PC Gaming Alliance Officially Formed

DigiQ8

DigiQ8

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A consortium of corporate giants ranging from Microsoft to Intel joined hands in an effort to advance the PC gaming platform today, officially announcing the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The stated goal of the PCGA is to serve as a forum for developers to collaborate on the marketing, production, and analyzation of the PC market. The body will act as an advisory board, with the focus on providing a single "voice" for the PC gaming industry.

"PCGA members believe that we are stronger and more effective together than any member company is alone, and that our shared vision and group effort will improve PC gaming worldwide," said Intel's Randy Stude. "Industry forums have proven to foster competition and innovation among member companies and grow markets while improving user experiences."

The full list of PCGA members includes Acer/Gateway, Activision, AMD, Dell/Alienware, Epic Games, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia. and Razer.

"There's no one source that says 'hey this is where the PC market is going'," said Stude according to Develop. "Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share--we're going to call our market through this group."

"What we intend to do is look at what's out there and tell developers what consumers have and understand what audiences exist," added Microsoft Games for Windows chief Kevin Unagast. "The role of the PCGA is providing guidance to developers when they are making a game, explain how they can achieve consistency."
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source

So what do you think?
 
PC Defense Force FTW

We'll see how this will all work. I think the first steps they need to do is push the GFW initiative. Also they need to convince retailers to actually put PC Games next to all of the other games! They have console games, but PC Games are over by the Software section, where nobody goes. Very far away from the games in fact, at least in a bunch of stores where I've been.

I'll be interested in what they actually do, instead of just being all-talk.
 
Seems cool, I'll wait and see what kind of stuff they do before I pass judgment.
 
Wasn't Mr. Newell really interested in something along these lines?
 
Isn't "analyzation" a made-up word? I would have gone with "analysis".

Anyway, I fully endorse this product and/or event.
 
Drop GFW and Live and start pushing the PC as a good gaming platform. That means stop making shit like this.
 
Well... I'll reserve judgement, but I retain the position of "cautious optimism".
 
Drop games for windows live and adopt the steam platform for all games.... everybody wins??
 
Nice. Hopefully a unified effort will be enough to give the PC market some of it's spark back. Will be interesting to see if Valve throw their hat in the ring (although it's understandable they'd take a 'wait and see' approach given they've got their own things going on).

The way I see it, their first order of business should be making games less restrictive in the sense of who can/will play them (system requirements, genre boundaries), and more restrictive in the sense of piracy (but hopefully without compromising too much, ie - online authentication is fine, Starforce is not).

The hardcore of PC gaming might bemoan it, but I really think that PC needs to get a bit more casual and accessible (just look how well the Sims and WoW sell) if they seriously want to detract sales from the behemoth that has become the console market. If the platform as a whole is strong then it can only mean good things for more innovative and ambitious titles in the future.
 
[Matt] said:
Drop games for windows live and adopt the steam platform for all games.... everybody wins??
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Or Microsoft can just STFU and stop trying to monopolize the games industry. What we need is interoperability through standards, not a meaningless certification like GFW that will further divide the market. :frown:
 
This could be good. I'll be keeping an eye on this to see how it turns out.
 
My immediate reaction to this was a positive one, but now I'm not sure. This could be of major benefit to the PC platform, but I have to wait and see what they actually do.
 
Good article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun here. Also my thoughts on my blog.
 
When you unite the PC giants against the console giants, there is only one outcome. And it's violently one sided.
 
You know it's funny, I've so many times seen people bash "M$" on this forum, where are they?

Comeon we need some anti-MS fanboys!
 
Iced_Eagle said:
They have console games, but PC Games are over by the Software section, where nobody goes.
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Its bizzarre really, after the last of my stores stock of PS2 games ran dry, I slipped a suggestion that we should move the PC games over to the games section. But we haven't got any PC monitors to move in the place of the PC games, so the suggestion was shot down.

But talk about sweet irony, the PC games at current are the most accessible software at my store. The other games (PS3, Wii, and Xbox360) are hidden on the other side of our GPS display cabinet :smoking:

Always get asked where they are :|
 
We will see what happens of this. I dont really trust it 100% but at least they are talking about trying.
 
Gargantou said:
You know it's funny, I've so many times seen people bash "M$" on this forum, where are they?

Comeon we need some anti-MS fanboys!
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We prefer the title hateboys.

So, here is the question. What would be more beneficial for MS, people buying and playing games on the xbox, or people buying and playing games on their PC? Keep in mind that the xbox exists solely for gaming, while "everybody" has a PC and maybe two even if they don't game.

The answer is simple. Apart from what little gains MS are netting from their GFW-bs they have no incentive what so ever to promote the PC as a gaming-platform. I fully expect this alliance to fail at anything other than touting GFW and Live as the "saviour" of PC-gaming.

If the hardware-industry had any balls we would see major support for hw-accelerated physics (remember, intel, amd, nvidia all have technologies researched, they lack standardization and industry support) which would give the PC an obvious edge over current-gen consoles. Too bad MS wouldn't want their precious little box to lose its edge.
 
Warbie said:
Aye. A bunch of decent new games that don't require a nasa computer to run would do pc gaming a world of good.
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Yes please.

I really think releasing another hardware-pushing game like Crysis even once a year isn't doing the platform any favours - honestly, it's more of a boon to the hardware industry than the software (you can't pirate hardware now, can you?). PC devs need to start catering more to gamers they already have, ie - accept the fact that the average consumer has an average PC - instead of relying on the potential for people to upgrade just to play their game. There are simply too few good games out there for PC to make the jump to a better system worth it at the moment.

Actually, a better scenario than either of those would be to start making games alot more scaleable to older systems, so that both casual gamers and those with beefier systems can get something out of them, but that might be asking too much.
 
boglito said:
We prefer the title hateboys.

So, here is the question. What would be more beneficial for MS, people buying and playing games on the xbox, or people buying and playing games on their PC? Keep in mind that the xbox exists solely for gaming, while "everybody" has a PC and maybe two even if they don't game.

The answer is simple. Apart from what little gains MS are netting from their GFW-bs they have no incentive what so ever to promote the PC as a gaming-platform. I fully expect this alliance to fail at anything other than touting GFW and Live as the "saviour" of PC-gaming.

If the hardware-industry had any balls we would see major support for hw-accelerated physics (remember, intel, amd, nvidia all have technologies researched, they lack standardization and industry support) which would give the PC an obvious edge over current-gen consoles. Too bad MS wouldn't want their precious little box to lose its edge.
Click to expand...

Actually, MS has a lot to gain from this, considering that Windows is the primary, and usually only, operating system that PC developers build their games for. If it weren't for the fact that PC gaming means gaming on Windows, I'd have no qualms about moving to Linux or something similar.
 
Stigmata said:
Actually, MS has a lot to gain from this, considering that Windows is the primary, and usually only, operating system that PC developers build their games for. If it weren't for the fact that PC gaming means gaming on Windows, I'd have no qualms about moving to Linux or something similar.
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For all the people who never/rarely game windows is still by far the OS of choice.
 
Is there really someone called Randy Stud?

I'm interested to see what they can do with this, just not really sure what their aims are :/
 
I am instantly sceptical. Somehow I get the feeling that in the future I'm going to get a big annoying PC GAMING ALLIANCE GO logo appearing before my game starts, the same way I have to sit through annoying unskippable nVidea and EA logos now and I'll see no other difference.
 
No, you know what's gonna happen?

/me boots PC game.


YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A PURSE...

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A MOVIE...

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR.....

PIRATING PC GAMES IS STEALING.

Brought to you by the PC Gaming Alliance in association with the MPAA.
 
That's cool, right? I think...?

Oh crap, Acer D:
 
If a good, quick piracy blocker comes from this I can see the point other than that wont do much
 
boglito said:
If the hardware-industry had any balls we would see major support for hw-accelerated physics (remember, intel, amd, nvidia all have technologies researched, they lack standardization and industry support) which would give the PC an obvious edge over current-gen consoles.
Click to expand...
That is the single most retarded pro-PC argument I've heard. The worst thing is, companies like Aegia and nVidia take it seriously. We don't need to clutter up our PC with ever more specialised and expensive hardware to enjoy games. If this physics card idea becomes popular among developers, PC gaming will hit an all time low. Fewer people than ever before will be able to afford it. :|
 
PC gaming is threatened by greed on both ends basically.
 
99.vikram said:
That is the single most retarded pro-PC argument I've heard. The worst thing is, companies like Aegia and nVidia take it seriously. We don't need to clutter up our PC with ever more specialised and expensive hardware to enjoy games. If this physics card idea becomes popular among developers, PC gaming will hit an all time low. Fewer people than ever before will be able to afford it. :|
Click to expand...

His point was a good one though; the only think likely to come from this is making PC games more difficult to hack (not saying it's a good or bad thing).
 
99.vikram said:
That is the single most retarded pro-PC argument I've heard. The worst thing is, companies like Aegia and nVidia take it seriously. We don't need to clutter up our PC with ever more specialised and expensive hardware to enjoy games. If this physics card idea becomes popular among developers, PC gaming will hit an all time low. Fewer people than ever before will be able to afford it. :|
Click to expand...

I disagree with the notion that progress is bad unless it makes gaming cheaper. What I am saying is that nvidia+amd+intel could make a standardized (and affordable) way to hw-accelerate physics if they worked together. If that happened developers would have the possibility to make more interesting games without pushing other hw-limits.

The point is that the PC needs to offer something other than what consoles offer in the way of gaming. That is highly unlikely to happen through this alliance.
 
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