14 DAY TRIAL // Activision Blizzard has announced that it has left the PC Gaming Alliance, which is devoted to protecting the interests of the developers creating videogames for the platform, with manufacturing company Acer also following suit. Neither of the two companies has said why it has chosen to leave the PCGA, but it might have something to do with its overall ineffectiveness.
Still, Randy Stude, who is the head of the PC Gaming Alliance, has also said that others have chosen to join the Alliance. The three new members are GameStop, Sony and Digital Rive.
Basically, the PC Gaming Alliance is losing Activision Blizzard, which is arguably the biggest publisher in the world, while gaining the creator of SecuROm, one of the most restrictive and unfair Digital Rights Management methods available at the moment. Not a good trade for the PC world in general, seeing how DRM is one of the big issues discussed today.
Activision was one of the founding members of the PCGA, which also counts companies like Intel, AMD, NVidia, Dell, Logitech, Microsoft, Capcom and Epic Games amongst its members. In December 2008, the organization announced that it was redesigning its structure in order to allow more members to join, while also modifying the membership costs. It called on its members to do more to support it.
The PC Gaming Alliance sounds like a good idea, in theory, but it has done little to stop the much talked about decline of the PC as a gaming platform. There was talk of creating a system that would allow buyers to know what kind of games they could play on certain systems and of even pressuring retailers to carry more PC games in their stores. But until now, the PCGA has mostly offered press releases instead of concrete initiatives.