Global Online Game Revenues = 90% PC Games

Only 20% come from Europe, 30% from North America, and a whopping 50% from Asia. That's according to a new report from InfoCom, a research company that broke the international demographics down by region and estimated the money involved totals between $5.5 and $7 billion.

Other fun facts from InfoCom's report:

- 17 million (of 48 million total) residents in South Korea regularly play online games.

- Online game providers in South Korea make money primarily through micro-transactions, i.e. sales derived from minor customizations to a player's character.

- Within the Asian sphere, South Korea's PC online games market alone was around 25% of the total worldwide pie.

- In Japan, the most popular platform for gaming was the PC (35%), followed by mobile phones (14%), game consoles (9%), and portable gaming devices (7%).

The most popular games, to put some of this in perspective, were table/card, role-playing, and puzzles. Which means casual and MMO games have effectively become PC gaming's lifeblood, both in the U.S. and abroad. In other words, pull casual and MMO games and the PC would virtually disappear as a mainstream gaming platform.

That's perhaps good news for casual and MMO fans, but bad news for traditional PC gamers, or at least those of you who want the PC to maintain its edge against consoles at a feature-for-feature level.

For the record, I'm neither concerned nor despondent about PC gaming's ostensible plight. Some of the best wargames ever made -- and I mean ever -- arrived on scene years after wargaming as a genre was proclaimed dead and buried. If you want the best flight simulator going, try IL-2: Sturmovik, which showed up years after hardcore flight sims had effectively vanished. IL-2 creator (Oleg Maddox) and his team are, as I type this, in the process of putting together the most historically accurate and complete World War II flight sim ever attempted. And have a look at what DCS is up to if you really want your mind blown.

The DCS Black Shark: Fun with Trains! Try this on a console.

Sure, some of these will never compete visually with the likes of your average Gran Turismo Prologue 5, but that doesn't cheapen their appeal to a specific, dedicated, hardcore demographic. The future of PC gaming (beyond MMOs and casual games, that is) lies in this kind of sophisticated innovation, in my opinion.

Why? Because you'll always have a certain gaming segment that goes in for deeper, more nuanced experiences than the sort of transient, mindless thrills offered by your average Mario or Master Chief. You'll never see something like the DCS flight sim on a console, in other words. Or if/when you do, it'll be because the distinction between PCs and consoles has effectively disappeared.

Who cares if games like BioShock or Half Life 2 are eventually only available on consoles. You'll buy them anyway and probably enjoy them that much more on your 40 or 50 inch flat screen TV with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. PC gamers tend to be console gamers too. There's nothing mutually exclusive about either paradigm. And in the process, gamers in a given demographic ultimately end up getting more of what they want, where they want it.

Replay

Agree? Disagree? Have your say below in comments, visit Wake the Happy Words for expanded dialogue, or pelt me with emails here

Comments

Agree, because some people are playing in consoles.
And lots of people playing Online Games too.
It's better to play Online Games now.
I love playing WOW it's really awesome.
I'm one of the player in WOW.
Thank you for sharing and good day.
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Sweetche

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Sweetche

May 19, 2008

6:05 AM PT

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