Shacknews recently caught up with the voice of Valve, Doug Lombardi. In this first half of a two part interview Doug talks about the PC Gaming Alliance, the future of PC gaming and system requirements in current PC games. This is an extremely interesting interview and you can read a little bit of it now:

Shack: Does the responsibility lie somewhat with the hardware manufacturers to market their products in a reasonable way, or is it up to the developers to set sane requirements?

Doug Lombardi: Oh I think it’s totally the fault of the developers. Totally the fault of the developers. I mean the graphics guys, their job to keep pushing the envelope, and as they push the envelope, move the lower-end cards down to a nice price point, so that there’s always this evolution that’s happening. If you’re a hot rod type of guy, and you want to spend $400 on the latest thing, you want to have a smoking machine, and when Left 4 Dead comes out you want to run it at its highest resolution with killer framerates, and call your buddies over for a beer and make them all drool over your system, awesome. But if you’re just a guy who wants a decent PC for less than a thousand bucks, and wants to be able to run games on it, there should be a card out there that runs games at a decent famerate and decent fluidity. Then it’s on us to write for both of those guys.

Go read the rest of it here.

The NPD which tracks game sales in the US has revealed that US online gaming subscriptions top $1 billion a year. The findings were based on data gathered between October 2007 and March 2008 and the NPD also revealed that 11 million people in the US subscribe to online games each month.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier told GamesIndustry.biz the following.

“Now that NPD can estimate the value of the subscription market, it’s clear that there is a sizable chunk of revenue being generated by PC gaming beyond what is reflected in retail sales,”

“The variety of content available to play games on the PC clearly can draw a diverse audience.”

This shows that those people claiming that PC gaming is dying are short sighted individuals who cannot see the true potential of the PC as a gaming machine. $1 billion is not a figure to be scoffed at and is a clear example the the online gaming industry for the PC is a massive business.

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The PC Gaming Alliance has been officially announced at this years GDC and they seem to have some noble intentions.

PC Gaming Alliance will be the Authoritative Voice of PC Gaming World Wide. We will make data that highlights and promotes the PC platform to analysts, press and the public.

We will promote the PC Gaming Industry and the PC as a gaming platform, provide web and event based forums to discuss, debate and influence all aspects of PC development for gaming for all regions of the world, and guidance to help resolve industry-wide challenges such as: Piracy, Cheating, Security, Consumer experience.

PC Gaming Alliance will also provide guidelines to simplify hardware specifications and speed the introduction of new technologies, as well as improve Consumer PC Gaming Experience by working with developers and publishers and PCGA members to maximize the PC gaming experience in all ways possible.

Read on for my thoughts and much more

I have recently received an email and had a few comments here that have led to me wanting to write an extended article regarding the current state of PC Gaming. The email and comments covered a few different aspects of PC Gaming (and gaming in general.) The email detailed how the person (who wants to remain anonymous) had quite suddenly fallen out of PC Gaming and shifted to console gaming. I have had comments here on the blog which have also led me to consider writing this piece. I have received a few concerning piracy which plays a key role in the PC Games industry at this moment in time, and I have had other comments regarding recent media coverage on the Mass Effect ‘sex scene’ controversy.

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