Finally a voice for PC gaming!

I think one of the major set backs for PC gaming has been the lack of a united front; no advertising, no single entity pushing the platform. Now we may finally have an engine to drive us:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6186307.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0

I like the sounds of this, but obviously it will take some time to see if they can actually make a dent in the negative image we've been getting in the face of current consoles.

I find it rather odd that Epic sits on this board in the wake of Cliffy B's and Mark Reign's previous comments.

Anyway what do you guys and gals think, a step in the right direction or this isn't going to matter?

AMD, Intel and Nvidia all with the same aim, well you never know system specs my just make a level of seance one day... But I'll remain cynical until I see results.

Yea I agree, I do find it slightly odd that Epic is in it, considering the amount of slander that they've been pushing out about the PC.

A single entity is always good for product marketing though, as it's something that the end-user can see and remember.

any publicity is good. so this is good. don't go expecting miracles and thinking your 4 year old hardware can run games like crysis. the whole point of PC gaming is moving hardware, so we'll all need to do the upgrades ever so often.

also even if microsoft try drag people on to say windows live for multiplayer, well it don't matter cause as the platform is an open one, developers can use what ever they want, whether, its live, gamespy or proprietery. they don't have to use live unlike if you create a game for the 360.

It is one hell of a big step in the right direction.

this has to be good news - the alternative is the industry slowly losing interets in PC gaming and letting it die, which they were heading towards before they caught on to the fact it's a very specific community that spends a lot on games

As for MS's involvement, it's better they're in than out, though i'll be wary of them trying to push developers into more Vista-only games...

are they doing any advertising for this? I've always felt they should do more, because they benefit from pc gaming. I hope there aren't too many conflicts and I hope it helps things.nutcrackr

I think that's one of the issues they plan to tackle. It sounds like they may plan to poll money together for some pro-PC adverting. In it's current state the 2 big gaming consoles have ads all over the place, I've seen like 1 PC game with an ad out.

The bottom line is these guys like AMD, Intel, AMD & nVidia stand a lot to lose on sales decline so it's in their best interest to do something about it. I'm pretty happy those big players are in it together. I'm kind of on the fence with MS, but just about everyone on that board has interests outside of PCs.

People keep assuming that console game sales have some strong impact on PC games sales, that's just flawed logic. It's like saying kumquats are doooomed because orange sales are so much higher. It doesn't matter how high orange (console) sales are. There will always be a market for kumquats (PC games), admittedly a smaller one, so there will always be people who sell them.

Here's a better analogy since PC gaming is more for technically proficient hobbiests. Console gaming is to beer as PC gaming is home brew kits. If you just want to enjoy the finished product without having to work at it or know anything, buy beer. If you want to have some control over it, be part of the creation, have the opportunity for a far better experience, but are willing to risk disappointing results, you may be a home brewer... uh PC gamer. Damn what was I talking about?

Well I'm pretty skeptical about this myself. There are some major PC gaming companies missing from that list and it strikes me as odd to see so many hardware manufactures (Intel? Dell?), and ofcourse Microsoft + Epic there. Personally I think this so called PC gaming alliance isn't trying to save pc gaming, but instead is trying to steal sales away from EA and Valve.

I think people should leave PC gaming as it is, if games like CoD4 and UT3 lose to games like Sins of a Solar Empire and the Witcher, so be it!

Yay another group that only cares about there own companies sales. Whoo yeah! This is gross, they don't give a damn. Especially Epic and Microsoft. MS tries poorly with GFWL and the backlash was colossal. Nearly all of the GFW titles don't use GFWL. The ones that do sale the poorest.

Epic is just pissed because their two games did poorly. They might have got great reviews but in the end we decide how it turns out and the word of mouth of both games was negative. This group won't change anything. Nvidia/ATI along with AMD/Intel want to make more high end hardware. If the developers keep making these high end games they get sales.

It's backfiring however. This is probably the first time I have seen people and I mean alot of my buddies not wanting to upgrade and go somewhere else. Where do they go? Consoles. Cheaper and they get more games. PC gamers have to endure several months to even half a year just for our games. Most of the time they don't even last. PC gaming doesnt need to be mass promoted. People know it's here but they would rather put that money somewhere else.

Whatever..

Without some actual PC devs it's not much more than a joke to me. Epic hasn't been a PC dev in a long time, you could just as well have Bungie up there. Microsoft hasn't done anything good for PC gaming lately, quite the opposite they've hurt it with GFWL, Vista exclusives and late ports of 360 exclusives which could had been on PC earlier. Activision ..well, they will do because of the Blizzards connection, tho it doesn't seem like blizzard needs any help in that area so it seems to be Activision is in due to other franchises.

If they really wanna help PC gaming that's great, they could start for e.g. by offering to publish and market SOASE in Europe. :) But I seriously doubt that will happen, it's more likely they will push their own interests, as in try to make PC gaming more like consoles. Smaller companies don't seem to be having trouble with PC, only the big companies which release consolized sequels to old popular franchises and then wonder why they don't sell.

I personally wouldn't expect much from this "Alliance" as each of the company has their own interests, and none of those includes us the PC gamers. Nothing will change, they won't start making less demanding games as hardware companies need to sell CPUs and GPUs, and 360 remains as the lead platform for multiplats because it sells the most, PC games are tied to console hardware. And I'm willing to bet that despite MS and Epic being in the Alliance, GeoW2 will be GFWL game and will be ported to PC a year later, just like the first one. Untill I see some concrete benefit from this I'm just gonna say: humbug.

I am highly sceptical of this. For one thing, they might as well call it the WINDOWS Gaming Alliance, because I highly doubt anyone will be looking at any PC platform other than Windows, and probably Windows Vista at that. Will Linux or Mac games even get a look in? If not, then this so-called Alliance is already dead in the water and perpetuating the dominance of a single monopoly - Microsoft.

If, on the other hand they were to look at opening up standards, and getting more developers to embrace the OpenGL standard, which is more easily ported across different operating systems, then it might have some credibility. But as it stands, this very much looks like a Windows PC Gaming Alliance, to the detriment of everything else.

Microsoft obviously has its own agenda to get everyone signed up to its Live service, and if the idea is to come up with a set of standard PC specifications for games to run, they will effectively be turning PC gaming into a glorified version of Xbox gaming. After all, the Xbox is basically a stripped down PC and a common 'standard' for developers to work with, which is one of the reasons why we see so many developers already using it as the lead development platform for their games.

Excuse me for being very cynical, but I can see this 'Alliance' as more of the 'Evil Empire', which will eventually try to lock in every gamer to a single way of doing things, and ensure Microsoft Vista is the only way forward for games on the PC.

I would be far less cynical if there were representatives of other platforms in that lineup, including Apple and various distributions of Linux. As a gamer, I want the choice of which operating system I use, and not be forced down a single path that I know will lead to even further mediocrity than we currently experience. Too many developers have simply abandoned OpenGL - an open standard - in favour of Microsoft's skewed way of doing things.

In my view, DirectX has become a sluggish, bloated, resource-hungry monster, and certainly with older games that offered the choice of DirectX or OpenGL, I always found games performed much better using OpenGL and did not demand such huge system resources. No wonder the hardware manufacturers are on board - they love Microsoft for peddling their bloatware because it means gamers are forced into buying top end hardware they otherwise might not need.

This PC Gaming Alliance won't reinvigorate PC gaming - it will simply lock more and more people into a gaming rut dug by Microsoft to the exclusion of everything else. I won't be upgrading to Vista at any time in the future - and if that restricts my future gaming choices, so be it. I'd rather choose that restriction myself, than be forced into it by a corporation only interested in its own profit margins.

A formation of an alliance will help to push for more games on to the PC. Not just more games better games and even more exclusives that would encourage people to get into PC gaming.

Just to note, in the article it mention about the $911 million retail box sale all of last year in the US. Yet the NPD doesnt do research on digital distribution. The retail box sales slide doesnt mean that pc gaming is hurting, more like its changing the way its being sold. the PCGA should try to get more developers in putting their games on steam.

these are all valid points

however, it bothers me how terrible the website for the alliance looks

This better not morph the PC into an upgradeable consoledarkfox101

Do you think Nvidia, Intel, AMD won't want us to upgrade our PC?