NPD Data On PC Games Stays the Course

Next Generation has a quick post about NPD's PC games data for 2006. The market was just about even, only increasing by about 1% to $970 million. World of Warcraft and The Sims were the two top-sellers last year, with WoW pushing about a million units and Sims titles occupying five of the top ten slots for the year. From the post: "PC games included, 2006 industry sales were up 18 percent compared to 2005, and 15 percent higher than the $10.5 billion generated in 2002, the former record-holding year. The PC numbers don't include subscriptions and paid online content. The NPD also revealed the top ten US retail PC titles of 2006 by units. WoW beat out second place The Sims 2 by a sizable margin, with EA's hit selling over 598,000 units (list placement includes special editions of applicable titles)."

Comments

Sims!

[Thansal]

1. World of Warcraft (11/04, Vivendi)
      2. The Sims 2 (9/04, EA)
      3. The Sims 2: Open for Business exp. (3/06, EA)
      4. Star Wars: Empire at War (2/06, LucasArts)
      5. The Sims 2: Pets exp. (10/06, EA)
      6. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (3/06, Take Two)
      7. Age of Empires III (10/05, Microsoft)
      8. The Sims 2 Family Fun exp. (4/06, EA)
      9. Civilization IV (10/05, Take Two)
    10. The Sims 2 Nightlife exp. (9/05, EA)

Emph mine.

Ye Gods! I think it is really starting to sink in for me just how popular games are amongst people we would normaly classify as "non gamers" (as I have a hard time believing that a large portion of the people that bought the other games on the list ALSO bought the Sims games).

For the rest of it. No real surprise. My only real surprise wasn't the presance of The Sims, it was the presance of ALL of those expansion packs.

Re:Sims!

[vonPoonBurGer]

Popularity is relative. Sales numbers are not. If you measured gaming popularity amongst Slashdot readers, you'd find a high percentage of gamers, i.e. gaming is very popular in this site's core audience. If you measured popularity of games outside the traditional hardcore game audience, it's a relatively small number, but there are a *lot* more "non-gamers" out there. Electronic gaming still isn't all that popular a past-time compared to traditional forms of media, it's just that games like The Sims are starting to tap a much, much larger potential audience.

Re:Sims!

[Thansal]

hehehe. I was going to have to bring up Hellfire!

I actualy predict we will see burning crusade at the top this year, with WoW next, or close behind it (remember, those 8 million or so account will need to upgrade, heck I will probably be picking up a copy and reupping my wow subscription at some point).

What is interestign to me about expansions is how well the Sims expansions do. I have NO interest in The Sims, so my view is obviously scewed, however what those expanssions add in does not seem like it is enough for a segnifican portion of the owners to pick them up (not every one is going to be interested in then ightlife, or buissnes stuff, pets? yah, pets is not surprising, but the others).

I am sorta wondering if The Sims 2 is artaficialy inflated, after all it is a 2 year old game, however there are 3 expansions that came out this year, and one last year that are on the list.

All kinda interestign to me (as I said, Zero Interest in The Sims).

Sims Laptop soon.

[antdude]

I bet you Sims Laptop will be on the list soon. ;)