Valve officially went live with Steam Community in September 2007 to connect gamers together, a social network that lets players send instant messages to each other while in-game or setup voice chat sessions. Furthermore, users can create community chat groups, schedule events, show off stats and achievements, or just shop for games from the built-in store. However, and more importantly, Steam Community surpassed Microsoft's Games for Windows (GFW) Live service in almost every way possible. Where did Live, a massively successful service on the Xbox/Xbox 360 console, go wrong on the PC and is there any hope left?

GFW Live first saw light in May 2007 with the PC release of Halo 2 for Windows Vista. Based heavily on Xbox Live, this early version of the service let players connect using a single gamertag, even across platforms. For the first time, PC gamers and Xbox 360 gamers could communicate, show off their achievements and possibly compete with each other online. Unfortunately, it met with a great deal of criticism during its PC release, especially since the service could only operated during a game.

That meant that any time players wanted to log on to GFW Live, they first had to start up a supported game like Halo 2. Even now, five months after the initial release, GFW Live doesn't run outside of the games it's built into, greatly reducing its usefulness and any incentive to upgrade from the free Silver plan to the Gold subscription membership. Worse yet, GFW Live isn't as fully featured as its Xbox counterpart. It lacks a marketplace (although many offerings can be found online at Windowsmarketplace.com) and TV and movie downloads. Although it does the basics, like text and voice chatting, other free programs like Xfire already provide those functions and support a vast library of PC games.

In comes Steam Community, which unlike GFW Live, started as an online store. Steam already allowed players to download demos and trailers or purchase full games. With offerings from the casual games giant Popcap and publishers like Activision, 2K and Eidos on top of Valve's impressive collection of games and mods, Steam saw success before it included its community tools. Heck, it even sells Geometry Wars, which was a huge arcade hit on the Xbox 360. Best of all, the Steam Community works with practically any game, even if it wasn't purchased from Steam. Those two aspects alone put Steam Community light years ahead of GFW Live.

Unfortunately, Steam Community isn't without its limitations. For example, even though it has extensive stat tracking for games like Team Fortress 2, it can't track third party games that you can't register with the service. So, those who purchased the boxed version of BioShock can't use Steam Community to show off their long hours of playing, even though the service offers it for sale. Instead of showing friends the played game, they only see players as being online or, at best, playing a non-Steam game. This limitation also applies to server matching capabilities. Although joining a friend on Team Fortress 2 is fast and easy, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars players must rely on the in-game buddy and server lists to connect with friends. So, applications like Xfire still have a significant advantage over Steam Community.

Likewise, GFW Live can use Steam Community's shortcomings to pull itself out of the brink of obscurity. Debuting with Halo 2 didn't work for a number of reasons, mainly because it limited potential users to early Windows Vista adopters. But being included in games like Gears of War and Universe at War: Earth Assault are a step in the right direction, since those games work in Windows XP. GFW Live still has the achievement advantage where players gain achievement points that seemingly compile an overall measure of a gamer's skill, even though (like Valve) it only works with a few PC games.

However, the Games for Windows branding is very successful, and the Live service should piggyback on that success. Why should a game like Crysis, a Windows branded game, use Comrade as the foundation for its communications and server matching when there's GFW Live? The Live service needs to sell itself better to be a more all-inclusive package.

Developers should forget about cross-platform competition for now, if they haven't already. It's a nice idea that may work out on Universe at War, but it crashed and burned with Shadowrun. Although stomping on a few console players is enjoyable, it doesn't resonate with many PC gamers, especially since users need to pay for a Silver membership for the privilege. It's also long past time for GFW Live to get an identity. Right now, the service has ports from the Xbox 360 or games releasing for both platforms. How about stepping out from the 360's shadow and release a Windows-only exclusive? PC gamers would rather see quality games made specifically for their platform than deal with cross-platform concessions and balances. This means stepping up efforts to surgically remove GFW Live from being an in-game only application and getting it working anywhere, anytime ASAP -- and we mean way more than web browser access to Xbox Live. While they're at it, redesign the look so it reflects a PC gaming mentality and not the current GFW Live's look that reminds PC gamers of its Xbox origins.. Or at the very least, include customizable skins... and please make the gamepad-esque interface buttons optional.

Lastly, some version of Marketplace needs to show up soon. Xbox owners enjoy downloadable extras like map packs for their favorite games, yet PC users cannot enjoy even these basic offerings. Sure, mod designers could make knock-off maps, potentially undercutting sales, but it's important that GFW Live offer something more than pointless Xbox Live connectivity to make itself stand out.

Right now, GFW Live is kept on life support by a small handful of games. Stop being Xbox Live's dorky little brother, and get out from being a stepping stone towards Live Anywhere, where PC, Xbox's, Zunes and cell phones can all frolic in harmony. Steam was made for the PC, and it stands out with its own identity. It's time for GFW Live to do the same and step up to show PC gamers why they should take it seriously.