First, for folks who don't know what the ECA is can you give us a brief description of the organization and its goals?

Sure, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) is the non-profit membership organization which represents consumers of computer and video games. Think AAA, but for gamers.

Why do you think such an organization is needed for consumers of video and PC games?

The idea came to me following a board of directors meeting that we had for the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA) – the retail trade association that we ran for the prior nine years to forming ECA. I realized that developers had the IGDA, publishers the ESA and retailers the IEMA, but the most important constituents of all, consumers, were completely unrepresented.

So far do you feel the ECA has been successful in achieving its various goals?

I do. We've tackled far more in our short history than I even would have expected: Net Neutrality, Fair Use, DMCA, First Amendment... plus the affinity benefits now so heavily outweigh the cost of membership that we've essentially removed the value proposition challenge. It's something like over $300 worth of goods and services that prospective members could take advantage of.

The ECA has fought to keep laws restricting sales of certain games in various states. None of these laws have held up in court yet some lawmakers continue to advocate such measures. Will we ever see the day when these kinds of efforts will go away?

Not in the near term, that's for sure. It's too easy for opportunistic legislators to pass up. They come out looking like they're fighting "big industry" on behalf of "the children" and for family values. They get a ton of press and exposure and are not held accountable for the time and money wasted in court.

The ECA just recently joined with an effort to bring broadband Internet access to everyone in the US. Why do you think this is important for gamers and what do you think of efforts from some ISPs to try to limit the amount of downloads they can get from such services?

Universal broadband is something that we can accomplish, and with relative ease. There's business incentive, so we're not adversarial with providers. And frankly, there's no excuse for other countries to be so far ahead of us in this area. Just about every politician and economist states that the future of our country's economy relies heavily on technology... "the information age," right? If that's the case, this is nothing more than investing wisely in our future.

PC gaming seems to be moving towards a download model much like music already has. Do you feel that the future of the PC gaming industry is in downloadable titles and not in retail sales?

I think the future of PC gaming is a lot brighter than has been reported recently, to start off with. In the past ten years computers have become ubiquitous. The challenge for them remaining a packaged good is really only the size of the pipe and getting great distribution. By shrinking the size of the old PC box, the IEMA retailers and the publishers truly saved the category. I think another reduction in form factor, perhaps down to the Amaray size, is the near future.

Piracy continues to be a huge factor in the PC gaming industry. What is the ECA's view on how it can combat it?

Piracy is an extraordinarily complicated issue that spans a lot of ground. The ECA hasn't taken a formal position as yet, but we are putting together a panel discussion at PAX this month on the subject – pulling together some of the brightest minds on all sides of the issue. That said, I'm not sure that there isn't a lot of gray area where consumers and the trade can find common ground. If there was an ECA equivalent in the music business, I'm sure that the RIAA would have a very different relationship with its consumers.

Some gamers fear that publishers will try to put in too much copyright protection for PC games to fight piracy. What is the ECA's viewpoint on this issue?

We've seen recent examples of gamers being vocal and changing the course of history. And that's really the bottom line with consumer rights. The industry exists to make a profit, pure and simple. They don't want to alienate their consumers or be perceived as the bad guys, so I think there's opportunity for open discussion.

What other factors in the PC game industry do you feel need to be addressed in order for it to grow in the future?

There are clearly some chicken and egg issues that need to be addressed such as publishers moving away from the platform and hedging the bets more solidly on console development. In those regards I have a lot of reason for optimism with the arrival of the new trade consortium, the PC Gaming Alliance. I believe that they're headed in the right direction. Do they have some challenges? Absolutely. But they have an equal measure of opportunity as well.

Finally is there anything else you wish to say about the ECA and about PC gaming in general?

As I said in a recent guest column I did for The Escapist, I think that the future of the business is going to be gaming on a lot of devices. PC gaming may be the first to evolve in that way with more and more data being "in the cloud." If it's possible to move the device toward the dumb terminal end of the spectrum and have the heavy lifting done by the net, you'll see a resurgence in a huge way. ECA stands ready to work with the industry and help in any way that we can. We have a symbiotic relationship as consumers.