The PC Gaming Alliance suffered a bit of a blow yesterday after a few of its members decided that in the current economy they cannot justify the budget required to maintain an active role in the organization.

Among those few members leaving the group whose mission is to improve the landscape for PC gamers, developers and publishers alike are Activision Blizzard and hardware vendor Acer.

Other major industry players such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel and AMD are still part of the PCGA, but Activision's departure leaves the group a bit lighter on the game publishing and developing side of things. The Alliance does get a couple new members in the form of video game retailer Gamestop and Sony DADC, the firm behind the SecuROM DRM technology so often criticized by consumers.

Whether the latter means we’ll see more ‘consumer-friendly’ types of DRM in future game titles or the complete opposite remains to be seen.

We’ve yet to really see anything major come out of the initiative, which last year promised to set new minimum requirement standards for the PC, agree on methods to combat piracy and develop new business models.