The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the largest annual gathering of video game developers and is scheduled to be held next week, February 18-22, in San Francisco. During the event, several companies, including Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA and AMD, will announce an association called the PC Gaming Alliance.
As you can tell from the name, the PC Gaming Alliance will, basically, renew interest back into PC gaming. With all the recent discussion regarding the "death" of PC Gaming (which I think is untrue), including this fine article discussing both sides of the argument from Sean, this alliance will hopefully win back any lost confidence from video game developers.
In 2007, retail PC game sales only accounted for 14% of the total 2007 game sales in the U.S. While one may argue that the percent is rather small, the number is missing a few key figures, including ad revenue from online gaming web sites (ArcadeNode), revenue from monthly subscriptions for online games (World of Warcraft did hit 10 million subscribers recently) and revenue from digital distribution (Steam game sales are through the roof).
Console gaming is surely a huge force in the U.S. market, but PC gaming is not dying. People always ask that I should pick up a console sooner or later, but my PC provides all the gaming I’d ever need.
[Via San Jose Mercury News]
