Even if Bioshock sold 2 millions it would account for only $100M.
In fact I think the offline PC game market is less dominated by blockbusters than X360/PS3.

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.

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.

I find it hard to believe those titles make up as much as 12% honestly =P  CoD4 and OB did well certainly but it would take 10m copies of those two games on PC alone to hit ~5% of the overall market.  WoW probably makes up the rest of that 12%.

When I was tracking German sales for a major publisher the game ranked 300 for the week on PC sold a few hundreds. It was more than N°100 on any console.

Top 10 on PC was just the tip of the iceberg because PC games continue to sale for a LONG time and the back catalogue is huge.

Also COD4, Stalker, C&C3, Supreme Commander, The Witcher, Crysis were all released in 2007 along with genre games like Trackmania United, Silent Hunter 4 and Race 07, Broken Sword 4...

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.

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.

Yep recently i bought:

R6V 15€, Heroes of Might and Magic V 15€, SWAT 4 10€, Broken Sword 3and4 5€ and 10€, Richard Burns Rally 5€

Believe me, most of these are selling fast at this price.

Why would a game not make money on 400,000 sales? That's $10- 20 million in revenue, and it would all go straight to the publisher/ developer, rather than a console manufacturer taking a cut. Stardock's games have made a mint for the company on those sort of sales figures, and any company making a game with a budget of a few million will make decent cash.