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Guildhall at SMU Joins PC Gaming Alliance

Zyuu — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:33:41 GMT

University to Serve as Independent Resource for Innovation Development

SMU, DALLAS, Texas - March 11, 2008 - The Guildhall at SMU, a leading graduate education program in video game development, has joined the PC Gaming Alliance, a non-profit organization that unites hardware and software creators, game developers and publishers, and others committed to the PC gaming market with the common purpose of advancing the PC as a worldwide gaming platform.

“Having SMU join the PCGA is a big win for the organization,” says Rick Carini, from DELL, the PCGA Chairman of the Board. “The PCGA’s main goal is to improve the PC Gaming customer experience. SMU, as the first university to join the PCGA, will bring a unique perspective that will help balance the PCGA. This will only help in getting to the ultimate PC Gaming experience.”

Together, PCGA and its member companies will work to accelerate innovation, improve the gaming experience for consumers and serve as a collective source of market information and expertise on PC gaming. Members of PCGA are Acer Inc./Gateway Inc., Activision Publishing Inc., AMD, Dell/Alienware, Epic Games, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., NVIDIA Corp. and Razer USA Ltd.

“We hope that SMU and other universities will be able to serve as the independent testing and innovation centers for PCGA and its members,” Dr. Peter Raad, executive director of The Guildhall at SMU, explained. “In order to fulfill our mission of providing the future professionals and leaders of the video game industry, we need to be engaged in all aspects of the value chain. Universities can no longer sit on the sidelines. We need to do our part by joining in and becoming breeding grounds for future game play innovation and innovators.”

Raad believes the flexibility of the PC platform provides wide-open opportunities for continual experimentation and innovation in game play through novel user-machine interfaces.

“In a truly immersive experience, the technology should disappear or at least be innate to the consumer,” Raad added. “With uniform standards and new technology, the PC can continue to be a terrific worldwide platform for consumers.”

The PC gaming market is a multi-billion dollar industry with hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide. Leading research firm DFC Intelligence calls PC gaming “one of the fastest-growing segments of the interactive entertainment market” and projects that the PC game business will grow more than 80 percent over the next five years, with major increases in the number of PC gamers, revenue from digital distribution, and PC hardware sales.

PCGA is the first and only industry organization devoted to the PC gaming industry. It will focus on driving coordinated marketing and promotion of PC gaming, consistent and accurate reporting of PC gaming market sizing and research, and creating forums for member companies to cooperate on solutions to challenges facing the PC gaming industry, such as hardware requirements, anti-piracy, and more. PCGA will develop and promote guidelines and recommendations and foster information sharing between members to accelerate the PC gaming industry.

ABOUT THE GUILDHALL AT SMU: The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University is the premier graduate video game education program in the US. Many of the school’s founders are industry icons, and classes are taught by industry veterans. The program has a 95 percent placement rate with more than 180 graduates working at 70 of the leading video game studios around the world. The program offers both a Master’s degree and a graduate Professional Certificate of Interactive Technology in Digital Game Development, with specializations in art creation, level design, and software development. For more information visit guildhall.smu.edu.

Pc Gaming Alliance is going to save the pc games

Zyuu — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:49:33 GMT

It's no secret that the pc games have less and less influence in the gaming industry. Of course there's exceptions such as The Sims and World of Warcraft, but overall the consoles have taken over the biggest part of the cake - especially outside of Europe. However, now it seems as if the industry have had enough and takes steps to turn this around.

Companies such as Nvidia, Intel and AMD/ATI have decided to enter in a cooperation that they have named PC Gaming Alliance. It's suppose to combine the industry with the same message relayed to everyone. This doesn't mean that they are going to stop compete with each other though, they will keep pushing the development forward all the time.

One of our main major objectives is to provide one voice on PC gaming market. There's no one source that says 'hey this is where the PC market is going'. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share - we're going to call our market through this group.

MMO Companies Form Alliance Against Piracy

Kody — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:09:16 GMT

This news thanks to Gamasutra is a good start toward getting rid of video game piracy in China.

CDC Games - a Chinese online game developer has formed an alliance with CCP Games, Ons On Soft, Sonokong, T3 Entertainment and Wemade - called the Online Game Alliance Against Piracy (OGAAP).

Gamasutra wrote:

The goals of OGAAP are to establish a platform for industry participants and stakeholders to exchange ideas and share experiences; conduct market and technology research; propose industry-wide policies and practices; and lobby relevant government bodies and lawmakers to enact anti-piracy legislation.

The only thing I can think of here is.... why hasn't this been done yet to combat the RMT (Real Money Trading) market that has plagued online games since the turn of the millenium? Is it really something companies want to continue fighting on their own?

To read more on the story, head over to Gamasutra.