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PCGA To "Take Up the Challenge of Piracy"

Posted by Soulskill on from the work-cut-out-for-you dept.

Ars Technica reports that the PC Gaming Alliance has declared themselves the "guardians of PC gaming," which includes finding ways to help gamers decide on gaming hardware, and to make progress on the issues of piracy and DRM. "[PCGA President Randy Stude said,] 'The PCGA will take up the challenge of piracy, not to assume the responsibility that 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.' The PCGA won't give a standard approach to publishers, saying it is much more likely it will release a series of recommendations to publishers, and track piracy on an annual basis to see if the problem is growing or shrinking. The PCGA is also working on methods for members to track how effective their antipiracy measures are once a game has been released."

3 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. consoles are the key by socsoc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why do people still use PCs for gaming? PCs are business tools... Consoles are better for gaming because the game development company can rely upon a specific hardware configuration.

    This isn't a troll, but an honest observation.

    1. Re:consoles are the key by __aamkky7574 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sorry, but you do actually sound a little like a troll. :) But I'll assume you're sincere.

      "Consoles are better for gaming because the game development company can rely upon a specific hardware configuration."

      Why does that make it better for the person who matter - the gamer? It's better for the development company, sure. Though if you're developing for XBox 360, publishing for the PC as well is relatively simple.

      I have a gaming PC, a gaming laptop and a Wii. Of the three, the Wii gets by far the least use, gathering dust bunnies. Why do I game on the PC primarily?

      1. Graphics: after gaming on a PC, looking at the Wii's Resident Evil 4 is like having sandpaper applied to my eyes; the pixels look the size of planets. One great thing about PC gaming is not just that new games look great - even older games can look better. After loving Oblivion, I've gone back to play Morrowind. If I was playing this on the XBox, it would only look as good as it did back in 2003. On the PC, I can take advantage of graphics cards upgrades and user-created mods such as the Morrowind Graphics Extender (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXEhlyqlzU0) so that the game looks far better than it did back in 2003. Which leads me to...

      2. Mods & Community: Being a console owner is essentially a passive consumer experience. Sure, there are the beginnings of allowing user-created content on consoles, but this is still in its infancy and will _always_ be tightly controlled. For the PC, it's a collaborative experience; even a non-coder like me has been able to get involved, working on the unofficial Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines patch.
      Just one example; look at the amount of mods and tweaks available for the PC version of Oblivion; you can customise it to your heart's content.

      3. Meeces: I just can't play FPSs on gamepads. Have tried and failed. Same with strategy games. The mouse just seems to fit these games a lot better. Gamepads are fine for driving games but since I don't really like those, I don't them much. I actually have one anyway - the XBox controller works great with the PC wireless dongle - but those times I occasionally use one.

      Oh, and I don't get the supposed "benefit" of consoles that you can slouch on the couch while playing them. If I'm playing a shooter online, I want to sit up alert in a nice comfy desk chair.

      4. Portability: I can play the same games on both my desktop and my laptop, and using Microsoft's FolderShare (http://www.foldershare.com/) I can seamless and invisibly have my savegame files synchronised between the machines.

      5. Cheaper games: People often point out that PCs cost a lot more than consoles. Very true. But, I'd be buying a PC anyway for non-gaming functions. OK, sure, I have to pay a bit more for a gaming PC over a normal PC. But new PC game releases cost around 20 less than the console equivalent. So, if you you're say buying 2 new releases a month, that adds up to almost 500 a year saved, which is easily enough to keep on the upgrade path.

      P.

  2. Who put them in charge? by appleprophet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My brother and I recently started an independent video game company and I had seen the PCGA covered on Slashdot a few times before. Looking for resources to help us, I called them up asking what they could do for us as a Mac, Windows, and Linux video game developer. They basically straight up said, "well... nothing". To be 100% honest, I do not really know what they do. If I had not seen them on Slashdot, I would not have known they existed.

    I look forward to the day when they can do something for us, but until then as a PC game developer, albeit small, I can let you guys know that these guys don't represent us in any way shape or form. However, I wish them luck on their anti-piracy endeavor.

    Meanwhile, on our end, we are going to lay off the invasive DRM and instead rely on creating high quality downloadable content and other online features like multiplayer which provide a clear incentive to purchase our game.