Considering the PC gaming industry started out the year with 10 million World of Warcraft subscribers under its belt, is anyone shocked to find out that the PC has been called the "most lucrative platform" of 2008? In a study paid for by the PC Gaming Alliance -- a "non-profit industry alliance" made up of members of various companies, including Activision and Microsoft -- PC gaming in 2008 apparently brought in over $11 billion in revenue.
The study itself was conducted by DFC Intelligence, a market research company specializing in the game industry, and reached some interesting conclusions. According to the study, expanded broadband penetration and adoption of digital download services (like Steam by Valve) lead the way for the PC gaming market's growth in 2008, as well as "the growing presence of game cards at major retailers like 7-Eleven." Unsurprisingly, the study also found that MMOGs are "the leading products for both revenue and profits," citing WoW as 9% (or $1 billion) of the entire PC gaming market's revenues last year.
We'll take this report, compounded by the NPD report that retails sales of PC games in 2008 dropped by 14 percent, as solid evidence that PC gamers are the first to take major steps towards exclusively downloadable games.
[Via Edge]
Reader Comments (52)
Posted: Mar 26th 2009 1:20AM edit said
True, of course. I had fun writing my post though :p
I used to be a forum junkie on a couple of corners of the net, so I'm well versed in its ways. I miss writing long posts that most people don't read though so I felt like having a little bash for old-time sake.
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I used to be a forum junkie on a couple of corners of the net, so I'm well versed in its ways. I miss writing long posts that most people don't read though so I felt like having a little bash for old-time sake.
Posted: Mar 26th 2009 7:18AM PoisonedAl said
I believe the PC is staging a comeback. The biggest problem is piracy and overzealous suites using system breaking DRM to try to combat it. Systems like Steam fixes all this. Also, thanks to Microsoft trying to shove Vista down our throats by making DirectX 10 exclusive, and loads of people telling Microsoft to go eat a dick, means that developers can't just make games for bleeding edge machine any more. Having to make games work on older rigs, means need to upgrade your machine every other week is gone.




