing, special offers (something we were the first as a DD site to do, and now everyone else is doing it), pre-order campaigns and having the latest games, as well as backcatalog. What we see is that the theory "Long Tail" really works for us, regaring back catalog titles.
Daniel Hjelmtorp
Partner & Product Manager
http://www.GamersGate.com
Submitted by QUINTIX256 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 3:02pm
...for these so called "steam killers" and "competiors" should be considered spam.
Steam works is free seperate product. You do not need steam to use steam works.
Miller stated that the commisions on steam where "almost as bad as retail", not as bad. I'm of the opinion that this is the case only for big and well known studios.
You can have your recession. I'm not participating.
Submitted by XOPN on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 10:59pm
Yeah that comment about steam having some huge plot to rape devs for thier money rings a little hollow for me. Just by the fact that they'll happyly take it up the ass for Microsoft and there hard line requirements. Yet no complaints from most of them. Hmm. He did mention not wanting Microsoft to have control either but.....I'd like to know if he would go through the crap that most other devs go through to put thier game on Xbox live. I'm guessing he would.
Submitted by Sonickid101 on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 1:22pm
If a developer doesn't wanna do business with valve there's always alternatives.
Submitted by NathanLands on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 9:00pm
Sonickid101:
You can't be serious. They're talking about Steam and you say Impulse is the alternative. Impulse is owned by Stardock which has made such great failures as the poorly executed DemiGod. I have to give Valve that atleast they are making good games.
However, in a near future where all gaming is done through digital distribution and Pcs move to the living room, game developers will find themselves in a bad situation if they put all the power into Valve's hands. Imagine there is no more physical distribution and your only source for distribution is through your competitor's platform. This would put way to much power into Steam's hands and trust me when the time is right they would act on it.
That is a major reason we created GameStreamer, we are working on building a Steam Killer and we are 100% agnostic to devices and developers. We don't make games and won't be. We are focused 100% on our platform and it's features & functionality.
Nathan Lands
Co-Founder & EVP of GameStreamer
http://www.gamestreamer.net
Submitted by cell on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 11:53am
They were only the publisher. Demigod was developed by Gas Powered Games, developers of Dungeon Siege, Supreme Commander, and Space Siege. If you want to denigrate Stardock's games, go after the games that they have actually developed, like Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2, The Political Machine, and the upcoming Elemental: War of Magic. Galactic Civilazations 2 had very good reviews, with GameRankings aggregating the reviews at around 87%.
Impulse today is a very good alternative to Steam, with EA having recently signing on to publish games through the Impulse service (EA is also distributing through Steam). Impulse's catalog has improved greatly recently and is slowly becoming a good alternative to Steam.
Submitted by QUINTIX256 on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 11:01pm
...and misused. I have heard absolutely no news or even rumors about Valve thwarting sales of "competitors." These accusations are being thrown around left and right with no concrete evidence to substantiate them. The only things that give them any weight is talk about “conflict of interest” and “control.”
Speaking of claims being pulled out of the rectum… Scott Miller said there will always be that impulse purchase at wal-mart. The folks who actually have years of real experience in digital game distribution (Valve) had stated again and again that display boxes for brick and mortar stores are not going away.
On top of all this, let's not forget that this is Valve we are talking about here, not the likes of Activision (who tried to sue Double Fine... and sued Valve), or 2K (who refused to fund the developers after buying the rights to Duke Nukem).
Valve may be making some profit off of steam, but from what I have experienced with my steam acount, it is Valve of all people who are being genuinely agnostic.
You can have your recession. I'm not participating.
Submitted by XOPN on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 10:53pm
you can't be seirous.....
I read a little up on you guys.....you're ok I guess but you guys have head lines like: TOP DEV 1C signed to GameStreamer!" yeah as well as every other downloading service inculding steam. You have no community no social tools of any type. But hey compition makes for more inovation I guess.
*stays away from link just in case it's phishing ploy*
I just googled and looked at forum posts.
Submitted by std error on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 12:26pm
Why didn't you ask him about the DRM on Borderlands specifically? Will it be SecuRom 7? Will there be install limits?
Submitted by Trooper_One on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 12:13pm
I agree with what Pitchford has to say about digital downloading and piracy. However, I don't think Valve should spin off Steam - it's their creation and they can do what they like with it.
Remember, ultimately, Valve is a business and it's selling a service to make $$$. So far, they have been more than reasonable in terms of pricing and convenience (major points as to why I'm paying lots for lots of games).
Submitted by QUINTIX256 on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 10:48am
"We haven’t said anything about Steam yet."
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/
I guess Valve finally convinced them. When Randy Pitchfork claims that "It’s exploiting a lot of small guys", I just keep thinking about how proud Valve was that audiosurf outsold the Orange Box. When I hear from the likes of Scott Miller and Randy Pitchfork that Valve should "spin off" steam, I think of when Gabe Newell talked about trying to work things out with Yahoo and Microsoft to see if they would create such service (which failed to fall through) before Valve created Steam.
Scott Miller stated that Valve's commissions are fairly high, being "almost as bad as retail" in one podcast I can't find, but I don't think commisions are Valve's bread and butter. In regards to the small guys... well I can't find a source but I think the commissions are much smaller for indie developers than for big studios and publishers.
Put simply, I just can't believe Valve has any ill intent. I don't think they keep the commissions "all to themselves", and most of that revenue go's back into Steam, paying for things like its development, bandwidth, and content servers.
You can have your recession. I'm not participating.
Submitted by chronium on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 10:10am
One question I wish you asked is if they were going to leave mouse and keyboard support in the console version of the games.
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