Microsoft's Kevin Unangst

In February 2006, then Xbox boss Peter Moore took to the stage at the DICE Summit to say sorry. "I want to apologise," he told the audience, "For the dereliction of duty to our company's number one platform, the PC, in terms of gaming." He admitted Microsoft had been "a little distracted" in the run-up to the launch of Xbox 360, adding, "Mea culpa. We've been busy."

But things would change, Moore pledged, with Games for Windows. The idea was to create a new brand for PC games which would be seen by consumers as being synonymous with quality, reliability and ease of use.

Microsoft does not charge developers or publishers a royalty fee for the brand, but there are around 25 requirements to be met before games can bear the GfW logo. They must be easy to install, for example, support widescreen displays and offer users the option to set parental controls. In return, Microsoft promised to build better relationships with retailers, invest more in global advertising and make games a main feature of Vista in a bid to boost the profile of PC gaming.

By the end of 2007 more than 50 titles had been released under the GfW name, including top-sellers such as BioShock, Gears of War and Crysis. But it wasn't an easy ride for Microsoft. Games for Windows Live came under heavy criticism, there were patch issues with Gears of War and so far only two games supporting cross-platform play between PC and Xbox 360 have been released. And despite Microsoft's efforts, high profile industry figures such as Epic's Cliff Bleszinski are still bemoaning the state of PC gaming.

So at this year's Game Developers Conference, we welcomed the opportunity to put some of these issues to Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows. Here he discusses what's next for GfW Live, why retail sales don't tell the whole story and how the PC Gaming Alliance plans to set the record straight.

Eurogamer: How do you think Games for Windows has fared in its first year?

Kevin Unangst: When you add up all the things we've done in the first year, we've moved on quite a bit. We're absolutely not done; we'll continue to invest in things like Live and our online service.

We're also investing in the XNA tools that let people create games that can run on the PC, console and the Zune. We're making sure anyone who wants to can create games for any of our platforms. That is a very significant difference between our approach and what you see from Sony and Nintendo.

When you look at all the pieces put together, I think this has been a fantastic foundational year for Games for Windows. We've made a lot of progress. With the title line-up we have and the technology that's in place, 2008 is going to be even better.

Eurogamer: Let's talk about Games for Windows Live specifically. What's next for the service?

Kevin Unangst: We'll continue to invest in it. We've heard about a lot of things poeple want, things like digital distribution. At the end of the day our goal is to be the best PC online service for gaming. We've learned a lot this year and we're listening to developers.

Eurogamer: What about gamers? What about complaints the Games for Windows Live Gold subscription doesn't offer good value for money?

Kevin Unangst: It goes back to things we've learned. Going out of the gate, we weren't as clear as we should have been that Games for Windows Live on the PC is free. You don't have to pay for Gold. If you want to play cross-platform games, that's when you need a Gold subscription...

We were not as clear as we could have been. People assumed we were trying to bring the Xbox model over to the PC, which we were not.

Anybody can get a free Silver account on the PC, and if I want to play all my friends on Gears of War on the PC it won't cost me anything. Our challenge is to be clear on the message we're not charging for Games for Windows Live.

Eurogamer: Do you think PC Gold subscribers are getting as much value as Xbox 360 Gold subscribers?

Kevin Unangst: We have gotten the feedback that says, 'There's no Marketplace', 'Where are all the other features Xbox Live Gold members get?' The users have to decide - has it been worth USD 5 per month, or less, to play with my friends on the games I care about? It's really only been Shadowrun and Universe at War. Particularly if you're only playing games like Universe of War, I think it's been a good deal.

But are we talking to the partners and understanding how to get clearer? Will we continue to invest to bring more value? Absolutely. It's really only been 10 months on the market. We had to build from there, and I think you'll see more things from us in the future.

Eurogamer: So it's a combination of getting the right message out to consumers and adding more value to the service?

Kevin Unangst: One, we need to make it clearer you don't have to pay to play... Two, I do think we need to add more value, and communicate to users the other things we could do on the PC to get them excited and make them think paying might be worth it.

There may be more things we add for free, too. There's no reason we have to charge for any innovations we're going to do... We've heard the feedback and we're going to move ahead.

Eurogamer: So can we expect things like Marketplace to head to Games for Windows Live?

Kevin Unangst: You can be confident we want to enable things like digital distribution, the ability to do downloadable content for games - that's a direction we're definitely headed in. We don't have anything specific to announce in terms of timeframes right now.

Eurogamer: What about DirectX 10? Are you satisfied with the rate of adoption so far?

Kevin Unangst: There are There are 60 million DirectX 10-capable cards out on the market now. If you look at that compared to any of the console installed bases, that's a great number. If there were 60 million Wiis or 60 million 360s out there, no one would question it as a huge opportunity.

In the interests of being self-critical, I think we would have liked to have more games that took advantage of it early on in the year. Lost Planet and Company of Heroes did a good job. Right towards the end of 2007 we started to see games like Crysis ship - games that really took advantage of the technology.

Eurogamer: During a recent interview we did with Peter Molyneux, he observed that Crysis hasn't actually done that well at retail relative to the amount of time and effort invested.

Kevin Unangst: If you look at the US retail sales, which a lot of people did... You know, I was at CES talking to quite a few folks who said, 'Oh, Crysis didn't sell well, the December numbers weren't very good.'

But first of all, worldwide, it's done really well - especially on the digital distribution side. Also Crytek did the same thing they did with Far Cry: they invested in technology that's a couple of years out and they will have a much longer lifespan for that game. It's sold consistently well since then, and the new systems people buy this holiday, they're going to be running Crysis on it. That will be the benchmark.

Eurogamer: What about Cliff Bleszinkski's recent observation that PC gaming is in "disarray"? How do you respond to that?

Kevin Unangst: That's an easy judgment to make if you're just looking at US retail sales. If you look at where the growth is, there are more gamers on Windows than any other platform. There's more money spent on Windows games than any other platform. PC games outsold Wii games and PS3 games in 2007 worldwide. The growth of casual and digital distribution is huge.

I do think that, as much as I'm proud of what we've done over the last year, the industry needed to get together and be more focused on communicating those messages. PC gaming's not dying because US retailers are selling 7 per cent less games than they did the year before; it's about the exponential increases, the 80 percent increase over five years that's been predicted for the PC gaming business.

Eurogamer: Is that why you've teamed up with Intel, AMD, Nvidia and others to form the PC Gaming Alliance?

Kevin Unangst: The PC Gaming Alliance is a consortium where we can get together to set the facts straight, and have a forum to address things like piracy - which frankly is a really tough issue on the PC compared to the console... We'll have a unified voice worldwide. There will be many companies, not just the big ones we announced, that will come to help spread the message.

We've just got to get the facts straight. I think it's easy for someone to make that judgment without knowing all those facts. That's our job to fix.

Eurogamer: The name is excellent. 'The PC GAMING ALLIANCE.' Do you wear cloaks and tights?

Kevin Unangst: Haha, yeah, we had running jokes about the imagery you could have...

Eurogamer: Epic Games is part of the PCGA, which seems slightly odd considering Bleszinski's recent statement about the studio's plans to focus on console gaming.

Kevin Unangst: Mark Rein is the representative from Epic, he was at the PCGA press conference, and someone came up and said, 'Hey, Cliff just said this!' Mark was like, 'Look, you know, that's why we need things like this. That's why we needed Microsoft to go out and start doing this a year ago and invest, and start getting people's attention back.'

It's a great start. The amount of energy being expended on the Windows Gaming front is more than ever before and the amount of dollars being invested is more than ever before. I think we just haven't been touting it enough. We've got to set the record straight and get people excited, and that's what we're going to do.