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).

Re:Sims!

[jfclavette]

Because the people playing the Sims lack the savvy to pirate it while the more 'serious' gamers do it despite Slashdot's denial. There, I said it, burn karma, burn.

"Stays the Course"

[A beautiful mind]

Don't you hate it when stupid feel-good political codewords penetrate into mainstream usage?

"We need to stay the course"

Next year EA will announce that "we need to protect our gaming freedom from the terrorist competition"

Re:State of PC Gaming...

[Thansal]

yah, +1 funny, -1 depressing.

Here is the PC games Firing squad is looking forward to for 2007. Most of the release dates are still very vague (only 2 were narowed down to months, and one of those was Burning Crusade). We see alot of "Sometime 2007" and "First half of 2007", a few have the quarter listed, and Valve is in at "summer" (God let them hit that date, I want those 3 games!).

So, we will see. Mabey this will be the year we will all remember as "The year of compleated release dates"...

or not.

Re:State of PC Gaming...

[Jesterboy]

Cheer up guys; I've got a good feeling about Duke Nukem Forever.

This is gonna be the year!

Sims Laptop soon.

[antdude]

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

Re:Sims Laptop soon, but what else?

[WillAffleckUW]

Actually it's called Sims Stories, designed to work on non-WinVista laptops and not worry about graphics problems, and there are three versions - check it out at the The Sims website. But there's also Sims 2: Seasons in a couple of months.

Soon expect to see Sims 2: Spore and Sims 2: Curling, as well as the blockbuster Sims 2: World of Warcraft.