The PC Gaming Alliance Interview

Making System Requirements Less Baffling

BT: One of the PCGA's goals is to simplify hardware specifications, and we've noticed this happening last year. Specification boxes now just list graphics card and CPU models, rather than saying 'hardware T&L' or 'DirectX 9 pixel and vertex shaders.' This is good, but non-technical PC owners can still find the complicated specs list baffling. Will this ever change, and what is the PCGA doing to help?

Ployhar: I’m not convinced we played a very big hand in simplifying the specs on the outside of boxes that you mention; I might have to tip my hat towards Microsoft’s Games for Windows program on that account. Whatever the case may be, I completely agree but I'd like to simplify it even more. Games should just work - period. Today, we should be able to simply walk into a store blindfolded and randomly pick a game off the shelf, or download it, and have it just work.


Today you’d be lucky to pick a game that way unless you owned over four different platforms. Again, that’s just crazy for the consumer. We have some things that we’ll be announcing and working on over the next year that addresses this exact topic, so stay tuned. Just realise up front, though, that this is a very hot potato. It's contentious, and it's likely to take a few years to address properly.

It may even result in shaking up some of our current membership. Hopefully not, but we’ll have to wait and see. On this account, though, I really hope people can set aside their agendas and recognise that they really need to err on the side of the consumers. I don’t see a clear path to achieving this without providing some iteration of a spec, suggested guidelines or a recommendation.

BT: Thank you very much for your time, Matt. Is there anything else you'd like to add about the PCGA?

Ployhar: In closing, I’d like to say that the PCGA is a very committed group that wants to stay focused on identifying ways to better the PC gaming ecosystem at large. We’re still a relatively young organisation in the grand scheme of things, and we're likely to have growing pains along the way, which is to be expected. However, I can’t think of a more dynamic or exciting future than what’s in store for the PC gaming ecosystem, especially its level of innovation and flexibility that enables it to practically reach any platform, or screen, on any device.