Digital Distribution Numbers Speak To Health of PC Game Industry

An anonymous reader writes with this quote from PC Authority: "Over the years many voices have declared PC gaming dead. We have seen developers abandon the platform for consoles, citing piracy as the cause. Game stores have slowly relegated PC games from prime shelf position to one tucked away in the back corner — even Microsoft dumped AAA PC game developers from the company. It seems, though, that the demise of the PC as a games platform has been exaggerated, because until very recently sales data ignored digital distribution, with the latest data released by US company NPD revealing that 48% of PC unit sales in the US in 2009 were digital. That translates to 21.3 million games downloaded in the US. Interestingly, although 48% of games were sold online, it only worked out as 36% of the revenue. This highlights the fact that it isn't just convenience that has PC gamers shopping online; it is also that games are generally cheaper than in stores."

Comments

Re:Making Older Titles Available Again

[drinkypoo]

Most Windows users still seem happy enough with Windows XP even though I have no reason to doubt Windows 7 may be a better OS.

An absolute shitpile of games don't work right on Windows 7, including many published by Microsoft, my personal example is Dungeon Siege:LoA. Windows 7 totally fails backwards compatibility, you can't even get APPS to work right without XP Mode. Consequently, unless your game needs a feature of Windows not present in XP (and DX10 has been brought over by some intrepid hackers) you're far better off with XP than Windows 7 if you want to be able to play the largest number of games.

Re:For how long after release?

[Runefox]

Gee, thanks for supporting the devs. You could have just pirated it if you were going to buy it used from some random guy on eBay. At least if you were to buy it used at Gamestop or EB or something you'd be putting money back into the local economy or whatever excuse you want to use to justify it, but you've denied the developers a sale, whereas even the most dramatic sale price on Steam would at least send something their way.