A recent NPD report has stated that digital distribution of PC games was nearly equal to the sales at brick-and-mortar stores. NPD reported that 21.3 million PC games were sold over the web, while 23.5 million sales were conducted physically. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell believes that these numbers could not possibly reflect actual sales numbers, as he reckons that no publisher on Earth saw the kind of digital sales that NPD is claiming.
“NPD's numbers on digital don't tend to have much reflection on reality. As much as I would love digital distribution to take over the world, I can't think of a single publisher (including ourselves) that sells even close to a majority of its units digitally,” he commented to Shacknews. “I am a big believer in the future of digital distribution but the numbers we typically hear from publishers is that it's about a third (which is pretty darn good, by the way).”
Stardock has had controversy in the past regarding their take on NPD numbers. NPD in 2009 released information that Steam controlled approximately 70% of the market on digital sales. Stardock took the opportunity to state that they controlled 10% of the market, causing other companies to criticize Stardock for their numbers. Direct2Drive responded to the claim as “disinformation at best,” whereas GamersGate believed that Stardock has never been considered a major player in the digital games market.
