It is the most powerful gaming platform in the world, and with more than 300 million users, the most widely owned as well, so why does computer gaming seem to be suffering from an inferiority complex? More »
If only that were a joke headline. When we told you yesterday that Activision had left the PC Gaming Alliance, we were told that other parties had at the same time signed up.
Despite being one of the founding members of the industry awareness board, it’s been revealed that Activision have now left the PC Gaming Alliance.
The PC Gaming Alliance (in conjunction with researchers DFC Intelligence) have released their report on 2008. How the year went down, in their eyes, for the PC market.
Capcom are one of the more high profile members of the PC Gaming Alliance, and as such, have a vested interest in the platform succeeding. But where do they see it headed?
While widespread PC game piracy is generally seen as a blight on the industry, PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude contends that the free exchange of games has definitely had a positive effect.
The PC Gaming Alliance today welcome two new members into the fold, as publisher Capcom and Southern Methodist University’s Guildhall program signed up to help defend the PC market against “oh, it’s dying” allegations.
When the PC industry’s big guns high-fived as they broke from a warm, gushy group hug, they high-fived with a pledge: that they’d do what they could to help give traditional PC gaming a kick in the pants. We’ve seen what Nvidia are doing, so what about AMD? They’re…well, they’re going to start putting little badges on their PCs. If a computer’s got a badge that says “AMD Game”, it’ll play more than just Freespace. If it says “AMD Game Ultra”, it’ll even manage something like Crysis. You can see an example of the badges to your left. I don’t know. It’s not that its necessarily a bad idea, just…we were kinda hoping for a little more than just (likely ineffectual) badges, you know?
AMD launches “Good Housekeeping” stamp of approval for gaming computers [VentureBeat]
Why do we need a PC gaming alliance again? Oh, this is why. Epic boss Tim Sweeney, speaking with tgdaily, has outlined just why his company have signed up to the industry super-friends, and also notes the challenges the group face in returning a little swagger to the brand that is PC gaming: Retail stores like Best Buy are selling PC games and PCs with integrated graphics at the same time and they are not talking about the difference [to more capable gaming PCs] . Those machines are good for e-mail, web browsing, watching video. But as far as games go, those machines are just not adequate. It is no surprise that retail PC sales suffer from that.
In other words, they’ll probably be spending most of their time advertising and informing, as they educate the masses on why Intel integrated graphics processors are a 2-pound bag of horseshit. Unreal creator Tim Sweeney: “PCs are good for anything, just not games” [tgdaily]
