Sales Figures of PC Games

It is always with a great hesitancy that I publish any results that prove something about the PC. It is so hard to get any kind of statistics on the subject, and even harder to know if it’s from a trustworthy source. In this case publisher companies don’t often release results for PC game sales. What they tend to do is to release a combine sale figure, if they do it at all. A combine result of consoles and PC makes it difficult to know how well/badly the PC games are doing in the fight against piracy!

Mass Effect 2 Week One Sales Top 2 Million
Bioware's sci-fi sequel comes out swinging during its launch week.
By Dustin Quillen, 01/29/2010
www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177757

Wondering how Mass Effect 2 is selling just three days out from its January 26 release date? If EA's internal figures are to be believed, things are going just fine over at Bioware. The publisher announced that Commander Shepard's spacefaring sequel has moved over 2 million copies this week.



BioShock 2 Ships 3 Million, GTA IV Sales Top 15 Million
http://www.n4g.com/pc/News-485636.aspx

Take-Two announced new sales figures today during its fiscal 2010 first quarter results. The company's first major title in 2010, BioShock 2, has shipped 3 million copies.

Assassin's Creed II sales soar over 6 million
January 14, 2010 in News
http://www.gamegrep.com/news/28696-assassins_creed_ii_sales_soar_over_6_million/

Despite being threatened by several other titles back in Novemeber 2009, Ubisoft today confirmed that Assassin's Creed II has surpassed 6 million units sold.


I spent many days searching the internet for news articles, reports, and whitepapers. I was lucky to come across the next two pieces. While these are not definitive by any means they do go a long way in proving trends.

PC Games 14% of 2007 Retail Games Sales; World of Warcraft and Sims Top PC Sales Charts
by Aaron Linde Jan 24, 2008 5:16pm CST
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50939

Data from the sales-tracking firm NPD reveals that retailers sold 267.8 million games in 2007, 36.4 million of which were PC titles. Console games brought in $6.6 billion, selling 153.9 million units total, while portable software hauled a record $2 billion in revenue with 77.5 million units sold.

1 World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade 2.25 million
2 World of Warcraft 914,000
3 The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack 433,000
4 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 383,000
5 Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 343,000
6 Sim City 4 Deluxe 284,000
7 The Sims 2 281,000
8 The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack 271,000
9 Age of Empires III 259,000
10 The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack 236,000
Table Edited



NPD: Record Year for Industry Totals $17.94 Billion; Halo 3, Nintendo Consoles Dominate
by Nick Breckon Jan 17, 2008 7:01pm
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50809

The top ten software titles follow, listed in order of units sold:

1 Halo 3 X360 4.82 million
2 Wii Play with Wii Remote Wii 4.12 million
3 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare X360 3.04 million
4 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock PS2 2.72 million
5 Super Mario Galaxy Wii 2.52 million
6 Pokemon Diamond Version DS 2.48 million
7 Madden NFL 08 PS2 1.90 million
8 Guitar Hero II PS2 1.89 million
9 Assassin's Creed X360 1.87 million
10 Mario Party 8 Wii 1.82 million
Table Edited

Normally the Top 10 Charts will only tell you what games are the current favourites. Revealing the position they hold, what their previous position was, but no sales figures or units. What is so good about these two charts are the clear differences, though again I state clearly that this is by far definitive, and only allows us to draw some generalisations!

If you look at the figures between the two tables, one thing is very clear; that Console sales outstrip PC game sales many times over. The differences are huge, so huge there has to be a good reason for this. As you can see the largest percentage increase is 873%, and the average is 655%. So straight away I am more likely to sell 6 times more on the console than the PC.

Rank PC Retail Sales Console Sales Percentage increase!
1 2,250,000 4,820,000 214%
2 914,000 4,120,000 451%
3 433,000 3,040,000 702%
4 383,000 2,720,000 710%
5 343,000 2,520,000 735%
6 284,000 2,480,000 873%
7 281,000 1,900,000 676%
8 271,000 1,890,000 697%
9 259,000 1,870,000 722%
10 236,000 1,820,000 771%

Now there are probably a number of reasons why people prefer to play games on the console. Some people prefer a big screen TV, and PC machine specifications can confuse a lot of people. But personally I believe the biggest reason why console sales are 6 times higher than PC, is because console games are harder to pirate.

The other note worthy thing about the PC table, the results are very gradual until they hit the top two spots, where the results suddenly start to double.






This isn’t a coincidence, and I believe it is because of the special nature of the top 2 games. World of Warcraft games are purely online server games, which means they have a pretty unique protection system. Anyone who disobeys the rules, yet alone tries to play the game illegally can be met with severe punishment, like being kicked off the server for good. So anyone caught with a duplicate serial key, a unique identifier, will lose their game and makes it almost impossible to pirate.

What does this say for the sales of PC games?
WarFace is setting to find this question out! While it will be almost impossible to rule out piracy, we are going to account for it. By taking results of both illegal downloaders and customers, we can find the ratio. WarFace will once and for all answer one of the biggest questions of the modern age!