1P Start

The latest NPD results are in for PC gaming during the whole of 2007, and they show two distinct things: PC gaming revenue is down overall, at least in terms of over the counter retail sales; the same old faces are topping the charts for sales, with add-ons, expansion packs and alternate versions of existing franchises taking the top ten places on the chart.

The NPD numbers don’t take in to account anything other than retail sales, so that immediately rules out the effect of digital downloads on outlets like Steam on sales figures.

Bearing that in mind, retail sales have fallen quite substantially from $970 million in 2006 to $910.7 million in 2007. That’s a fall of almost $60 million and bears out thoughts that the PC gaming market is struggling at the moment.

The Top Ten PC Games Sales For 2007 In The US:

1. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Vivendi) - 2.25 million
2. World Of Warcraft (Vivendi) - 914,000
3. The Sims 2: Seasons Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 433,000
4. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 383,000
5. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts) - 343,000
6. Sim City 4 Deluxe (Electronic Arts) - 284,000
7. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 281,000
8. The Sims 2: Bon Voyage Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 271,000
9. Age Of Empires III (Microsoft) - 259,000
10. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack (Electronic Arts) - 236,000

It’s no surprise to see World Of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion pack taking the top two positions. Although I was quite surprised to see such a big gap between them and the third placed Sims 2: Seasons.

The Orange Box is strangely absent, as are a couple of other huge games, but that is purely due to the lack of digital downloads being taken in to account.

I can’t see this list changing much for the duration of 2008, with the World Of Warcraft and The Sims franchises hoovering up all pretenders to their throne.

I’ve never been that much of a PC gamer, preferring the allure of having a plug and play console purely for games, but even I have been taken in by the beauty of WoW and The Sims.

PC gaming is definitely on the slide though, and I can see that trend carrying on all the while people need to buy a top of the range super fast computer to play the latest releases. That will just keep the market in the realms of the nerds and super rich.

[Source: Gamasutra]

PC, Computer, WoW, The Sims, World of Warcraft, NPD, Steam, Digital, The Burning Crusade