PC Gaming Will Have Its Own Event At E3 2015

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

One of the things you'll see at the E3 gaming convention in June is that many game demos provided for attendees to evaluate are typically running on a PC. In fact, at E3 2014, most of the games seemed to be running on Alienware gaming desktops, but offer Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers. Sure, support for PC games is mentioned in most game pitches, but you can't help but feel that the consoles take center stage at the event.

That's about to change. PC Gamer magazine and AMD have banded together to provide a special event focused solely on PC gaming. Dubbed as the PC Gaming Show, the event will take place on Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles and hosted by Sean 'Day[9]' Plott. Scheduled individuals and companies expected to attend include Blizzard Entertainment, Cloud Imperium Games and Cliff Bleszinski of Boss Key Productions.

So why, after all these years, is PC gaming finally getting its own spotlight? Many in the industry believe that this is the golden age of PC gaming. However, some may disagree, saying that the golden age was back in the 1990s. Regardless, the PC gaming industry is seeing a huge boom again thanks to several factors, including free-to-play, crowd sourcing, and cheaper, more powerful hardware.

"This is an incredible time for PC gaming, with more powerful and affordable hardware than ever before, thousands of games available through Steam, Origin and other platforms, and millions of viewers regularly watching esports events," according to the press release. "The PC Gaming Show is a call to the PC community to come together to celebrate this era, and the innovations that lie ahead."

The PC Gaming Show will begin at 5pm and will be streamed live thanks to Twitch until 8pm. Even Humble Bundle will be in attendance along with Square Enix, Obsidian Entertainment, Paradox Interactive and more. Sponsors include Bohemia Interactive, Tripwire Interactive and Digital Storm.

Given that the show is currently taking reservations from the press, this event is presumably not open to the public. The show will follow press events held by Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts that will be held on the day before, Monday, June 15.

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Kevin Parrish
20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • seven2k
    sweet!!
    Reply
  • atavax
    awesome line up though, love Sean Plott, and Cliff Bleszinski. And then with Blizzard and Cloud Imperium, you actually have some PC focused devs.

    As for golden age; I don't know, Quake, Quake 3, Counter Strike, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament all in late 90s. I don't think there is any modern games to compare in either the RTS or FPS genres to those behemoths. For now i still think late 90s was the golden age. But prove me wrong game devs!
    Reply
  • MrGulio
    "Many in the industry believe that this is the golden age of PC gaming. However, some may disagree, saying that the golden age was back in the 1990s."

    The argument seems pedantic, how about we just say that PC gaming is great right now and try to keep it that way.
    Reply
  • skit75
    It is a pretty sweet time to be a 1080p PC gamer. Hardware is available and cheap enough to pull up budget gamers into the performance/enthusiast class. 24" 1080p monitors under $200, Sub $300 GPU's that max out 1920x1080p resolutions in Ultra setting & can prop up under performing CPU's via an API, spindle drives at an all time low.
    It is a golden age for the 1080p PC gamer.
    Reply
  • soldier44
    Been gaming at 4K since last year non stop. Finally an event focused on the master race.
    Reply
  • DavidH92
    I love PC gmaing!! I move to PC from consoles in late 2013!!
    never going back to consoles ever again!!
    Reply
  • MumblinBerk
    Excellent.
    Will be watching / reading with great interest.
    Reply
  • thor220
    awesome line up though, love Sean Plott, and Cliff Bleszinski. And then with Blizzard and Cloud Imperium, you actually have some PC focused devs.

    As for golden age; I don't know, Quake, Quake 3, Counter Strike, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament all in late 90s. I don't think there is any modern games to compare in either the RTS or FPS genres to those behemoths. For now i still think late 90s was the golden age. But prove me wrong game devs!

    Cliff is nothing more than a toolbag nowadays. I still remember him trying to justify crappy PC ports when you was working on Gear of War. He'll go anywhere and say anything if you wave a dollar in front of him nowadays, inspiration has long since expired from his brain.

    There's a new generation of PC centric companies bringing new things to gaming, seeing part of the old-guard doesn't not say PC to me.
    Reply
  • thor220
    15779123 said:
    "Many in the industry believe that this is the golden age of PC gaming. However, some may disagree, saying that the golden age was back in the 1990s."

    The argument seems pedantic, how about we just say that PC gaming is great right now and try to keep it that way.

    Agreed. It must be that certain people don't want to believe that another experience can match or exceed something they've held so dear. I don't quite thing PC gaming is at it's peak yet, I'm pretty sure it has room to grow.
    Reply
  • belardo
    $200 for a monitor and $300 for a CPU? Locally, Microcenter sells a 24" monitor for $110 and up. An i5-4570 is $200 and you can get a decent board for about $50. Throw in a $60~70 500watt PSU and a $200 ATI card and your pretty much ready to go.
    Reply