The NPD Group, which tracks retail point-of-sale data for the U.S. games industry, has been trying to broaden its scope by covering more digital downloads. Today the firm issued a new report on the PC gaming sector called PC Games Digital Downloads: Analyst Report. It shows that in the PC world, digital game downloads have nearly reached parity with in-store purchases. In 2009, 21.3 million PC Game full-game digital downloads were purchased online in the U.S. compared to 23.5 million physical units purchased at retail.
While the PC games sector has been in decline, strictly when looking at retail, many of these purchases have shifted to digital. PC digital downloads represented close to half of unit sales across digital and retail at 48 percent in 2009, and accounted for 36 percent of dollar sales.
NPD has broken down the digital purchases into what it's calling "Casual Digital Retailers, which often focus on smaller, easily accessible games that typically utilize try-and-buy or advertising revenue models; and Frontline Digital Retailers, which often focus on titles that are also offered in retail stores as physical purchases." NPD noted that Frontline Digital Retailers actually increased their share of the PC full-game digital download market in the second half of 2009, at the expense of the Casual Digital Retailers.
Leading that charge was Steampowered.com, followed by Direct2Drive.com, Blizzard.com, EA.com and WorldofWarcraft.com. On the casual side, BigFishGames.com took the largest share, followed by Pogo.com, Gamehouse.com, iWin.com and RealArcade.com.
NPD also commented that a significant factor contributing to the decline in share captured by Casual Digital Retailers is the increase in popularity of free social network gaming and free mobile gaming. In fact, there's been a 30 percent increase in usage of the iPhone and the iPod Touch as gaming devices from Q2’09 to Q4’09. Additionally, 97 percent of those who downloaded a game app in Q4’09 downloaded a free version of a game.
“The popularity of social network gaming increased from Q3’09 to Q4’09 as 4.8 million more people played games on a social network in the U.S.,” added Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “This demonstrates how consumers can now experience casual types of games through myriad vehicles, broadening the competitive landscape.”
3 Comments
July 21, 2010
And yet we'll have the same analysts saying that PC gaming is dead when the opposite is the truth.
July 21, 2010
^ lol, so true
July 24, 2010
I wonder how they break this sales data down. If they are including all those MMO monthly subscribers that is hardly equal to selling a game. The revenue from subscriptions equals a lot more actual profit for the host company of the game.