The PC Gaming Market Is Flipping Enormous

So very often people will ask me, "But what will RPS do as PC game sales decline?" And I tend to look confused at them, and shrug. Um, what will you do when your feet explode, I want to ask, feeling that might be as realistic a worry just now. According to DFC Intelligence whispering their secrets to Games Industry, the PC gaming market should exceed $25 billion this year. That's a raised forecast from $22bn, and an improvement over 2013, which was an improvement over 2012.

It's important to take such soothsaying with a pinch of salt. DFC are analysts, not psychics. However, their following of the markets showed that the PC performed extremely well in 2013, despite its being a year without a massive PC title. With most major developers worrying about their XBONE and PS4 titles, and 2012's big names still selling well, it could have been a tough year for the wheezy boxes, they thought. But games like Dota 2 and LOL dominated, and they say Battlefield 4, Rome II and Fifa 2014 all put in impressive sales. Of course, the other side of this is what we've been saying all along - that in the final year of a console generation, people turn to the PC to provide the top-end entertainment.

Being trendy market observers, they get to be surprised when the obvious is still obvious. Despite people's mad-faced expectations that it would all be about F2P, they tell GI.biz, "The big surprise is that an upfront payment business model still seems to do very well." In other words, charging money for a game still works. They then go on to use the word "synergy", so I really have to stop.

But yes, PC gaming is still growing, and growing in big figures, despite the doom and gloom predicted by so many. With the new gen consoles being basically PCs in sleeker boxes, cross-platform developing will be easier than ever, and tweaking the PC version to be the superior version easier still. Apparently the rest of the information will be out on the 11th February.