Anyone vaguely paying attention to the PC gaming market has long known that it’s a space dominated by downloadable titles. Still, it’s a bit astonishing to hear a report estimating that 92 percent of PC game sales in 2013 came from digital downloads, as DFC Intelligence recently told British tech site PCR.
That may sound high, even to people who haven’t bought a PC game on disc in years, but it lines up with other numbers reported across the industry. Last year, Payday 2 For example, publisher Starbreeze announced that 80 percent of its 1.58 million first-month sales came from downloads. And let’s not forget the dozens of PC games that are completely ignoring retail sales these days for 100 percent downloadable releases, from Dota 2 Unpleasant Day Z.
Download-dominated PC gaming is a newer phenomenon than some gamers may realize. As recently as 2010, analyst firm NPD estimated that downloads made up only 48 percent of all PC game sales.
One possible reason for the surge over the past four years is the money coming in from newly emerging free-to-play and microtransaction PC games. In April, a DFC report on the PC gaming market found that free-to-play games, especially MOBAs, are fun League of Legends And Dota 2caused a surge in total PC game spending, pushing it above total console game spending for the first time in recent history.
The game download market looks very different in the console space, where analyst firm EEDAR estimates that downloads make up less than 20 percent of game sales (although the group sees that share grow to 50 percent by 2018). Last month, EA revealed that “full game downloads” make up only 10 to 15 percent of console game activity.
Despite download’s triumph over PC, few gamers in the entire industry seem to have completely given up on disc-based games. An NPD survey earlier this year found that only 16 percent of American gamers played exclusively downloadable games across consoles, PC, and mobile.