14 DAY TRIAL // Gaming industry analysts and critics have been stating for some time now that PC gaming would get slower and slower and people start to migrate to consoles for their gaming needs. Although PC gaming is still going strong, publishers are getting more and more hesitant to bringing their games to this platform.
Most of the times, they cite the heavy piracy movements which have been troubling the PC for a long time, but others even went so far to say that the PC isn't a competitive platform in terms of hardware. These statements were met with hostility by the PC Gaming Alliance, a group of hardware and software manufacturers like Intel, AMD-ATI, Nvidia or Activision, that militates for console exclusive titles to be brought to the PC.
Recently, DFC Intelligence, a very experienced market researcher, has come up with some interesting numbers which might make the PC platform look more and more profitable for game developers and publishers. The study revealed that online distribution, such as Valve's Steam program, is more and more adopted by PC gamers who tend to use such programs instead of going to the retail store and buying regular copies of games.
“The PC has moved much faster to online and digital distribution methods that they aren’t tracking. For example, by 2010 we expect the PC userbase in Asia will begin to outpace that in North America or Europe,” said Wanda Meloni, president and senior technology analyst of DFC Intelligence.
She added that the PC gaming market would be worth an estimated 6.5 billion dollars this year, with genres such as MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) or casual games occupying a very large portion of the market. MMORPGs are making about 3.5 billion dollars this year alone and the trend is predicted to keep ascending over the following years.
It does make a lot of sense: PC gamers find it easier to just order games online via content distribution networks and not waste time by going to the store just so they can have another game disc in their collection.