Writers cram into a conference room, with the promise of a PC gaming announcement powered by several prominent figures at corporations such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, Dell, AMD, Epic, Activision, Intel, Acer/Gateway, and Razer USA. That is exactly what we got — although it may not have been the type of announcement many of us were expecting.

The “PC Gaming Alliance”, who from this point forward will be referred to as the Justice League of PCmerica (JLPC), aim to dispel myths, fight piracy, and revive the ever shrinking percentage of the gaming market that is PC gaming. However, if you ask them they will tell you that the PC gaming industry is not dying, and that it is in fact growing each year. Not sure about you, but I have never seen a super hero, or group of super heroes for that matter, attempt to save something they didn’t believe was in danger.

Their numbers do show an increase in PC gaming each year, with a total of 263 million online PC gamers worldwide as of the end of 2007, however the gaming market as a whole is growing at a much faster pace. In addressing the panel as a whole, I asked them specifically about the timing and specs a game like Crysis. Specifically, do they agree with the approach that EA and Crytek took. Epic VP Mark Rein responded:

“We feel good about it — there should be a market for that — it’s high end gaming”. He added “that’s an aspirational product, thats exactly what the advantage of the PC is. We’re all here to fight to get people to start thinking about the PC again.”

Start thinking again he says? Wouldn’t that mean they stopped? My next question revolved around our role as press and whether or not we were focusing too much on the negative when we talk about the specs of games like Crysis being overly ambitious? Mark responded again, stating:

“No, I don’t. I think you should be focusing on kicking the cans of the guys who own PC’s that can’t run them.”

I then stated my belief that the problem is not the computer, and instead the fact that nearly every device is striving to mimic the computer — citing the iPhone and PS3 as prime examples, both equipped with advanced web browsers and other PC like features. Mark again responded:

“We don’t care about iPods and phones, and things like that. They will work to get their own gaming experience — we are just narrowly focused on the PC.”

Narrow focus — good luck reviving the PC market with that attitude. I’m not convinced that having a narrow focus will help the PC regain its glory as a gaming force, but what do I know. The good thing here is that if this group is genuinely concerned about the state of PC gaming, they just may have enough firepower on board to help make a difference.

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• Mark Rein: “Sony’s Going To Have A Good Christmas This Year.”

3 Comments » Wade Larson on February 20, 2008 8:07 am Do they have a sweet theme song? If not, I just wrote one. DUUUUUUUUUUUN DUN DUN!!!! Justice League of PCmerica! Saving games that aren’t in danger! DUN DUN DUN! Making you start thinking about PCs again! DUNNNNN Your PC is obsolete so spend a bunch of money so you can run Crysis you n00b! dun dun dunnnnnnnnn. Perry on February 20, 2008 8:31 pm Good point re: Crysis. What a waste, and worse it scares people off. I saw a Tri SLI review today where they scores 40 fps on Crysis (12*8 High). That’s it. $1200 worth of video card gets you 40 fps. And a game like NWN2 that had so much promise still has bugs and poor performance on a modern rig (Core 2 and 8800 GTS) after 2 years. But I would still rather game on my PC. Each console has its 2-3 big titles epr year and I’ll play those, but the rest of the time a PC is better. lilpeanut80 on February 20, 2008 10:23 pm Ripten rules!!!!!! RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.