The PC Gaming Alliance suffered a bit of a blow when Activision left the organization in 2009 and now two more of its founding members have decided to follow suit: Microsoft and Nvidia. PCGA president Matt Ployhar confirmed the news to Big Download in a telephone interview, but wouldn't comment on the companies' reasons for exiting the non-profit consortium, which was formed in 2008 to promote the PC gaming industry and the PC as a gaming platform.
Ployhar said he doesn't believe that the departures will affect the PCGA, which counts with names such as names Epic, AMD, Intel, Dell and Acer among its supporters. We've yet to really see anything major come out of the initiative, but they are reportedly shifting from being a research-led group to an organization that will be more active in trying to assist game developers, publishers and hardware companies in creating better PC games.
In a recent blog post, Ployhar mentioned that it was "premature to speculate" on the PCGA's next set of objectives but it would likely involve streamlining hardware requirements, tackling piracy and DRM. On that note he also argued that PC game piracy is actually in decline as new business models make it less viable or at least less attractive, even though the past few weeks have been marred by more than a couple of high profile game leaks.