PC Gaming Hits the Jackpot with $15 Billion Revenue

PC gaming is an emerging industry all over the world which is fueled by fanatical gamers and prominent video games developers. However, according to NPD Group, revenue generated by the gaming retail industry in US experienced a decrease by 8 percent. On the worldwide scale, research suggests that despite advertising cost for PC games increasing by 4 percent, the retail revenue has slumped down by 20 percent. PC Gaming Alliance, however, states that it has been able, not only to retain its market share, but to expand it further.

Above figures definitely point to the notion that PC gaming is not keeping up with the interests of gamers, however, a prominent group of companies which holds a significant financial share in platform investment claims otherwise. With a mission of “to develop and promote solutions that drive the PC gaming industry forward” the Gaming Alliance has recently issued a statement prepared by DFC Intelligence proposing that the revenues from PC gaming software experienced an increase by 3 percent during the year shooting up the total revenue to a staggering $15 billion. This report holds more value as compared to that of NPD’s as it includes results of online ads, membership fees, transactional fees and online sales on top of retail revenues.

However, not all was painted rosy in the report as it admitted that some sections of the industry did suffer in the previous year. Subscription fees decreased because many members cancelled their subscriptions to older games as new releases hit the market. Retail revenue was the biggest causality as conventional methods of sale only form one-fourth of the total sales. According to the Gaming Alliance, both Europe and North America saw a downturn of retail game sales ranging between 15 to 20 percent.

Trends have definitely changed as in the two continents about 80 percent of gamers purchased at least one online game, while 40 percent of them paid for a virtual item in a game. PC Gaming Alliance has an illustrious line-up of partners including Microsoft, AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Epic Games. Despite outgoing Activision Blizzard, the group also embraced Gas Powered Games, GameStop and PC GameTrek.