Intel Director of Gaming Randy Stude is the PCGA's standing president. We caught up with him to clarify the PCGA's initiatives and see if we could debunk any ongoing myths.

(This is Part Three. Parts , , Four, and Five.)

Game On: Restricting ourselves to domestic figures, p said in January that retail PC game sales totaled around [US]$701 million in 2008, down 14 points off 2007. You've implied repeatedly that NPD's focus on retail without online context is misleading. Isn't that actually understating the issue? For instance, according to your own research, which includes online estimates, the North American PC games market in 2007 was over half of all hardware and software gaming revenue.

Randy Stude: I think having met with NPD repeatedly, I've come out with a very strong stance against their research in the past, even within Intel where I hang my hat every day. I try to recommend that we take a good long look at what it is that we buy in terms of research, and is it meeting the objectives that we need it to.

NPD is on the whole, they're in existence to measure retail sales. That's their job. That is where they make the majority of their money. They sell that research to companies like Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo. They sell that research to electronics manufacturers and anybody else who wants their retail sales figures tracked. You can get up to the minute research from them depending on the level of investment that you make in their research tools. So it's a very, very important tool for people who are reliant on retail.