Industry Stays Flat For November But PC Skyrockets

[TheComfyChair]

The horrible UI.

It's not as bad as oblivion, at least it's the right size now.

Plus there was a UI mod after a day.

Oblivion let you sort your stuff. Skyrim does not. I don't think it's better than Oblivion's UI (which wasn't as good as Morrowinds UI).

Mods don't count.

Mods count quite a lot actually.

Hence why any game with a console and mod support get's a free pass for small issues with things like UI, because they are instantly fixed.

Mods don't count when we are talking about Bethesda porting the game poorly to PC. Which we are!

The UI wasn't badly ported it's just not ideal for a mouse. Badly ported would it not working with a mouse at all.

The rest of the game is fine. Works vastly better than the 360

If the mouse worked at all, it's not a bad port. Of course, your OPINION of what qualifies as a bad port is all that matters.

LOL whatever.

Pretty much, since everything is a 'bad port' nowadays if you believe people like you You have to know what's actually 'bad'. It's all subjective, of course, but a 'bad port' is a port in which the ported version is WORSE than the original. That has only happened with about 3 PC games, none of them AAA's.

Hell, did you know some people were calling witcher 2 a bad port? Oh, no, not at release, just the moment someone mentioned i would appear on 360 later on.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

As a PC gamer i'm going to have to agree that PC gaming isn't dead.

As a person who wants to makes sure people know the facts I can tell you that the U.S. PC gaming industry revenue has gone down by %50 in the past 10 years.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/PC_gaming

WOW has lost a million players and League of Legends is more popular.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2 has been cancelled and the developer GSC is closed.

The Witcher 2 has been pirated 4.5 million times. (and this is after Spore was the most pirated game ever at 500 thousand in 2007)

My point is while PC Gaming isn`t dead, it has been very, very diminished.

"It's important to keep in mind, however, that this NPD data concerns retail data only and does not include sales of digitally downloaded games, micro-transactions, online subscriptions (e.g. World of Warcraft), etc. The NPD Group recently started paying more attention to online revenue, but this data does not include that."

Steam, baby. Steam.

EDIT: see here -> http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/02/04/steam_revenue_nearly_hits_1_billion

Just Steam alone, 1 billion. That's not even counting all the other digital distributors and MMORPGs.

Diminished my ass.

Uh huh.
Keep in mind that Steam is making $1 billion worldwide, and the NDP data shown is just in the U.S. Also keep in mind that Steam is a distribution platform for multiple publishers that put their products on, not just Valve.

Even on the link you posted it shows that the $1 billion in revenues is made of how much the top 10 most popular games made. Valve doesn't tell anyone how much of a cut they make in game sales so it's really impossible to tell how much Steam make a year for Valve, but I assure you that it's not $1 billion dollars.

Which comes to my next point. Remember Crysis 2? The sequel to the PC exclusive that was popular.
http://www.destructoid.com/crysis-2-huge-success-xbox-360-dominates-sales-197396.phtml
If PC gaming isn't diminished then why did the PC version of a sequel to a PC game only make up 14% of it's sales?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Snip Image
As long as there are RTS and RPGs there will be PC gamers.

As a PC gamer i'm going to have to agree that PC gaming isn't dead.

As a person who wants to makes sure people know the facts I can tell you that the U.S. PC gaming industry revenue has gone down by %50 in the past 10 years.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/PC_gaming

WOW has lost a million players and League of Legends is more popular.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2 is in the dark and the developer GSC is uncertain of its future.

The Witcher 2 has been pirated 4.5 million times. (and this is after Spore was the most pirated game ever at 500 thousand in 2007)

My point is while PC Gaming isn`t dead, it has been very, very diminished.

If you're going to say things, and then link a source for your quotes, it would be best if the source ended up being a bad one instead of you not being able to comprehend the writing.

From your source:

It's important to keep in mind, however, that this NPD data concerns retail data only and does not include sales of digitally downloaded games, micro-transactions, online subscriptions (e.g. World of Warcraft), etc. The NPD Group recently started paying more attention to online revenue, but this data does not include that.

(Emphasis mine)

Also, there is really no way to prove how many times a game has been pirated. If there was then we'd have heard about it by now.

I just want people to know the facts.
I'm not trying to be a douche, but come on. it was written right there.

Edit: The paragraph right before it says that PC sales were 1.4B in 2005. but the table says they were 953million. I would not use this source, as all of the figures are supposedly from NDP, but only 2 of the sources are NDP.

Everyone that's argued with me seems to have the same excuse with the, "NPD doesn't count digital distribution." argument. That only works with U.S. sales. That and not everyone like the idea of having a credit or debit card linked to an online account.

There's a reason DRM exists. Not all DRM has been handled well but the reason is not unfounded. Especially when more and more of the PC market is becoming console ports.

Again I'm speaking as a PC gamer.

Also for your edit.

The paragraph right before it says that PC sales were 1.4B in 2005. but the table says they were 953million.

Yes, because if you to the time to read the following sentence:

Nonetheless, in 2005 consumers spent $1.4 billion on video games for PCs in 2005, according to research released by analysts NPD Group. Of that, $344 million came from subscriptions to online games and gaming Web sites, according to NPD's estimate.

You'd see that the $344 million was factored out to show just raw sales. And really even with that extra $344 million in online sales and subscriptions tacked on to 2005, 1998 still had higher sales on the PC. Now revenue on the PC is at under a billion without counting online sales. Also there's a different between revenue and operating income.

 

[Fat Hippo]

As a PC gamer i'm going to have to agree that PC gaming isn't dead.

As a person who wants to makes sure people know the facts I can tell you that the U.S. PC gaming industry revenue has gone down by %50 in the past 10 years.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/PC_gaming

WOW has lost a million players and League of Legends is more popular.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2 has been cancelled and the developer GSC is closed.

The Witcher 2 has been pirated 4.5 million times. (and this is after Spore was the most pirated game ever at 500 thousand in 2007)

My point is while PC Gaming isn`t dead, it has been very, very diminished.

"It's important to keep in mind, however, that this NPD data concerns retail data only and does not include sales of digitally downloaded games, micro-transactions, online subscriptions (e.g. World of Warcraft), etc. The NPD Group recently started paying more attention to online revenue, but this data does not include that."

Steam, baby. Steam.

EDIT: see here -> http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/02/04/steam_revenue_nearly_hits_1_billion

Just Steam alone, 1 billion. That's not even counting all the other digital distributors and MMORPGs.

Diminished my ass.

Uh huh.
Keep in mind that Steam is making $1 billion worldwide, and the NDP data shown is just in the U.S. Also keep in mind that Steam is a distribution platform for multiple publishers that put their products on, not just Valve.

Even on the link you posted it shows that the $1 billion in revenues is made of how much the top 10 most popular games made. Valve doesn't tell anyone how much of a cut they make in game sales so it's really impossible to tell how much Steam make a year for Valve, but I assure you that it's not $1 billion dollars.

Which comes to my next point. Remember Crysis 2? The sequel to the PC exclusive that was popular.
http://www.destructoid.com/crysis-2-huge-success-xbox-360-dominates-sales-197396.phtml
If PC gaming isn't diminished then why did the PC version of a sequel to a PC game only make up 14% of it's sales?

It doesn't matter how large Valves cut is, the point is the total revenue. Their cut is totally relevant, no one talks about large Microsofts or Sonys cut is either. And retails take a cut too; who sells it doesn't matter. The point is that many statistics don't include digital sales and MMO subscriptions, which totally falsifies a picture of the modern PC market.

And as for Crysis 2 selling less on PC: That's not surprising, the console market is much larger. But that DOESN'T mean that PC is diminished, only that it hasn't grown nearly as much as its console counterpart. We all know PC isn't the top dog anymore, like in the late 90s, but there's a difference between diminishing and not having a giant boom like other parts of the gaming sector.

No surprise there though: Gaming got mainstream, which means it has to be more accessible, which PC gaming usually isn't. I personally have no problem with where PC gaming is right now, aside from this DRM crap, which publishers will hopefully soon realize is totally pointless and stupid.

 

[Strazdas]

many good (this time actually good) games come out. Sale amount increase. wheres the news?
wii is falling down. wheres the news?
at least its nice to see some sort of industry info out here, escapist could use mroe of it.

 

[Frizzle]

Snip Image
As long as there are RTS and RPGs there will be PC gamers.

As a PC gamer i'm going to have to agree that PC gaming isn't dead.

As a person who wants to makes sure people know the facts I can tell you that the U.S. PC gaming industry revenue has gone down by %50 in the past 10 years.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/PC_gaming

WOW has lost a million players and League of Legends is more popular.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2 is in the dark and the developer GSC is uncertain of its future.

The Witcher 2 has been pirated 4.5 million times. (and this is after Spore was the most pirated game ever at 500 thousand in 2007)

My point is while PC Gaming isn`t dead, it has been very, very diminished.

If you're going to say things, and then link a source for your quotes, it would be best if the source ended up being a bad one instead of you not being able to comprehend the writing.

From your source:

It's important to keep in mind, however, that this NPD data concerns retail data only and does not include sales of digitally downloaded games, micro-transactions, online subscriptions (e.g. World of Warcraft), etc. The NPD Group recently started paying more attention to online revenue, but this data does not include that.

(Emphasis mine)

Also, there is really no way to prove how many times a game has been pirated. If there was then we'd have heard about it by now.

I just want people to know the facts.
I'm not trying to be a douche, but come on. it was written right there.

Edit: The paragraph right before it says that PC sales were 1.4B in 2005. but the table says they were 953million. I would not use this source, as all of the figures are supposedly from NDP, but only 2 of the sources are NDP.

Everyone that's argued with me seems to have the same excuse with the, "NPD doesn't count digital distribution." argument. That only works with U.S. sales. That and not everyone like the idea of having a credit or debit card linked to an online account.

There's a reason DRM exists. Not all DRM has been handled well but the reason is not unfounded. Especially when more and more of the PC market is becoming console ports.

Again I'm speaking as a PC gamer.

Also for your edit.

The paragraph right before it says that PC sales were 1.4B in 2005. but the table says they were 953million.

Yes, because if you to the time to read the following sentence:

Nonetheless, in 2005 consumers spent $1.4 billion on video games for PCs in 2005, according to research released by analysts NPD Group. Of that, $344 million came from subscriptions to online games and gaming Web sites, according to NPD's estimate.

You'd see that the $344 million was factored out to show just raw sales. And really even with that extra $344 million in online sales and subscriptions tacked on to 2005, 1998 still had higher sales on the PC. Now revenue on the PC is at under a billion without counting online sales. Also there's a different between revenue and operating income.

First of all, YOU were talking about US sales in your first post. So saying that you can't count something that only works in the US doesn't make sense to me.

Second: If all those internet sales aren't real sales, then I want my money back, because I spent it on those fake sales.

Third: And I could be wrong on this, math was never my strong suit. 1,400,000,000 - 344,000,000 = 1,056,000,000
that's 1.05 billion. that is still not equal to 953 million. If I'm missing something, please do correct me though.
Basically what I'm trying to get across, is that PC game sales have not gone down, nor are they going down. Even in the face of a bad economy (around the world) the gaming sector has - as I understand it - flourished to a degree that many other sectors have not in this time. So telling people that the industry is suffering (and thereby validating all the stupid DLC/online pass BS that everyone's doing) is wrong, and should not be perpetuated.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Does this mean we will finally see more PC games being sold in shops. Waiting a full day for a game to only half download is getting quite irratating.