Wednesday, March 7th 2012
Report: PC Gaming On The Rise
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.
Source:
Shacknews
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.
53 Comments on Report: PC Gaming On The Rise
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.
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?
How does that translate into number of gamers or number of games sold?
I am personally getting real sick of the ports from consoles to PC.
consumers know the PC has 10x more power and how great a service Steam is. people don't care!
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 ?
Yeah! , i intend to live & game for a long , long time & long live the PC gaming! :rockout:
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.
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.
And if people know but just "don't care" as you say last then they are ignorant fools allowing themselves to be force-fed a subpar experience.