PC gaming is bigger than ever - and likely bigger than Wii+PS3+360 in 2007

[twesterm]

shio said:

twesterm said:

It would be nice to know how much of that is WoW based considering Burning Crusade came out last year.

I have a funny feeling if you look where all that money came from in the non-casual crowd it is probably just these games:

• WoW (and the expansions)
• Half-Life 2/The Orange Box
• Bioshock

There are others but I'm guessing those are the biggens that account for most of that.  Three games does not equal a huge rise.

What would you qualify as casual? MMOs certainly aren't, and those are worth billions. If we were to remove casual, we would also need to remove Wii sports, Guitar Hero, etc... from consoles.

Now, about your doubt:

• World of Warcraft made $1.1 billion in 2007
• Orange Box maybe sold around 1.5 millions in 2007
• Bioshock, last we heard, sold over 1 million copies, so let's peg it at 1 million for 2007

$1.1 billion + 1.5 x $50 + 1 x $50 = 1.225 billion. That's only 12% of the total pie.

 

On a more interesting note, let's roughly estimate how many PC games were sold last year:

• $3.2 billions were made on retail
• $2 billions were made through digital distribution

According to NPD, the average PC game was around $25 on retail if I remember correctly, but then the games are more expensive in Europe, but then DD games are cheaper, etc.... If I put the average game at $30, then it means 156 millions PC games were sold last year... not bad at all. If put I it at $25, then it's 208 millions in 2007...

 

I actually have nothing against casual, I just wasn't adding in that group because I don't know what the big casual PC games are other than Peggle and the Sims and it didn't account for a huge amount of the profits.

And if those three titles are really only 12% (still find that hard to believe, especially if you look at the Orange Box components individually) then what are the other big PC sellers?  There really shouldn't be that many of them.