Report: PC Gaming On The Rise

[TheMailMan78]

This may not be a surprise to the PC enthusiast community but, the PC gaming market has never been healthier, according to a report from the not-for-profit consortium PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA). The report claims that in 2011, the industry reached a global record $18.6 billion, a growth of 15 percent over the prior year. The report cites burgeoning foreign markets and social games as large factors in the findings. The results of the PCGA's third annual "Horizons" research report found that China is growing at almost twice the rate of the global market, bringing in $6 billion for a total growth of 27 percent. The US, UK, Korea, Japan, and Germany saw increased revenue of 11%, by comparison. Asian companies, in general, are noted for spurring on sales in their markets.

The report also cites Zynga and Nexon (of MapleStory fame) as frontrunners in the PC space. Zynga in particular doubled its revenue to roughly $1.1 billion, putting it on-par with Nexon. Zynga and the German company Bigpoint were noted for pushing the free-to-play model, already popular in Asian territories, into North America and Europe. The report also notes the movers and shakers of big-budget PC games from the western market, like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Rift, along with multiplatform titles like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Looking forward, the report speculates that the industry will grow to $25.5 billion (37 percent increase) by 2015, thanks to increased broadband penetration and digital delivery. The report is from a PC gaming coalition with a vested interest in trumpeting the industry's health, but even so, the rumors of PC's death have greatly exaggerated.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[TheMailMan78]

This news is much to BumbleBee dismay. "But, but consoles are so much more 1337!" We have a term in PC land BumbleBee . OWNED. lol j/k

 

[BumbleBee]

Mailman the industry as a whole is worth $65 billion.. how much do you think the console side of things takes up on the pie chart lol and who cares about Korea

 

[Benetanegia]

Mailman the industry as a whole is worth $65 billion.. how much do you think the console side of things takes up on the pie chart lol and who cares about Korea

Yeah but that includes all the consoles and PC. As a platform it seems the PC is far larger than any other one. I mean PC is almost 1/3 rd with the other 2/3 rd split between XB360, Wii, PS3, Nintendo DS, PSP, etc, etc. So why are we the ones getting shafted again??

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

id like to know how many of them games steam sold , I bet they have done more then their fare share of that increase.

 

[TRWOV]

I've personally switched to PC gaming... and I must thank consoles for that.

A $500 PC (excluding monitor and peripherals) is enough to play 99% of games nowadays because the consoles are the base platform and thus the games must be pretty optimized for that. Granted, that often lead to lazy PC ports that don't take advantage of the platform strengths but, overall, PC gaming has never been this affordable, IMO.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I've personally switched to PC gaming... and I must thank consoles for that.

Hmm might be time to swap out my sig quote!

 

[Syborfical]

On the rise?

Pitty games are becomming less and less fun.

Most games now days are reguritated crap.... that comes out once a year.

RTS which use to be the reason PC gaming was still going so well is so close to dead.
The last semi decent RTS was starcraft2? .... Can someone name and RTS for the PC release after 2009 that is good to play?

 

[Benetanegia]

On the rise?

Pitty games are becomming less and less fun.

Most games now days are reguritated crap.... that comes out once a year.

RTS which use to be the reason PC gaming was still going so well is so close to dead.
The last semi decent RTS was starcraft2? .... Can someone name and RTS for the PC release after 2009 that is good to play?

Shogun 2, Warhammer series, Anno 2070...

 

[TheMailMan78]

Mailman the industry as a whole is worth $65 billion.. how much do you think the console side of things takes up on the pie chart lol and who cares about Korea

I'm gonna say at least $20 billion is PC.

 

[Scheich]

There are more and more young players with a Pc these days, its doesnt take any effort to milk the old stuff a couple of billion times over and over again or even better unfinished beta versions, where they stop at 60%, add nothing new, of course and laugh when you bought it after some lying idiots from "gaming mags" shittalked you into buying it.

 

[Arctucas]

All I see is the amount of money spent has risen.

How does that translate into number of gamers or number of games sold?

 

[BumbleBee]

it doesn't. the take away is the free to play business model in Asia is generating a lot of revenue.

 

[Fx]

On the rise?

Pitty games are becomming less and less fun.

Most games now days are reguritated crap.... that comes out once a year.

RTS which use to be the reason PC gaming was still going so well is so close to dead.
The last semi decent RTS was starcraft2? .... Can someone name and RTS for the PC release after 2009 that is good to play?

no doubt. also, why the hell did they drop the ball and not create a Warcraft 4?

 

[TRWOV]

All I see is the amount of money spent has risen.

How does that translate into number of gamers or number of games sold?

Well, the thing is that "PC gaming" goes from Popcap to BF3 so in terms of AAA titles the answer might be "not a lot".

 

[Soylent Joe]

I think it's mainly because all of the consoles are really starting to show their age. Once the PS4 and X720 come out we'll go into the shitter once again.

 

[Super XP]

PC gaming is 10x more powerful than consoles. PC games software should overtake combined console game sales by 2014. This is the reason why both PS4 & The new XBOX is scheduled for 2014 release.

I am personally getting real sick of the ports from consoles to PC.

 

[BumbleBee]

the reason next-gen consoles haven't shown up yet is because the sales are so strong. it doesn't make any sense for Microsoft or Sony to announce new consoles when they keep selling. why ruin a good thing?

consumers know the PC has 10x more power and how great a service Steam is. people don't care!

 

[Rowsol]

broadband penetration

Is this... nerd porn?

 

[Syborfical]

Shogun 2, Warhammer series, Anno 2070...

Shogun 2 -Isn't to bad.

War hammer- Not really RTs its more strategy and tactics than True RTS.

Anno2070 is closer to sim city than RTS.


CNC3 and supreme commander now that where good games back in 2006- 2007 since then RTS has pretty much died ....

And what happened to LAN support? Why do no games include it anymore ?

 

[BumbleBee]

Warhammer is awesome!

 

[Goodman]

If PC gaming ever to come obsolete , i just hope it will be only after i am gone in about ~40-45 years from now
Yeah! , i intend to live & game for a long , long time & long live the PC gaming!

 

[Benetanegia]

Shogun 2 -Isn't to bad.

War hammer- Not really RTs its more strategy and tactics than True RTS.

Anno2070 is closer to sim city than RTS.


CNC3 and supreme commander now that where good games back in 2006- 2007 since then RTS has pretty much died ....

And what happened to LAN support? Why do no games include it anymore ?

I'm not really sure what "true RTS" means to you, but it's Real Time Strategy, so as long as its main element is strategy and it's not turn based, then it's RTS. Yeah some have slightly different mechanics and some have a bit of RPG elements, but they are RTS none the less.

Tactic and strategy are closely related to each other and both are main elements of RTS, all of them. No RTS can be won without estrategy and tactics, so again I'm not sure of your definition of RTS. Warhammer is RTS by all accounts.

I suspect that you have a very narrow view of what a (good) RTS is and that you think that anything other than the "classic" RTS formulas, like C&C, Total Anihilation or Starcraft formula is not RTS, which is completely false.

BTW you must be one of the few people that thinks that C&C3 was a very good game, so that actually tells me a lot about the issue in general. Not trying to offend or anything, but it does set a precedent on what you think it's the only posibility of a good RTS and it's something that I certainly don't agree with and judging by sales and reviews, I suspect I'm not the only one. To me it seems as if you just couldn't evolve past the original formulas, which is great if that's what you like and those games were certainly good, but they are not the only ones and according to most, not even the best ones.

 

[TheMailMan78]

it doesn't. the take away is the free to play business model in Asia is generating a lot of revenue.

Valve didn't get your memo that PC gaming is dead. You should call Gabe right away.......http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162011

 

[xenocide]

BTW you must be one of the few people that thinks that C&C3 was a very good game, so that actually tells me a lot about the issue in general. Not trying to offend or anything, but it does set a precedent on what you think it's the only posibility of a good RTS and it's something that I certainly don't agree with and judging by sales and reviews, I suspect I'm not the only one. To me it seems as if you just couldn't evolve past the original formulas, which is great if that's what you like and those games were certainly good, but they are not the only ones and according to most, not even the best ones.

All C&C games after Tiberian Sun were garbage. I bought CNC3 at launch since they hyped it as a renewal of the series, and was horribly disappointed. I think I played it for a total of 1 hour before I never touched it again. RTS games just don't have a huge following. Outside of SC and WC games, not many series can reliably provide quality experiences. There's plenty of Strategy games in general, everything from TD style games, MOBA's, to Turn-Based Civilization games.

It really seems like everything has just kind of merged into FPS or Third-Person Shooters. Games that were previously Tactical Strategy games are being rebooted as FPS's. I think with the announcement of a new SimCity they are finally starting to get back into offering a wide array of games from different genres. There are only so many FPS games a person is willing to buy. I'd love to see a new Black and White, or a solid Command and Conquer, or hell, a new Dune game would be amazing. It's just very unlikely.