Joining the global retail giant are Gas Powered Games - the studio behind Supreme Commander - along with online games portal GameTap, BFG Technologies, Bigfoot Networks, Flextronics, Howie's Game Shack, and InstantAction.

Still not quite seeing how this group is achieving anything, or indeed how important it's going to be to add a bricks and mortar retailer to the team when the future of PC gaming is clearly tied to digital delivery.

Maybe they've just got one hell of a secret clubhouse.

GameStop, Gas Powered, More Join PC Gaming Alliance [Gamasutra]

With retail chains increasingly limiting their shelf space for PC games, and most mainstream media coverage of gaming directed at the splashier Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 multimedia consoles and family-centric Wii, PC gaming finds itself in a fight for the hearts and minds of gamers.

Leading the charge in that fight is the recently formed PC Gaming Alliance, a consortium of computer manufacturers, parts makers, retailers and game developers.

Christian Svensson, an executive at game developer Capcom and member of the alliance board of directors says that the purpose of the alliance, which was formed early last year, is to pin down hard numbers for game developers. How many people play games on their PC? What sort of PC do they have? What are the current trends?

"I joined to get a better understanding about the market and what's working for people," Svensson said. "The low hanging fruit for (Capcom) is to take our content and our brands and bring them to another platform."

Capcom, traditionally a developer with a focus on consoles, has recently started to bring more of their games like Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV to the PC.

"We feel we can create an incredible and perhaps different experience than the PC has had before," he said. "The PC versions of Street Fighter IV and Devil May Cry 4 will be the definitive versions of the game."

But often the PC version of a game comes out after the console versions hit, something that in the long run can impact sales. That's because unlike with consoles, there is no single standard for the PCs that games may run on. It's the same issue that has for so long hampered mobile game sales.

"The beautiful thing about the PC is that it's a completely open platform," Svensson said. "Anyone can get any game to market. There are no boundaries.

"But that same thing cuts the other way, no guidance means no oversight."

So developers need to make sure that when they make a game it can play on a wide range of computers, from a high-end desktop to a cheap laptop, so they can sell to the larger chunk of that 300 million gamer market. And unlike with consoles, technology for PC gaming jumps forward every 12 to 18 months or so, making the sweet spot for game development a moving target.

Drew Johnston, Microsoft's group program manager for Windows gaming, says that another similarity between computers and cell phones is how prevalent they are.

"Most people in the U.S. and many other parts of the world have both a phone and a computer, so they're instantly part of those demographics, and an audience for developers," he said.

The key, both Johnston and Svensson agree, is to make it easier for gamers to get their games on PC.

That's what Microsoft tried to do when they launched Games for Windows – Live with the rollout of Windows Vista. But initially the program stalled.

Johnston says that's because gamers initially thought that Games for Windows – Live only worked on Vista and that initially gamers had to pay a subscription to play multiplayer games, something that Microsoft also requires with Xbox Live.

"What's right for the console isn't always right for the PC," Johnston said Microsoft came to realize.

Last July, Microsoft dropped the subscription fees for the PC version of live. Then, at the end of last year Microsoft revamped the service, tweaking it to work better for PC gamers and adding more robust anti-piracy measures.

Johnston describes the future of PC gaming as "growing and evolving" saying that it is as strong as it has ever been and leading the way in many new ideas, like digital distribution, online services and social gaming.

Perhaps most significantly, the alliance plans to soon announce a new set of PC system requirements that would be used to identify a PC gaming machine.

The idea, Svensson said, is to make PC gaming as seamless an experience as console gaming is.

It could also perhaps lead to a new renaissance in PC game design, reminding all of those millions of PC owners that their machines are just as capable at entertaining as is a console.

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

In a perfect world (at least for the PCGA), those other parties would have been prominent PC publishers. Like Valve, or maybe EA. But no. Instead, "replacing" Activision in the group's lineup is...Sony DADC. You know. The guys who do SecuROM, the overly-restrictive piracy protection software that's been the bane of PC gaming for a while now.

We thought this group was about highlighting the strengths of the PC market, not its flaws.

PCGA Loses Activision, Gains SecuROM [GamePolitics]

Over the weekend, a couple of readers noticed that the company's logo no longer appeared on the PCGA's website. Contacted for comment, the PCGA confirmed that "a few members have decided they cannot justify the budget (membership and staff) required to maintain an active role in the PC Gaming Alliance at this time." It would appear Activision are one of those members.

It's the second industry advocacy group Activision have walked away from in the past year, with the company leaving the Entertainment Software Association last July.

While the loss of the world's biggest publisher - and the people pushing PC stalwarts Call of Duty and World of Warcraft - is a big blow to the group, they're at pains to point out that that everyone else is sticking around, including Microsoft, Capcom, Epic, GameStop, Sony, Intel, AMD & Nvidia.

And while you'll find many of the numbers and facts here carefully cherry-picked to paint the PC industry in as glowing a light as possible, you'll also find that many are impressive regardless.

The important stuff:

- "The PC is the largest single platform for games with annual worldwide revenue of about $11 billion". Not bad. Further breaking that down, $6 billion of that came from North America and Western Europe.

- MMOs are where the money at. While "top PC games regularly generate over $50 million at retail", MMO games perform much better, the PCGA citing Asian MMOs that generate over $100 million each, along with World of Warcraft, which generates over $1 billion annually.

- The market is splitting. Not between retail and MMO, but between developed and developing markets. Gamers in "emerging" markets are helping drive a boom in casual gaming, because their PCs often can't play games like Crysis.

If you've got an hour or two spare and would like to read the entire report, you can get it from the link below.

The PCGA Presents: The PC Gaming Industry in 2008 [PCGA]

Capcom's Christian Svensson has gone into this in quite a bit of detail in an interview over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. First up, though, he's got to address the company's recent past on the PC:

People might remember Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil 4, and Onimusha - these were projects that were outsourced, and run by our licensing team, rather than internal R&D. They were thrown over the wall to a developer, and the ports were quick and dirty, and even internally were not viewed favourably. As part of the licensing deal Ubisoft had the rights to distribute. Shortly thereafter the US side of our business decided to bring that back into the consumer software side and grow it.

So as you can see, they're taking it a bit more seriously than they used to. Good start. But what about the more industry-wide stuff? Svensson says that, as people like Valve and even EA would attest, the future isn't with boxed retail, which he reckons is "falling away" thanks to things like high return rates and consumer confusion. No, it's with digital distribution, which explains not only why you can get most new Capcom games on the PC, but also on just about every digital distribution service you can think of.

If you're interested in this kind of big-picture stuff, you can check out the full interview below.

Capcom On Digital Distribution, PC Ubiquity [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

In an interview with Big Download, Stude, president of the non-profit organization formed last year to promote and improve the state of PC gaming, suggests that early piracy actually helped make the PC gaming industry what it is today.

The PC Gaming Industry's history is littered with examples of startups (including Stardock and Valve) that actually benefited from wide spread piracy to grow a market for their future titles. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating piracy... However, how would Quake, Doom, Starcraft, Counter-Strike, or Half-Life have been able to grow widespread brand recognition without a widespread network of gamers openly sharing these games. These titles (and many more) defined the industry. Personally, my first experience with a first person shooter was with Doom (back in the day) and I did not pay for it. Id Software turned the corner and has a very successful business built on the back of the early free/open source exchange of their games...

Yes, Randy Stude is a dirty pirate, but then again, so was I back then. I too had a non-purchased copy of Doom. Hell, my primitive high school computer programming class was a haven for the exchange of Apple II games of dubious origin. It wasn't right, but those first few "free" titles turned me into the adult I am today, purchasing upwards of a dozen PC games a year.

What I am trying to say here, is the man has a valid point. I probably wouldn't be here writing this article if not for the trespasses of my past. That having been said, the industry is doing fine now, and everyone can stop pirating now. Thanks!

Interview: PC Gaming Alliance's president gives us an update [Big Download via Blue's News]

The Guildhall (already a member, but who are now joining the group's board) is one of America's biggest and best game development education providers, while Capcom...well, you know Capcom. Seeing as they're one of the longest-serving champions of the PC port (from Devil May Cry to Bionic Commando), we're actually slightly surprised Capcom weren't onboard from the get-go.

PC Gaming Alliance adds new members to Board of Directors [Big Download]

LucasArts' reasoning was that the variety of gaming PC setups out there, plus the limitations of lower-end configurations, would make it difficult to create a version of SW:TFU that everyone enjoyed. Stude, in an interview teased on Videogamer.com, called that an "uneducated" excuse and added "LucasArts hasn't made a good game in a long time."

Said Stude:

"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."

But wait, there's more:

"I think you probably got plenty of feedback and opinions from your readers and my personal opinion is if they're making games for the Wii, Xbox and PS3 they're scaling their experience to meet all three of those platforms. They're good on the Wii, better on the Xbox 360 and the best on the PS3. There's no argument that they could give not to be able to support good better and best on the PC."

Oh he's not done yet. Hey, what the fuck you looking at, Wii? Yeah, you. /gives titty-twister.

"LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time," he said. "That's my opinion. They make some pretty good games for the Wii, you know those little sticks you wave in the air, that seems like a natural fit for a lightsaber game, sure. But I think the last good PC game they made was probably Jedi Knight 2, and even their strategy games weren't that great. So I can understand why they would make that call."

And the coup de grace for the makers of Star Wars: STFU or GTFO or whatever your name is:

"They're not really creating product within LucasArts themselves. They're going at it job shopping their IP. That may be a little controversial for me to say, but that's what I see. There's no development team necessarily within LucasArts any more, they've basically turned into an intellectual property machine and supporting the PC, why should they? It really doesn't fit their property.

Damn. Tell us how you really feel, Randy.

LucasArts Slammed for No PC Force Unleashed [Videogamer.com, via GamerCenter Online]

AMD launches "Good Housekeeping" stamp of approval for gaming computers [VentureBeat]

Retail stores like Best Buy are selling PC games and PCs with integrated graphics at the same time and they are not talking about the difference [to more capable gaming PCs]. Those machines are good for e-mail, web browsing, watching video. But as far as games go, those machines are just not adequate. It is no surprise that retail PC sales suffer from that.

MR: We want all these people buying laptops and reasonably priced PCs, to at least be able to be exposed to gaming. They can go out later and upgrade to something better, but let's at least give them a baseline experience."

MTV: Cliff, you buy it? PC gaming is back?

The Cliffster: Abso-frigging-lutely. The thing is, I think everybody coming together in that kind of way will essentially kind of help re-glue things back together and kind of help fix the market. I have a big PC gaming heritage and I love playing games with a keyboard and a mouse, as well as a console, and I'd just love to see it.