Pc gaming -A $25 billion industry

Linky

A few points that stand out

.DFC has now raised its internal forecast for the global PC gaming market this year from $22 billion to $25 billion

.DFC analyst Jeremy Miller said that "core gamers seem to be willing to spend more money than ever." While Asia remains a big contributor to the market, interestingly DFC found that core PC gameplay in the West increased in 2013 versus 2012

.The big surprise is that an upfront payment business model still seems to do very well

.Also the traditional model where you charge a one-time fee is also very attractive

.Also MMO's are declining ( where are the people who keep saying all pc has are MMO's ?)

Did you hear that? Shit, consolites are coming.

They are coming! GET TO THE CHOPPA!

PC has the most high scoring games, sales, genres, and population.

This is a simple reason why? MORE GAMES. Number of PC games released is like 4 or 5:1 versus game consoles. For example that XBox 360 and PS3 has a combined total games of about 2200 for 8 years. PC probably has closer to 12,000 games in that time period. About 1/2 of these games never even see a gaming website and even less get a review.

Not too surprised at the growth, when you take into account the following fact:

China 2013 Video Game Market Grows 38% to $13.73 Billion

And out of that market, at least $11 billion came from just PC gaming.

True but people also thought that pc in western markets ( aka western europe and NA ) was in decline and its actually the opposite so the growth is not only due to emerging markets ( China, Russia mainly )

How much of that money consists of scummy F2P practices? :x

A big part. and why they are scummy again ?

Also

.The big surprise is that an upfront payment business model still seems to do very well

"DFC said that new versions of popular sports titles like FIFA 2014 also did very well."

Moar sports titles for PC NAO

@adamosmaki: True. Mainland Asia and Eastern Europe are mostly PC-dominated markets, so PC gaming growth is to be expected in those regions. PC gaming growth in the West wasn't expected though, but when you consider the growth of online F2P/MMO/MOBA gaming, it's not too surprising.

From what I have seen/heard, this generation of consoles is starting to embrace "scummy F2P practices"... after you already paid $60 for the game.

You're welcome console gamers

IIRC, there have been a fair share of games that put free players at a disadvantage against players who invested money in the game, hence the derogatory term "Pay to win"

And there are alot of f2p games like path of exile that the only items you pay are cosmetic items

Steam and Origin don't ever released their sales numbers so I'm curious where are they getting most of their numbers from. I'm curious how much the digital distribution side of pc gaming made but unless companies like Steam releases numbers its hard to break down the pc sector.

PC gaming as in games being sold? or PC gaming as in F2P mmo's with cash shops Like League of Legends ?

all those. In fact every aspect. Games been sold ( and it sites BF4 and total war as doing great ) , F2p , kickstarter are all doing well and grew over last year. In fact the only declining apect are MMO's

Well gamespot published a recorded article on how much F2P games have earned, and it was largely in the billions. So counting all of them it might be even about 10billion or a lot more just from the F2P games. Not to down play PC gaming but just clarifying it it's not most from games like Tomb Raider or those kinds but games like Counter strike or Dragon Nest or those games that live off of Cash Shops.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-revenues-for-2013-total-624-million-update/1100-6417224/

If we remove the F2P games and have a different profit report just from fully purchasable games would be nice to understand where they stand in the "PC gamers only pirate games" and causes publishers not to want to produce certain games for PC and just consoles.

How much are you will to bet 23 1/2 billion are from Micro-transactions and Face book games? Steam picks up the rest. Hermits are beyond retarded when it comes to this even more so than usual.

Trying to use 25 billion to show how 'Great" PC gaming is is like using the total auto industry to show how great GM is doing or total Console market to show how great Nintendo is doing.

Sorry but a lot of those sales aren't going to where you're implying they're going and until publishers show sales records on what % sold to what hermits have no argument especially since when ever those numbers are brought up they use the steam argument.

I'm willing to suspect game sales for AAA multiplats do far better on consoles, why else would everyone want a piece of the little console pie not to mention PCs lose exclusives like they're going out of style and usually get ports last as almost an after thought after the publisher has made their money.

@Shielder7:

So assumption? The article didn't even mention anything about facebook games.

Yeah I wonder why that is........ It's funny whenever someone tries to compare % sales for a certain game you get some brain dead hermit taking a hissy fit that you can't go by those because Steam doesn't release numbers totally neglecting the fact it's their beloved Steam causing the problem.

@Shielder7:

You do realize analyst can get information from game publishers and there one of the reason why Steam doesn't just release sales number for every game sold on it.

@Joedgabe:

And don't you have to buy Counterstrike

The article doesn't mention a lot of things, but Facebook games are PC games. Am I to assume you're assuming the article isn't taking Facebook games into account? And if so why not?

Cool show me the numbers than. Lets take a few new titles say Ghosts and AC Black flag. Show me the PC sales vs consoles. And than we can discuss them.

@Shielder7:

No I'm not assuming the article isn't taking facebook games but they never mention anything about it yet your claiming facebook make up a large portion of the 25 billion.

I'm very happy with that. I really don't want to see F2P and microtransactions become the future. Don't get me wrong, some F2P games are really nice, but a lot of them are just nickle and diming people that really love the game. Those people end up paying way more than if they had just paid 50-60 up front.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theesa.com%2Ffacts%2Fpdfs%2Fesa_ef_2013.pdf&ei=FgvsUsiaEMi80QWBxoDYDQ&usg=AFQjCNHg5x66O2wJhixe6RFBGHn3notd9g&sig2=Op4TRXMLplqzsQg380Qg_g

Then why does this report say that the entire gaming industry is $20billion? Thats including both console and pc. And if you look at the other categories, pc gets destroyed by consoles.

You missed a real big one.

"We actually think the launch of the new console systems will help lift the PC game business because there is large overlap between console and PC gamers"

David Cole

Hermits

@Shielder7:

Pointless when a publisher can easily decline to give out information

@xboxdone74:

Your link doesn't even work

That link doesn't seem to go anywhere

Well facebook games are on PC so I don't know why they wouldn't be a part of that number.... My assumption has a more basis.

Than Why the %$#$ did you bring it up?

Stupid Hermit: What are you talking about you can get those numbers.

Consoler: Ok get them

Stupid Hermit: What are you talking about you can't get those numbers.

Consoler:.................................

@Shielder7:

Steam more active users than xbl and more concurrent people online than any console.

A basic when you no idea if facebook games are counted and if that's the case flash games would be conside pc games

I didn't say you can get every single sales numbers

So I'm on Steam right now my labtop automatically logs in proves nothing. Show me the numbers or shut up.

@Shielder7:

Facebook games were reported to have made 1.5 billion dollars in 2013

http://games.on.net/2013/11/facebook-games-revenue-up-18/

based on that even if accounted for those number it still doesn't make up most of that 25 billion or even a chunk of it.

@CroidX:

It's a pdf from the Entertainment Software Association.

Google: 2013 esa report

Should be the first link

Impressive numbers.

@Shielder7:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-reaches-7-6-million-concurrent-users/1100-6416858/

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/steam-rises-again-to-75-million-active-users-1215529

Big deal my steam does't log me on when I turn on my computer.

Not the numbers I was referring to, sales numbers not I just turned on my PC so Steam came on as well. Hell even I have a steam account.

So what? Does it automatically log you online when you turn on the computer?

What's disapointing is that so little of that translates into exclusive games I'm interested in. I gamed almost exclusively on PC in 2013 (except GTA V and TLOU), but I only bought one PC exclusive (Antichamber). The rest of the games were multiplats that I suspect are primarily getting their income from consoles (DmC, Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed 4 and so on).

Even though PC-gaming is a massive industry I still feel like the console market is what brings in the dough to make the sort of gaming I like possible.

For those who talk about facebook games: Need I remind you that facebook games are also played by mobile users?

Facebook games can be played on tablets and cellphones if you didn't know

1.5 billion dollars for face book

Gamespot published a recorded article on how much F2P games have earned it was in the Billions (someone said it was like 10)

Not to mention Micro-transactions (which are more like Jumbo-Transactions now) Who knows if they include Android or Kick starter and there's probably a dozen other areas I'm forgetting because this "Blog" has NO SOURCES as far as I can tell, I spent a good 10 mins looking and haven't found anything.

He could of pulled 25 billion out of his ass and from the sound of XboxDone74 he did.

Who's to say he's not using those in his numbers because for the life of me I can't find a Source, and untill I do this amounts to nothing more than a random blog.

@Shielder7:

http://www.gamesindustry.com/facebook-report-213-million-social-gaming-revenues/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57592957-93/forget-zynga-facebooks-games-business-stronger-than-ever/

Most of this is from casual bejewel games and MMO's. For actual hardcore core, core games, console gamers are the ones who actually drop the pennys. Statistics have shown 95% of people playing Ubisoft titles stole them.

Valve's definition of an active user1) User must have purchased something ever2) Have logged in within the last 30 days

So yeah not anyone that creates an account without purchasing something will count