14 DAY TRIAL // Randy Stude, the president of the PC Gaming Alliance, says that the most important threat to the PC videogames industry is rampant piracy. His statement comes as more and more developers state that consoles are a better development medium. Recently, Ubisoft delayed the PC version of EndWar, saying that the console version had to sell before releasing it, while companies like Epic believe that the PC will receive less attention in the future.
One of the big issues is that it's not clear how much the industry is impacted by piracy. The PCGA is trying to measure the real effect and Stude states that “At some point next year, we expect to be able to quantify the potential impact of piracy on the industry”.
He admits that the industry has to get tough on piracy while seeing how it can bring more games to those people who do not have enough money to spend on AAA titles on a monthly basis. The free to play plus microtransaction model of the Eastern MMOs is getting interesting, especially as it is replicated by projects like Combat Arms and Battlefield Heroes. Add supported videogames can also be an alternative.
Another reason for the decline in PC gaming is the fact that hardware moves so quick that there's a big disconnection between the high end devices which developers can create for and the average hardware that PC gamers use. So, the PC Gaming Alliance will introduce “starting points” which are supposed to make it easier to see what hardware will run certain games. Stude reveals that “We're expecting to close it down within our working group by the end of the year... we'll probably announce it sometime in the first quarter of next year”.