Joel Durnham of extremetech.com informs that in a panel discussion at the Game Developer's Conference 2007, the idea of PC game viability was discussed by a quintet of industry folks that include: Xbox Live Arcade's David Edery, Electronic Arts' Richard Hilleman, Firaxis' Soren Johnson, Epic Games' Michael Capps, and Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avallone.

As well as the usual PC gaming competing with console gaming debate that's been ongoing for years now, the effect of piracy on the PC gaming market was discussed. Capps in particular notes that PC Gaming is really falling apart and even though it "killed" them to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, Epic had to do it.

The reason for going multiplatform, of course, is piracy. Big AAA titles usually get stolen and, as Capps says, the market that would buy a US$ 600 video card also knows how BitTorrent works.

The future of gaming on the PC so far looks like it is set to be dominated by "casual" games and MMOs. Of course there's nothing casual about most casual games since the average Chuzzle/Zuma addict plays for 24 hours a week. MMOs are notable since they can't be pirated - unless of course you steal the source code and run your own illegal server. However, those things are easier to monitor than burned CDs.

They also covered the fact that user-generated game content could be big for the PC since console manufacturers try to wield more control over their products.

They end the discussion by noting that even though things look grim, AAA titles might never die on the PC, and that trends are ultimately hard to predict.

Oh well, so much for the good old days.