Great PC Gaming/Console Gaming Editorial by Brett Thomas (Bit-Tech)

[BenKenobi88]

Garcian Smith said:

This article is horribly misleading. It basically says, "this study left out this and this, so PC games MUST be doing better than people say!!" Which is, of course, a fallacy.

First, the impact of downloadable games on software revene seems to always be grossly overstated by PC boosters. In 2006, the revenue from full downloadable games was a paltry 0.4% of global games revenue. (Source: http://www.developmag.com/interviews/101/Developments-next-top-models-Part-2 ) Even assuming a tremendously unbelievable growth rate in 2007 (say, 100%, with all factors remaining the same, which is highly unlikely), that still means only 0.8% of game revenue came from downloadable full games. Now, assuming that "14% of game sales" = "14% of game revenue," that puts the PC at a whole 14.8% when including that percentage.

As for casual games... well, the study doesn't seem to mention whether or not they were included, but the article writer seems to think that they weren't for some odd reason. But, let's give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, baseless as that assumption may be. From the same article, it appears that casual PC games brought in about 3.2% of global game revenue in 2006. Assuming the same astronomical, pie-in-the-sky growth rate of 100% for '07, with all factors remaining the same, that puts casual PC games at 6.4% of revenue. Add that to our above percentage, and we get 21.2% - barely over a fifth of game revenue. And, again, that's assuming an unrealistically high growth rate and that all of the article writer's baseless assumptions are true.

And, of course, casual games don't exactly help the PC garner big-name exclusives. Why, just consider the top 10 best-selling PC games of 2007:

1. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Vivendi) - 2.25 million
2. World Of Warcraft (Vivendi) - 914,000
3. The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 433,000
4. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts) - 343,000
6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Electronic Arts) - 284,000
7. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 281,000
8. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 271,000
9. Age Of Empires III (Microsoft) - 259,000
10. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 236,000

Take out anything with "Warcraft" or "Sim" in the name, and you're left with CoD4 (which had much higher sales on consoles), C&C3 (which had about equal sales on the 360), and Age of Empires 3 (which was released - what, 2-3 years ago?). People also overwhelmingly bought other big-name cross-platform titles (Bioshock, Orange Box) on consoles, as opposed to PCs. In addition, the PC's most touted big-name exclusives - The Witcher, Crysis, and so on - barely made 100k in sales, if that. Even if you count digital distribution, which, according to the numbers I worked out above, accounts for maybe 3-4% of PC game sales revenue.

PC gaming is dying. Just look at '08. Aside from Starcraft 2, what else with a big name is being released? A whole lot of nothing.

the hell...?

Did you even read the article? Did you comprehend how important digital distribution sales are (there are a lot, and they are constantly increasing), or casual games, not like Sims the retail game, but casual downloadable games?

It suggests you shouldn't just count the cardboard box sales in big stores...yet that's all you threw out there.

And way to cut and paste from a previous thread...it OBVIOUSLY does not apply here.

And Starcraft 2? I don't even care about that.

How about Fallout 3? Left 4 Dead? Spore? These are some of the biggest PC developments in a long time.