The new president of the PC Gaming Alliance says one of his priorities for 2011 is to make the historically low-profile organization āa lot more public and vocal.ā
The PC Gaming Alliance was founded three years ago by numerous industry heavyweights as a way to promote the mouse and keyboard in an increasingly console-centric world. Or so it seemed, anyway; the reality has been considerably different. Since its founding, the organization has put out a grand total of ten ā yes, ten ā press releases (including one announcing its formation), most of which were simply notifications of new members joining the group.
Itās not what youād call gripping stuff (although the March 2010 announcement that PC gaming software revenue had grown by three percent year-over-year had the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up) and while the PCGA may be an industry-focused group, itās tough to be seen as the champion of a cause if nobody knows you exist. Thatās one issue that Matt Ployhar, who succeeded Randy Stude as PCGA President in December 2010, wants to address right away.
āThe PCGA was founded for two reasons. What they did, is they went into the mode, if you will, where they felt like instead of, āOK, itās better going loud and proud and being really vocal and visible,ā it was kind of like, āOK, letās build out a body of research so weāve got kind of a belated backup to what weāre saying hereā,ā Ployhar explained in an interview with Gamasutra. āAnd you canāt really do that overnight. People know that youāre a real entity, and youāre data-driven, and itās not opinions and emotions-based.ā
Ployhar said the PCGA has done a great job at assembling statistics to show that the condition of the PC gaming industry isnāt nearly as dire as some people think, but hasnāt been as effective in communicating that information to the public. āThat was one of the things Iām looking at and going, āYou guys got all these software best practices, all this stuff, but you donāt talk about itā,ā he said.
āWeāve got a ton of things to talk about, and a ton of things that we are already working on. So, better communication, level-setting expectations, outlining what weāre going to be doing for 2011. Weāve got a pretty big announcement coming up for GDC,ā he continued. āThe way I look at it or articulate internally, is taking this organization from crawl to walk. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Thatās where we are today. Itās helping and gathering, building things out, so that we can be a lot more public and vocal, and vociferous.ā
Published: Feb 18, 2011 11:31 PM UTC