SMU's Guildhall Joins PC Gaming Alliance

Southern Methodist University's game development graduate program The Guildhall has announced that it has joined with Activision, Epic, Microsoft and the rest of the recently announced PC Gaming Alliance to help serve as an "independent testing and innovation center." Thus far, the PC Gaming Alliance includes amongst its members hardware and peripheral manufacturers like Acer/Gateway, AMD, Dell/Alienware, Intel, Nvidia, and Razer USA, as well as developers and publishers including Activision, Epic and Microsoft. The alliance says its goal is to "accelerate innovation, improve the gaming experience for consumers and serve as a collective source of market information and expertise on PC gaming." The Alliance says it will "focus on driving coordinated marketing and promotion of PC gaming, consistent and accurate reporting of PC gaming market sizing and research, and creating forums for member companies to cooperate on solutions to challenges facing the PC gaming industry, such as hardware requirements, anti-piracy, and more." Dell's Rick Carini, PCGA chairman, says the Guildhall's membership is "a big win for the organization. The PCGA’s main goal is to improve the PC Gaming customer experience. SMU, as the first university to join the PCGA, will bring a unique perspective that will help balance the PCGA. This will only help in getting to the ultimate PC Gaming experience.” Guildhall executive director Dr. Peter Raad added, “We hope that SMU and other universities will be able to serve as the independent testing and innovation centers for PCGA and its members. In order to fulfill our mission of providing the future professionals and leaders of the video game industry, we need to be engaged in all aspects of the value chain. Universities can no longer sit on the sidelines. We need to do our part by joining in and becoming breeding grounds for future game play innovation and innovators.”