http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/23/pcga-president-randy-stude-talks-methodology/
Rock Paper Shotgun, the most excellent PC gaming news site, has an interview with the PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude, and as you might expect, they talk about the PC as a platform. What you might not expect that is that "Holy shit" sums up this well, given the stated and linked figures.

In no uncertain words PC gaming is shown as a towering giant of a platform, overshadowing all other markets and deities, and is bigger than Jesus. Take THAT, The Beatles.

The most significant bit would be this:
"RPS: And so far you’ve been gathering data, including the Horizons report, a report for your members which states that PC gaming software accounts for $10bn worth of the gaming industry in 2007. NPD’s retail report puts the entire industry in 2007 at around $18bn. That means that PC games software is half the industry in cash terms? Is that correct?

Stude: It’s more than half. The NPD and other reports always include console hardware, and it was our approach with our Horizons reports to announce software and hardware separately. PC hardware is about $43bn, when you add that on top of PC gaming software it’s huge. We knew it was a big market - we know the subscription, casual, free-to-play people were out there, and we wanted to record that. What we didn’t like was a retail-focused report like the NPD one saying that the market was heading in a certain direction, when we knew otherwise. Retail, as a percent of the market, is only 30% of PC gaming software. NPD aren’t measuring the majority of PC gaming software sales."

PC gaming software sales represents more than half of all retail sales, according to the NPD. According to the PCGA Horizons study, Retail is 30% of PC gaming software sales, with Digital Distribution occupying a massive 70% of sales. Thus, PC Game sales are more than three times bigger than all console platforms combined.

Also in the interview, Stude calls out the publisher fears and reactions to piracy, framing them as baseless, illegitimate fears they are working to quell. Given the sales figures and consumer spread, it is clear that piracy truly is a boogyman that has been blown far out of proportion than its real impact- if you release it, they well come, basically. Games sell on the PC, and they sell damn well, worldwide. Even when you disrespect your consumer with extensive DRM and delayed releases (Delayed releases by the way is the stupidest fucking concept I've heard all years. The absolute most it can possibly do, if you follow the logic, is promote used console sales- or the further spread of console modchips and cracking software. It's a subject that needs to be further torn apart, but that's for another day in another cblog) the game will STILL sell.



So yeah. HELL yeah.

Fuck yeah.