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twesterm on 19 August 2008
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shio said:
twesterm said:

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.

The thing is, PC games keep selling for years! Fallout 1 & 2 are still selling, Diablo 2 is still selling, The Sims/Sims 2 is still selling, etc... there are also hundreds, thousands of games even, coming out every year for PC. And let's not forget the free games that use subscriptions or microtransactions and such.

Focusing on traditional retail and DD, there are so many PC titles that even if most of them only get 200k, it would still be a fair sum if you added all. Another reason is most of them don't even release DD numbers, only retail, so the real figures are never known.

Trust me PC games sell. Heck, The Sims 2: Pets sold 6 millions, and I don't even remember seeing it in any PC chart.

twesterm said:

That $25 dollar average is a little misleading.  I bet if you look at all the games you put in there they added those $5-10 games that nobody actually buys but still gets counted into the average anyways.

Actually $25 was the average PC game sold on retail, according to NPD. PC games drop their price incredibly fast, and many of them are actually released at only $20-$40.

 

Yeah, but lets say on average PC games sell 200k, hell, lets say they sell 400k.  Add all those up and that is a lot of money being spent on PC games but that doesn't mean they're making money.  If a PC only game only sells 400k it is going to lose money and if it's a PC/console game then it's going to sell significally less.  That's just how it works.

I'm not denying that PC is a viable platform that has has good games, I'm just saying it's silly to think it's bigger than any of the three consoles (well, at least 360 and Wii, I don't know about the PS3).

-edit-

And you also cant forget the reason PC is going to be in a distant last place for a long time is because it's complicated.  If I have a 360 I can play any 360 game.  If I have a PS3 I can play any PS3 games.  If I have a Wii I can play any Wii game.  If I have a PC I cannot play any PC game.

I'm not talking about cost, that's another beast, I'm just talking about the fact I have a PC and I have to know something about my PC to know if I can play that game.  The hardcore gamer that buys the $2000+ PC knows this stuff, most people don't or know they don't and don't want to go through the trouble of upgrading.