If the sibilant naysaying pundits have got to you, you’re probably under the illusion that PC gaming is dead. Long live the console! Halo is the best FPS ever made! Comfy couch gaming 4 evah! Well, Nvidia and DFC Intelligence have news for you: PC gaming isn’t dead; and in fact, PC gaming is actually growing — and console gaming is shrinking.
For the last couple of years, the revenue from console video game sales has stagnated at around $23 billion per year. PC game sales, on the other hand, have grown from $13 billion to $18 billion over the past two years. DFC, a market research firm, expects console game sales to stagnate or shrink slightly, while the PC sector will continue to grow. By 2014, DFC predicts that PC game revenue will outsell console game revenue.
Now there are a lot of variables at stake here — most notably, the current generation of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony consoles are reaching retirement age — but it’s impossible to deny that PC gaming is growing. Now that we have that out of the way we can move onto an even better question: why is PC gaming not dead?
The simple answer is social gaming and micro-transactions. If you look at the graph below, digital sales already make up 80% of all PC game revenue, and by 2015 packaged, meatspace games will account for just 10% of the market, or $2 billion out of $23 billion. Unfortunately DFC’s data doesn’t break down digital sales into categories, but it’s safe to assume that Steam, Origin, and other digital distribution platforms make up a large portion of the sales — and the rest will be accounted for by social games companies. Zynga, for example, made $600 million in 2010 — about 5% of the PC game market! — and all of that stems from people buying special tractors in FarmVille and beautiful condos in CityVille.
PC gaming certainly isn’t dead, then — but perhaps the archetypal PC gamer is. While PC gaming used to be defined by the t-shirted, hairy, moobed, hunched-over-a-keyboard-nose-three-inches-from-the-screen FPSer, the PC gamer of tomorrow will wear a dressing gown, be equipped with real boobs, and poke away at her farm in between making breakfast for the kids and driving them to school.
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I think PC gaming was never dead to begin with since there are always people playing PC games, and enjoying them, so to them PC gaming was not dead since they still had games to play, and buy to play on their PC.
There are also games which are sold, but don't get tracked because the company selling their games sold it on their own website like MineCraft, so no one knows how much he sells except for himself if he did not release his earnings to the public. Many Open Source Free PC games are also donation based, so their donation funds also don't get tracked.
Maple Story, Gaia, and many other MMO free to play, micro-transaction sites also don't actively share their profits with a lot of people.
