Analyst firm DFC Intelligence reports that global PC game revenues have now grown larger than console game sales. DFC attributes the shift to the worldwide popularity of multiplayer online battle arena titles (MOBAs) like League of Legends and Dota 2, as well as MMOs, strategy and FPS games played on PCs.
“The MOBA games League of Legends and Dota 2 dominate everything else by an order of magnitude in terms of more usage than other products,” said DFC Intelligence CEO David Cole. “In the first part of 2014 we saw some signs that may change with the introduction of new titles and some increased play of games outside the MOBA category. But MOBA is dominant. Beyond that it is a nice mix of MMO, strategy and first person shooter.”
Earlier this year analyst firm SuperData revealed that Asian companies dominated online PC game microtransaction earnings worldwide in 2013.
China’s Tencent led SuperData’s list of top grossing games, as both publisher of the number one title CrossFire (US$957 million) and owner of League of Legends (US$624 million) developer Riot Games, which placed second.
Other Asian companies in the top ten included third, fifth and tenth place (in partnership with Valve) holder Nexon (Dungeon Fighter Online, US$426 million; Maple Story, US$326 million; Counter-Strike Online, US$121 million), as well as sixth place NCSoft (Lineage I, US$257 million).
Analyst firm IDC also anticipates that China, India and other fast growing game markets in developing countries will drive PC game revenues to US$24 billion in 2017.
“It’s been tough sledding for most casual-leaning PC game genres in the past year,” said IDC research director Lewis Ward. “Most of the growth is coming from hardcore-oriented freemium titles such as Tencent’s and Riot Games‘ League of Legends… and a handful of Chinese massively multiplayer online role-playing games.”
IDC also expects North American digital PC game earnings to decline over the next three years, while the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will see five per cent annual growth to 2017.
