In the current environment, game publishers seem perfectly willing to push their customers around, especially when it comes to gaming on the PC.

That's why - as a long time PC gamer - the more I hear about the PC Gaming Alliance, the more enthusiastic I become.

While publishers like Electronic Arts need a lawsuit or three, along with a wave of bad publicity, to clue them into the fact that computer gamers don't want restrictive DRM on their games, the people at the PCGA are studying the piracy issue with an eye toward balancing the needs of publishers to turn a profit and consumers to enjoy a positive gaming experience on their PC.

Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica interviews outspoken PCGA head Randy Stude:

I don't think [piracy is] getting worse, as much as it's getting easier. As broadband has gotten more prolific the issue has been exacerbated... The PCGA will take up the challenge of piracy, not to assume the responsibility that [game publishers lobby] the ESA has taken on... rather the PCGA would like to address the methodology that publishers might be able to take to solve, or to do a better job trying to solve, the piracy challenge for their substantial investments in content.

I think [in the Spore DRM revolt] gamers wanted to make their voices known; it was the equivalent of the Boston tea party... [PC Gamers] don't buy one machine, stick it in the corner, hook it up to the TV, and play it forever. We play on multitudes of machines, and we want the same rights an Xbox 360 purchaser has, to move the game to whatever machine we want to play on.

We [at PCGA] are the guardians of the PC as a platform for gaming. We need to make sure there is an environment where publishers are not afraid to invest tens of millions of dollars in developing great gaming experiences.

PCGA members include hardware types like Dell, INtel, nvidea, AMD, Acer and Antec, as well as Microsoft and Activision.

Stude voiced similar views in an interview with Gamasutra last month.

Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, seems perfectly willing to cut right through the video game industry's party line on piracy.

Gotta love that.

In separate interviews published today, Stude dismissed dire industry claims that publishers would give up on PC games over the piracy issue. Then he slapped LucasArts for its approach to PC gaming.

On the piracy issue, Stude told Gamasutra:

The [online game] revenues being generated [in China and Korea] just blow the mind. You're talking almost 5 billion dollars. Almost half the world's PC software revenues are coming from marketplaces that have almost no retail at all...

 

You look at a game like Spore… despite the fact it's pirated out there on torrent networks, its selling great by any standard... it sort of bucks the notion that all games are going to be destroyed because of piracy. That's not the case...

I'm not saying that the [PC gaming] industry needs to accept piracy. I'm saying that if there’s nothing that can be done, the assumption that gaming will die on a platform is ridiculous.

LucasArts was taken to task over a producer's comment that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed wouldn't be ported to PC due to the challenge of developing for a broard range of PC configurations. Stude told gamesindustry.biz:

That's not an educated answer. In the last several years there have been at least 100 million PCs sold that have the capabilities or better of an Xbox 360. It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game potentially and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response...

 

LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time. That's my opinion... I think the last good PC game they made was probably Jedi Knight 2... So I can understand why they would make that call.

You hear it a lot: PC gaming is dead. Or, at least, terminally ill.

However, the PC Gaming Alliance, a trade group formed to boost the PC end of the game business, maintains that the future is bright for those who prefer to game on computers.

Speaking at GCDC in Leipzig, PCGA president Randy Stude (left) cited key findings from the group's first Horizons Report. Among the more noteworthy points:

• PC gaming was a $10.7 billion industry during the year of 2007
• Retail sales accounted for just 30 percent of total revenues
• Growth was largely driven by online revenues from Asia, the world’s largest market, which is approaching half of total worldwide sales.
• Online PC gaming revenue led the way in 2007 with $4.8 billion, nearly double the worldwide retail sales numbers for PC games.
• Digital distribution sales approached $2 billion
• Advertising revenues from websites, portals, and in-game ads accounted for $800 million.

Commenting on the findings, Stude said:

Our analysis clearly shows incredible growth in online PC gaming, proof that this industry is far stronger than anyone has reported. Today’s consumers shop where they live - online.

David Cole, DFC Intelligence analyst, added:

The real key has been the rapid growth in penetration of broadband-connected PCs in all markets around the world. Broadband-connected PCs are the key driver of growth for PC gaming. DFC Intelligence estimated that by the end of 2007 less than one-third of households in the top 20 markets for games had a high-speed Internet connection. That clearly indicates that there is still plenty of growth to come.

As a longtime computer gamer, I was cheered earlier this year to learn of the formation of the PC Gaming Alliance, a group of industry types who have banded together to promote the PC as a game platform.

Last week, Cnet's Crave blog posted a terrific interview with Intel's Randy Stude, president of the PCGA. Among Stude's comments:

You have [a PC gaming] industry that's being beat up in the Western press in terms of... its perceived lack of health, so we in the industry... didn't really like the perception that we were hearing that PC gaming is on a decline. When in fact while certain markets of the PC gaming industry might be in a decline, others are sky-rocketing like never before.

The PCGA chief also downplayed discouraging NPD numbers:

I chuckle when I read through the articles or opinion that say that PC gaming is in a decline and they continue to quote NPD's North American retail sales figures... NPD decided in the first quarter of 2008 to attempt to quantify North American MMO subscription revenues. And lo and behold... they found--under a rock that they hadn't looked at before--a billion dollars...

In fact, Stude says that PC gaming generates a quarter of all video game revenues:

So if you add the billion dollars [NPD] claim to have found in annual subscription revenues on top of the $920 million that they were previously reporting in retail, suddenly the PC game piece of the pie is closer to a quarter of all software revenues generated in North America. That's one platform out of eight that's generating a quarter of all the revenues. There isn't another platform generating that big of a share of the pie. And that is woefully underreported at a billion dollars. That's why we're here.

Stude also mentioned that the PCGA is looking into piracy issues:

We're collecting research on PC game piracy... trying to have some understanding of how big it is, and then hopefully quantify the economic impact... We don't intend to become the police force for PC game piracy. We're not the RIAA, we're not going to become the RIAA. Rather we're a group that's trying to look out for PC gaming, and if there's a problem with it, we're going to make industry recommendations...