Pitchford: Industry will get more diverse, more complex

Gearbox CEO and president Randy Pitchford has revealed what he believes the industry's future will be, using the variety of ways to watch films as an example.

"It's going to get even more diverse and more complex," he told IGN.

"Some people look at a trend and think 'that means it's going to all end up wherever this line's headed.' We all know that's not correct. We could take ourselves out of our industry to get more objective about it."

He compared it to the film industry, where consumers have the option to pay £10 to see it at the cinema or 99p to watch it on their iPhone, to download it or stream it, depending on how they feel about that particular film.

"If I was going to lay all that carpet myself and build the stairs myself and do all the countertops myself, that house would never get done"

"All of that will coexist, and that's just movies. Then you add television into it, all the different ways we can get and access television, all the different ways it can be monetized. That medium is already way more complex than the different angles we have in the video game industry, and that's going to get more complex. And so will ours. That's great. It's just a lively ecosystem with a lot of choices and a lot of different ways to consume and deliver content."

He also addressed another hot topic, given today's release of the Aliens: Colonial Marines review scores, and recent rumours that the single player campaign was outsourced to developer TimeGate Studios.

According to the Pitchford, TimeGate contributed to "about 20 or 25 percent of the total time," developing the game.

"Their effort's probably equivalent to ours. Now, it's not fair to take pre-production out of it, but that says a lot about how much horsepower those guys put into it."

He also revealed that Nerve Software had contributed a number of multiplayer maps.

"These guys are hardcore. They have talent," he explained.

"If I was going to lay all that carpet myself and build the stairs myself and do all the countertops myself, that house would never get done."