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Activision Blizzard, Acer Leave PC Gaming Alliance
by David Jenkins [PC]
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April 14, 2009
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Online reports suggest that Activision Blizzard has left the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), with the publisher’s name and logo being removed from the organization’s website.
Although no official announcement has yet been made, blog site Kotaku claims to have confirmed the exit, with a PCGA spokesperson commenting that "a few members have decided they cannot justify the budget (membership and staff) required to maintain an active role in the PC Gaming Alliance at this time."
Activision, shortly after its merger with Vivendi Games, was a founding member of the PCGA in early 2008. The Alliance is a non-profit organization consisting of game publishers, developers and hardware manufacturers interested in promoting the PC as a games platform.
The PCGA announced restructuring in December, saying it would lower the barrier to membership and introduce a new cost structure. At the same time the organization called for more engagement from the development community.
The majority of the PCGA’s support now comes from hardware manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, NVidia, Dell and Logitech – as well as publisher and developers such as Microsoft, Capcom and Epic Games.
Gamasutra has contacted the PCGA for more details and will update with any comment we receive.
[UPDATE: PCGA head Randy Stude, who is also director of Intel's Gaming Program Office, confirmed to Gamasutra that Activision Blizzard has departed, also revealing that PC maker Acer has left the trade group.
However, Stude made sure to note along the way, "In this same time period we have added gaming market leaders such as GameStop, Sony [DADC] and Digital River."
In addition, later reports from sites including BigDownload have clarified that it is SecuROM creator and Sony division Sony DADC which has recently joined up with the PC Gaming Alliance.]
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Are we already forgetting about the fact that, despite their leaving the PCGA, Activision/Blizzard will still be putting out Modern Warfare 2 this year, and eventually three Starcraft 2 games and Diablo 3?
No, the only thing this piece of news says is that there's something seriously wrong with the PCGA, not PC gaming as a whole.
"PC Games are niche products nowadays"? When the hell has PC gaming ever been anything but niche compared to consoles?
The number of *CONSOLE* exclusives gets smaller year by year too. Nothing is exclusive anymore if a publisher wants to make money. XBox 360, PS3, PC - anything worth a damn is multiplatform these days. Though I'd argue that PC exclusives like Dawn of War II, Demigod, Tales of Valor, Empire: Total War, and others are far more substantial than the glut of console exclusives out there.
To further pretend that buggy games with poor performance don't exist on the 360 is yet another point of reference citing a lack of context. Mass Effect on 360 is one of the shoddiest games out there technically, while its PC counterpart is a fantastic improvement in every way.
Once again, this PCGA article means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of the platform, and I really suggest you actively participate in gaming on that platform before continuing to spread yet more nonsense about it. Right now, Christian, it seems like you've gathered every talking point from a console fanboy on a message board and have condensed it into a nice neat paragraph.
Take a look at the PC section of your local Walmart or target and you will see a section that is just as big if not bigger than any other platform section. Gamestop is not a good indicator of the health of the PC platform as they cannot make any money on second hand PC games.
You also have to take into account digital delivery platforms for their games sales.
PC is healthy and strong. Just the outcast when people talk about console gaming.
The departure of Activision/Blizzard from the PCGA means nothing? Activision/Blizzard is by far the most important PC games publisher today.
And one thing more Joe. I don't own a 360/PS3 or Wii. I play most of my games on my PC, so no offense, but I don't understand what a simple comparsion of the costs of PC components and a console has to di wie fanboy talking. It seems to me that you are taking the role of the PC Fanboy here, otherwise you wouldn't say Dawn of War II, Demigod, Tales of Valor, Empire: Total War are substantial for the plattform. All these games are highly specialised niche products, even in the PC market, none of these games will see a commercial success like a console exclusive liek God of War 3 on the PS3 or Gears of War 2 on the 360.
One more thing, I live in germany, the PC market here was always much bigger then the console market. Three years ago my local Gamestop was filled 50% with PC Titles and the other 50% with all the consoles combined. Now it's 10% PC and 90% consoles. The situation is the same in the great Electronic Stores, which sell more games than anybody else here in germany.
I think what you may have confused here is the great marketing potential of a console. Those games you listed receive a lot of marketing from their respective platform. The PC has no one that can give that kind of marketing push. There is no single gate keeper for PC.
AS for the niche comment, all games are niche games. Just because one game sells millions that does not mean it has universal appeal. But Niche games can be quite successful. I think that many of those games will go on to sell quite well for their respective publishers/developers.
But since we are on the topic of niches, Strategy games have always done well on the PC. Any strategy game that is built well has the potential to succeed on the pC platform. Strategy games often flop hard core on a console because consoles cannot support their gameplay mechanics very well. RPGs and FPS games do well on the PC as long as they are not designed for the PC as a secondary platform to the console version.
There is a lot to be done on the PC there will be a lot of success. A lot of what people now enjoy on consoles came first on pCs. DLC, Online play, game installs, voice chat, text chat, the list goes on and on.
You say "RPGs are doing well on the PC as long as they are not designed for the PC as a secondary platform to the console version". Take a look at Gothic3, the game still is unplayable. The only game that sold ok was the Witcher and this game wasn't a massive hit. Two Worlds or Drakensang, both PC exclusives were flops.
I think the time for strategy games is over. The titles became to complex to attract any new players, the market for those games is shrinking for years now. Look at Megahits like Anno 1602, Anno 1503 here in germany, those games had a bigger marketing campaign then any console game at this time. Both games sold over 2 million copies eacht. 2006 Anno 1701 was published and sold around 400000 copies. This year Anno 1404 will be published for the PC, the DS and the Wii. I am pretty sure it will sell less then 400000 units.
I wonder how Microsoft can honestly say they empower the PC platform while they invest billions in a platform war.
They closed Ensemble Studio, they introduced a pale copy of Steam called “Live”, and they excluded more than 80% of the market from DirectX 10 and 11 and don’t get me started on Games For Windows…
On the other hand, they make cheaper Xbox, better Devkits and of course more franchises!
I think Stardock and Blizzard would beg to differ on that. Starcraft still sells like hotcakes 10 years after it was made. Starcraft 2 is one of the most hotly anticipated titles for the PC. Sins of a Solar Empire is also doing quite well.
AS for the RPG thing, I never said all RPGs were successful. Just like any platform, some games sell better than others. But for Western RPGs, PC has the best.
The mouse/keyboard combo provide much more control for both genres. The control pad is only good for movement and navigating menus. You cannot create hotkeys for all your commonly used abilities and commands. you cannot just click a location and have the AI move to that area.
The term western RPG doesn't seem to have any meaning any more. Fallout3, Gothic3, The Witcher, Two Worlds, Knights of the old Republic, Mass Effect and World of Warcraft are all western RPGs, but these games have nothing in common.
1) PC gaming is no more a niche today than it was two decades ago. It has always been the niche platform of the niche hobby, yet today, thanks to the success of MMOs like WoW, Steam's incredible success as simplifying the platform and making it easier to buy games, and the simplification and price drops of PC hardware, the platform is far *more* convenient and popular today than ever before. Is it growing as fast as the console market? Probably not, especially when you take WoW out of the picture, but it's certainly not shrinking either - which brings me to point...
2) Right in this thread, people are claiming PC gaming to be in a "decline", or there being "fewer PC games", yet the last 1-2 years of history shows an altogether opposite trend. Criterion with Burnout Paradise, Capcom with Lost Planet, and eventually Resident Evil 5 and even Street Fighter 4, EA with games like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge - all of these publishers bringing games with previous franchise installments that never before made it to PC, and in Criterion's case, a developer who hadn't made anything for PC for a decade - coming to PC. Even Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is coming to PC when last year's Bad Company did not. Everything is multiplatform these day, more and more every day - there are more titles than previous years, not fewer.
3) This PCGA news in question is specifically absolutely meaningless because the PCGA consists of many companies like Gamestop and Microsoft who don't give a shit about PC games at all, yet lacks vital developers like those I mentioned above - Valve, Stardock, and others.
Cpacom is not new in the PC field, they are porting there games since the PS One days to the PC.
Resident Evil 5 isn't announced for the PC, nobody knows if it will be ported or not and that's no new franchise for the PC, RE 1-4 were released for the PC. Street Fighter 4's arcade hardware is based on a PC, so the costs of the port were next to nothing. I really don't know where you see more and more titles then in previous years. Just take a look at the PC games magazines. I clearly remember a time when there were more reviews then previews in the magazines, nowadays there are months were only one or two titles are reviewed and half a dozen are previewed. I am sure, if you compare the PC releases of 2003 and 2008 you will see a decline.
The price drop in PC hardware is caused by an absolute collapse in customes demand, even a company like NVidia is reporting losses, something that never happened before.
Additionaly the market is flooded by so many different CPUs and GPUs that it is impossible for anybody outside the PC gaming community to judge what is a good gaming hardware and if the game will run on the PC at home. Just take a look at the Steam Hardware survey, you will find 4 generations of CPUs and 6 generations of GPUs, this leads to the incompability issues we are facing right now with every single PC title.
Yes EA had released PC versions of Dead Space and Mirror's Edge, but none of these games did well on the PC. Look at the last Devil May Cry or Silent Hill 5. Those games sold significantly better on the consoles, then they did on the PC.
Christian,
I just love that you keep bringing up games that were designed for consoles having poor PC sales. While we bring up games that were made for the PC and have had good sales.
the more important context in my opinion may be that the companies mentioned above are still supporting strong pc gaming business initiatives. proper context is often missing from news or the discussions that follow. i have not yet heard atvi or acer state that pc games are out for them. how did this conversation become an argument over the lifespan of PC games?
in this conversation, if we are including any pc gaming, literally, then my educated bet is that pc gaming platforms will live on much longer than proprietary hardware systems (as we know them currently). pc gaming has unarguably been around much longer than console gaming.
let's compare the current proprietary console/hand held install base to current pc users who play casual to hardcore games weekly, versus individuals who game on proprietary hardware. it's very roughly < 250M vs. > 500M worldwide. btw- this #s guess includes anyone (mom, dad, little joey, human cubicle droids, cab drivers, etc.) playing games monthly.
is cloud computing right around the corner? will online free to play models mature from social net casual games into more serious development opportunities with growing microtransaction monetization? what about the iPhone app phenom redefining price points for compelling entertainment experiences in US/EU for under five bucks? what about mass market consumers who run out of money to buy new proprietary hardware and games every 2-3 years? what if just one of the big boys made a jump into a more ubiquitous gaming platform than bigger and better green, black, or white boxes every other xmas?
pc sales may have taken a huge dive in the last 8 years, but so has the global economy. we will probably always be connected to our computers and the internet. chances are, we will also still have our yahoo, facebook, and itunes accounts in 10 years.
PS- Berk, I'll see you at the poker table hopefully ;)
Blizzard has always been the leader of any genre of game they enter and they have 1 platform and thats the PC. Every single product they release is Golden and at the top of the charts winning multiple awards. They still have the largest multiplayer server in the world and no one has come close to establishing anything similar to Battle.net when its housing millions of players simultaneously.
What people fail to understand is those Millions of players are still playing those blizzard titles and not thinking of moving anywhere or spending there 50 bucs anywhere else. This is the reason for the 3 SC2 games. The re-playability for all the titles can be as long as 10y+. So people get the idea that because there are not hundreds of 5-30 hour experiences like you find on consoles, the PC is failing and niche. In fact its the opposite. The consoles are the ones turning out flops and horrid wastes of disc space and bringing out titles with little to no re-playability. We have only begun to experience our first Console title that we cant put down and that was with CoD4. The PC has games being played by millions for thousands of hours with Steam titles such as Cstrike, Team fortress and every Blizzard game. Im amazed at how many members of gamaustra that claim they understand the game industry do not understand the simple concept of game re-playability. Developers have mesmerized everyone into believing that 50 bucs for a 5-40 hour movie game is worth you spending and trading in 100's of dollars of merchandise weekly while your Wc3 players have been sitting on there 50$ for 6 years probably with 10,000 hours of gameplay. When it comes to consoles I put my money down on the experiences that I will play for weeks with ecleast 100's of hours. Im talking about your Square enix FF titles and now Bethesda's. CoD4 was a godsend for it has established something consoles have never seen and thats Online re-playability. Consoles have only just caught up to PC games. But you all still think PC's are fail.
(Not comprehensive lists)
COMPANIES IN THE PC GAMING ALLIANCE
-Microsoft: Haven't made or published a PC game in years
-SecuROM: The most reviled software since Starforce, if not moreso
-Gamestop: Stopped giving a crap about PC games years ago
COMPANIES NOT IN THE PC GAMING ALLIANCE
-Valve: Masters behind nearly everything that's best on the platform, from games to distribution
-Stardock: Valve's rivals with Impulse, which has more than a million users, and lots of games to boot, most recently publishing Sins of a Solar Empire
-Crytek: Going multiplatform, but so is everyone, and that doesn't negate how amazing Far Cry and Crysis are
-CD Projekt: The Witcher, GoG, and more - these guys get it
-id: No explanation necessary
-NCSoft: Guild Wars sold millions upon millions, Guild Wars 2 and others are on the way
-BioWare: Recently a fantastic Mass Effect port, Dragon Age on the way, and an incredible history
-Bethesda: Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls
-GSC Game World: STALKER, Clear Sky - one of the best PC developers around
-Gas Powered Games: Supreme Commander, now Demigod
Ok, then take a look at the sales of Crysis, it sold very much under the expectations. CoD4 sold better on consoles then on the PC. The beststelling game on the PC last year was Spore, it sold about 1 Million copies, the bestselling console games sold several millions each.