Interesting thoughts from everyone so far. And I more or less agree with everyone.

One reason why I made this thread is that for my own part I only buy digital when it comes to PC games, and like Jizz_Beard_thePirate said, is that I feel a large portion of the PC sales are actually in digital sales and not retail.

So, has there ever been any reports of sales on Steam, Origin, Gamersgate etc.? It would be really interesting to see.

That figures includes f2p games, Facebook games and so on. If AAA titles sold on PC at least close to the console games, we would see good PC versions for the games instead of the horrible ports we see today. It's just a matter of market. PC is mostly digital, what gives a larger share of the sales price to the publisher. If it sold as much or better than console games, they would do good PC versions because it would be from were their money would be coming.

And Skyrim was a bad example, since it's a very PC game (PC exclusive in the early entries on the series). Other games probably do much worse. As I said, with the effort pu on PC games (bad ports, games that simply don't have a PC version and so on), it's pretty safe to say that the sales are much, much worse than console games.

You are also forgetting that a PC game doesn't have to sell as much as the console version to be as or more profitable.
You don't have to pay the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo tax to have your games on the system, last I checked they take what, 30%? You also have to pay for releasing Patches and DLC too I think.
That probably explains why EA and Ubisoft have their own "stores" now in PC land.

Granted you also have to pay the privelage to have your games on Steam, you literally *don't* have to, Minecraft and majority of EA games have lived fine without it.

There has been a distinct shift in the way games are being developed over the last few years with more games starting to focus primarily on the PC version then releasing the downgraded console version. (I.E. Battlefield, Low settings on the Last-gen twins and only high settings for the next-gen twins, ultra and beyond for the PC.)
Just take a look at any Frostbite or CryEngine powered game...

No one knows really.

Steam doesn't release sales figures and Im willing to bet at least 75 to 85 % of all PC games are sold digitaly.

Also anyone suggesting PC game sales are small or nowhere near console sales are pretty much kidding themselves. PC gamin is exploding, all you have to do is look at Nvidia and AMD GPU sales as well as Steam accounts to see that. They are absolutely blowing up.

Depends on the game. Mass Effect 3 has 800k on PC, just over a million on PS3 and over 2 million on XBox. With digital sales its safe to assume its close to or has surpassed the PS3 version.

That's also what I'm experiencing lately. Though I'm not working at retail, but in advertising. And I get waaaaay more jobs for PC games than for console games right now. The thing is that PC has quite a few games that aren's available for consoles, you can't look only at AAA games, it's just part of the whole picture. Overall I think PC is definitely on the rise and even now it's bigger than all consoles combined. Think about it, you have an install base of what? Maybe 3 billion PCs? Console numbers are a joke against that, even if only 10 % of PC owners are actually playing games. 

There are naturally always games which sell better on a certain platform, so you'll always find examples to say "this or that is dead". 

They sell less because frankly most games are crap for PC players. You buy Skyrim and get a terrible port which you then play at 120 fps +. That is a poor investment which is why everyone holds off until you can buy it for £5 from a Steam sale. After a Steam sale you would see sales match or surpass consoles with ease.

Though look at WoW. at its peak it had 10+ Million people paying £7 a month for years. That tops consoles for money made any day.

I am pretty sure World of WarCraft is the *most* profitable game ever made.

The origional game also sold 14 million units, expansions combined should be around 30 million units.

Lots of zero's would be in that figure.

Basically...
1) Most profitable game ever? World of WarCraft. - PC.
2) Most popular AAA game in terms of player counts? League of Legends. - PC.
3) Most expensive game ever made? - StarWars Knights of the Old Republic. - $200 million for just the development and not advertising, edges out GTA V. - PC.
4) Worlds largest game store outside of mobile? Steam. - PC.

It's not a *tiny* market.

I havent bought a physical PC game copy in 5 years now, not many have I think. There's tons of online retailers that just offer you a better price. Especially many cd-key services.

CD-keys counts as physical...

Many people getting offtopic here.