Editing Multimedia PC (section)

==Background and reception==
CD-ROM drives were just coming to market in 1990, and it was difficult to concisely communicate to a consumer all the hardware requirements for using "multimedia software", which mostly meant "displaying video synced with audio on a PC via a CD-ROM drive". The MPC standard was supposed to communicate this concisely, so a consumer buying hardware or software could simply look for the MPC logo and be assured of compatibility.

The MPC program had mixed results primarily because of the vast number of PCs sold under different brands, and once [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] became ubiquitous on PCs, specifying minimum or recommended Windows versions and features was often clearer to consumers than the MPC nomenclature. As the standardized term failed to catch on, and as the [[Software Publishers Association]] turned away from consumer software in the late 1990s, interest in the MPC standard vanished. The problem of software labeling continues, especially in the field of [[PC game|computer games]], where a multitude of [[3D computer graphics|3D]] [[video card]]s has been manufactured with an extremely wide range of capabilities, and no common industry labeling standard to let consumers know whether their card is powerful enough to run a particular game.

No further specification beyond MPC Level 3 in 1996 was published; the Multimedia PC Marketing Council dissolved not too long afterward.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grant |first=Lee |date=May 2022 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2638291236/ |title=The family believed they had bought a new gaming PC. I was the one to decipher the truth |journal=PC Pro |publisher=Dennis Publishing |issue=331 |pages=114–115 |via=ProQuest}}</ref>