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Activision Blizzzard leaves PC Gaming Alliance

Published on 14th April 2009 by Joe Martin

Activision Blizzard has left the PC Gaming Alliance due to cost of membership and active involvement.

Activision Blizzard, the largest publisher in the gaming industry, has confirmed that it has now left the PC Gaming Alliance due to budgetary concerns.

Kotaku confirmed the news yesterday that Activision Blizzard, which was one of the original founding members for the group, was one of several companies to leave the Alliance for financial reasons.

"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," said a PCGA spokesperson, who then confirmed that Activision Blizzard was among that group.

The loss of Activision Blizzard, which controls prominent PC franchises like World of WarCraft, Diablo and Call of Duty, is sure to be a major blow for the group - but the Alliance still has plenty of members left...for now. Sony, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Epic and Capcom are all companies that still attach themselves to the Alliance.

Leaving industry advocacy groups is nothing new for Activision Blizzard either - the publisher also dropped out of the Entertainment Software Association last year.

Is the PC Gaming Alliance actually good for anything? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

18 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

ChaosDefinesOrder 14th April 2009, 10:58

If the alliance is reliant on budget allocations from the companies involved then surely it's being tackled in the wrong way?

Then again, I've not seen anything positive come out of the alliance other than news chatter and frequent foot-in-mouth incidents from Epic...

p3n 14th April 2009, 11:25

Does the alliance have any proper PC dev/publishers left?!

Narishma 14th April 2009, 11:51

Sony? Really?

wuyanxu 14th April 2009, 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by p3n
Does the alliance have any proper PC dev/publishers left?!

i personally won't count Epic as a pro-PC dev, so no, i don't think they've got any proper pro-PC dev left.

yakyb 14th April 2009, 13:38

umm what does the alliance do exactly

sotu1 14th April 2009, 14:08

waste of time the PCGA. lovely idea but has been nothing but a laughing stock.

oh, and Epec = Epic Fail

docodine 14th April 2009, 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakyb
umm what does the alliance do exactly

+1, what's its point?

Yemerich 14th April 2009, 14:52

+2, and prolly lots more...

Looks Like this is the main problem with th PCGA. Too little ppl kwon whats that about. All i know it was born afeter that stupid "Tim Sweeney" (one of the founders of EPIC and dev of Unreal Engine) told that "PC gaming is dying"...

So the guy that start it all is among the head of PCGA... Epic fail...

TurtlePerson2 14th April 2009, 15:25

There was nothing to the group to begin with. The only time anyone ever heard about them is when someone left or joined.

Jordan Wise 14th April 2009, 16:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaosDefinesOrder
Then again, I've not seen anything positive come out of the alliance other than news chatter and frequent foot-in-mouth incidents from Epic...

Pieface 14th April 2009, 16:13

I'm suprised Blizzard had money problems anyway, they must make loads of money with all of the subscriptions and everything.

Mithyx 14th April 2009, 18:43

The money excuse is an easy cop out. They don't need to tell the other members that they're useless... just that they don't have the budget at this time.

raGe82 14th April 2009, 20:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pieface
I'm suprised Blizzard had money problems anyway, they must make loads of money with all of the subscriptions and everything.

This is business. Any money spend should be an investment - I didn't hear (and as you can see above I'm not the only one) anything about this alliance, so what's the point in spending money?

ssj12 15th April 2009, 04:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narishma
Sony? Really?

Sony DADC aka SecuROM to be more exact.

Dannythemusicman 16th April 2009, 12:23

As Rage says above, Blizzard clearly can't see any commercial point to remaining in the alliance (and to be honest who would want to be associated with some of the things coming out of it atm...?) at the moment their investment has resulted in them being associated with many an epic fail.

Burnin' 19th April 2009, 04:29

they have done nothing so far.... why would anyone stay?

Project_Nightmare 13th August 2009, 22:45

Blizzard would abandon the people that made it one of the most powerful companies in existence? Talk about biting the had that feeds them.

Elton 14th August 2009, 02:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Project_Nightmare
Blizzard would abandon the people that made it one of the most powerful companies in existence? Talk about biting the had that feeds them.

Powerful? It's headed by the Epic pretty much, not to mention they don't really do anything anyways.