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PC gaming sector enjoyed significant revenue growth in 2010, the 'Alliance' reports
It's no surprise that the PC Gaming Alliance, a non-profit organization comprised of companies like AMD, Dell and Epic Games, would have a sunny outlook when it comes to the successes of the PC gaming sector. Fortunately, the group has some promising numbers to back up its glass-half-fullishness: In its third annual "Horizons" report, via Industry Gamers, the PCGA reported that global revenue generated by the PC gaming industry increased 20 percent from 2009 to 2010, netting $16.2 billion for computer-centric publishers, developers and hardware manufacturers last year. Unsurprisingly, China contributed the largest wad of cash to the global market, spending some $4.8 billion on PC gaming in 2010. More noteworthy is that no regional markets showed revenue decline last year. Really? Because we heard that Switzerland is just chock-full of Xbots and Sony-cronies.
Activision passes on PC Gaming Alliance membership
It could be pretty easily argued that Blizzard is one of the biggest PC gaming development houses in the business today -- they consistently own both the sales charts and the playtime stats in terms of PC gaming. But Activision-Blizzard has quietly confirmed that they've passed on a membership to the PC Gaming Alliance, a group that claims to be "the authoritative voice on PC gaming worldwide." Activision, for their part, says that they just couldn't justify the membership fee, and this isn't the first industry group that they've snubbed: they famously left the ESA and their big yearly conference at E3 last year.The PCGA claims that this isn't a big setback -- despite this and a few other losses, they say their numbers have grown, and they cite a few other big still-members, including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel. But given how much of an influence Activsion-Blizzard is in PC gaming, it's hard to say you're the "authoritative voice" of the platform when you don't have any formal connection to the biggest developer/publisher in the industry.What does this mean to us players? Probably nothing right now -- the PCGA is right: the loss of Activision probably won't affect their work at all. But Blizzard, for better or worse, is being steered by Activision away from the industry at large. Right now, with events like BlizzCon and a huge reputation of their own, they don't need to be tied into these industry groups. But that may not always be the case.
PC Gaming Alliance seeking to set guidelines
As much as we like gaming on our PCs, even the most stalwart fanboy has to concede that sometimes the whole process is just a huge pain in the butt. While installing Age of Conan for the first time the other day, this blogger spent no less than five hours downloading the client, patching Windows Vista, updating video drivers, then tracking down a hack to undo the damage down when those video drivers didn't work properly. While there are supposedly a "maze of challenges" ahead with porting the game to consoles, those problems are largely Funcom's and not the consumers'.This is something that the recently-formed PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) would like to solve. Rick Carini, CTO of gaming technology at Dell and chairman of the PCGA, posits that this needless complexity is the barrier impeding the continued growth of PC gaming. Even hardcore gamers find themselves stymied sometimes by this. The PCGA is looking to push for standards on the side of game makers and computer manufacturers to ensure that a computer sold as a "gaming PC" should be able to run the majority of games. We're not sure what, if anything, will come of the PCGA's work, but we're hopeful they can develop some sort of standard to bring more warm bodies into the fold.
Acer not developing game console after all
Comments made earlier this week from Acer senior VP James Wong had the intarwebz ablaze with hunches that the firm could be entering the console market in one way or another. Now, however, a UK spokesperson has clarified that there "was a major misunderstanding," and outrightly asserted that the outfit was "not going to release any game console." Instead, the idea is to "develop a high-end PC targeted at the serious gamer." So yeah, you can take that Xbox 360 off of eBay -- looks like you'll be needing it for awhile longer.[Via shacknews]
Acer prepping a console-style gaming PC based on open standards?
Don't start hawking your 360 and PS3 just yet, but it sounds like PC industry upstart Acer is considering a bid for the console market, or at least some gamer market share, with a game machine based on "open standards." Of course, this could just mean a computer built to PC Gaming Alliance specs -- Acer is on the PCGA's board -- but Acer's James T. Wong did make comparisons to Nintendo and Microsoft's offerings, calling them closed and proprietary systems. With a history of console prices subsidized by game sales, it's hard to imagine an "open" platform being able to compete in that space -- and even harder to imagine a company like Acer getting that kind of traction with the consumer -- but even if it is just a PCGA spec machine, we don't think it could come soon enough for the struggling PC gaming market.[Via GameStar; thanks Akshay]
The PC Gaming Alliance is here to save the day
Fret not, PC gaming fans. As if in reply to the cries of Peter Molyneux, a new elite task force of industry giants has banded together to save PC gaming, under the banner of the PC Gaming Alliance. The group, which officially announced its existence at a GDC08 press conference, is comprised of some of the biggest names in the business, a mix of game development, OEM, and hardware companies: Activision, Epic, Microsoft, Dell, Alienware, Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Acer, and Gateway.Randy Stude of Intel is the fearless leader of the PCGA, and spoke of their strategy in bringing PC gaming to the attention of consumers: "One of our main major objectives is to provide one voice on the PC gaming market. There's no one source that says 'hey this is where the PC market is going'. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share -- we're going to call our market through this group." As well as their "united front" in promoting the PC as a gaming platform, the mix of companies within the PCGA plan to work closely together to share important and useful statistics, and to find solutions to issues like phishing, cheating and piracy.[Via Develop]
