PC Gaming Alliance Formed [Feb 20, 2008, 10:29 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Top technology companies form gaming alliance (thanks Mike Martinez) officially
announces the formation of the gaming alliance first revealed last week
(story) to help promote/revive the PC gaming scene. Here's word:
Some of the top technology companies, including Intel, Microsoft, Dell, and Advanced Micro Devices joined forces Tuesday to form the PC Gaming Alliance, which will try to promote the PC as a gaming platform.
The alliance will bring hardware makers, software companies, and game publishers under one roof to "accelerate innovation, improve the gaming experience for consumers and serve as a collective source of market information and expertise on PC gaming," the alliance said in a statement.
The companies will work together on challenges facing the PC gaming industry, including piracy and the establishment of hardware requirements for PC games, the alliance said. PCGA also hopes to accelerate growth of the PC gaming industry and standardize the development of gaming PCs and software by developing and promoting guidelines.
The alliance comes at a time when PC video game sales are falling. PC games sales in the U.S. were $910.7 million in 2007, down from $970 million in 2006, according to research from NPD Techworld. PC game sales in 2007 dwarfed in comparison to the sale of software for video game consoles like Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Wii, which were $6.6 billion.
Unit shipments of PC game software totaled 36.4 million in 2007, compared to video game software unit shipments of 153.9 million, according to NPD.
The U.S. gaming industry already has the Entertainment Software Association, which represents vendors that publish games for both computers and consoles. About 90 percent of the $7.4 billion revenue of PC and console gaming software in 2006 belonged to ESA members, giving the association a dominant presence.
Other PCGA members include Acer, Epic, Nvidia and Razer USA.
The announcement comes during the Game Developers Conference, which is being held in San Francisco. During the show PCGA member Intel launched a new gaming platform formerly code-named "Skulltrail." The Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform includes two quad-core microprocessors, totaling eight-processing engines, and supports graphics cards from ATI or Nvidia.
1. Inerior Hardware - For the price you can't beat it. You might be able to today but when the console was released the graphics it offered were not possible on a PC costing $400 and software continues to look better.
I don't have a $400 PC so I expect games that take advantage of my quad core and 8800. You cannot expect the same of consoles because their hardware is limited.
2. Inferior Control Scheme - I think it's fair to say that console games are less complex. Making a game complex does not make it fun and Consoles have found a way to maximize what people find fun and trim all the rest of the stuff away.
The key thing here is that keyboard and mouse enable developers to make complex games and there are many genres that benefit from it. Tribes doesn't work with a gamepad. MMOs don't work with gamepads. RTS doesn't work with a gamepad. STALKER wouldn't work with a gamepad. Flight sims don't work with a gamepad. Mech sims don't work with a gamepad. Quake doesn't work with a gamepad. There are many things you can do with a keyboard and mouse that you simply can't do with a gamepad.
3. Retarded Audience - Lumping everyone together who uses consoles is ignorant and inflammatory. There is as much variety there as anywhere else in the gaming community.
The fact that FPSes actually sell well on consoles is pretty indicative of the general intelligence level of console players.
CoD4 is a masterpiece in my opinion. So was Bioshock. The Orange box was great as well. All formly titles you'd only find on PC's and done exceptionally well on consoles.
CoD4 was okay, in my opinion. Highly scripted, highly formulaic and highly antiquated design philosophy (respawning enemies? Wow). Bioshock was good, though it paled in comparison to System Shock 2, a game you'd only find on the PC. Orange Box was designed for the PC first and foremost, so that's irrelevant example.
When you start considering the cons of the PC as a gaming platform both from a new users standpoint (cost, compatibility issues, stability) and from a developer stand point of trying to design software that runs on as many machines as possible it's easy to see why game companies want to design on a console.
Nobody is questioning why developers are favoring consoles. We are simply lamenting that they do so because it results in the castration and/or death of once great genres. This new PC Gaming Alliance is a complete farce and misses the point entirely. To PC gamers, the problem isn't with marketing or accessibility. The problem is that developers aren't making good PC games.
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