34 of those games were released after 2005. 79 were released in the 1995 / 2005 time frame. So those ten years averaged 7.9 per year; the seven years after averaged five per year. It's a nearly 60% increase per year.
In my opinion digital PC game sales would do nothing but tip the scale toward my point about the PC gaming market consolidating into just a few mega hit franchises that generate all the sales while the volume of games has significantly contracted. In PC gaming there are maybe ten titles that matter, such as WoW or Sims. In console gaming, there are over 100 titles a year that sell 1 million or more copies.
Free to play PC gaming is a very small market still. The Sims 2 alone made more money than the entire free-to-play market combined did in the previous four years. That may change in the next few years, but it doesn't change the facts that exist right now.
Four of the top five on that list are from 2004 or earlier. Meanwhile of course total console game sales have exploded to the moon during that time.
First of all, would you mind showing me the sales data from Steam? No? Then how do you intend to use that as part of your argument exactly?
Which game on steam has sold 11 million copies on the service, like Starcraft did at retail? 20 million like Sims 2? 9 million like Half-life 1? 12 million like Half-life 2? I'd wager it's not even remotely close.
It's my opinion that Steam is moving a mid number of high priced new releases, and a lot more lower priced discounted games (eg buying Shogun for $9.99 or Torchlight 2 for $9.99 during discounts). A quick look through their top 50 best selling reveals the strong majority are $20 or less, with many being $11.99 or less. Is Steam popular? Of course, but what does that have to do with whether the PC gaming market has consolidated into a few hit franchises with less total games produced per year?
Yes, with the gap for the recession, that makes perfect sense to me. Also, you're forgetting that as sample size decreases variance increases. The ten year sample is larger than the six year sample (2006-2011) that you've set up. I expect variance.
Also, I count only 73 in ['95,'05). Are you counting ['95,'05]? That's 11 years. 7.3 per year is really not that different from 4.8/yr (29 in ['06,'12)), which includes two to three years of recession.
As for this:
> First of all, would you mind showing me the sales data from Steam? No? Then how do you intend to use that as part of your argument exactly?
I'm not interested in winning a debate with you, I'm just trying to demonstrate what's true to any fair-minded people reading this. If you want to pretend that Steam sales didn't account for a huge portion of all PC games sold, and therefore that the PC sales are extraordinarily under-represented in the last few years of this chart, be my guest. It's only yourself that you're deceiving.
34 of those games were released after 2005. 79 were released in the 1995 / 2005 time frame. So those ten years averaged 7.9 per year; the seven years after averaged five per year. It's a nearly 60% increase per year.
In my opinion digital PC game sales would do nothing but tip the scale toward my point about the PC gaming market consolidating into just a few mega hit franchises that generate all the sales while the volume of games has significantly contracted. In PC gaming there are maybe ten titles that matter, such as WoW or Sims. In console gaming, there are over 100 titles a year that sell 1 million or more copies.
Free to play PC gaming is a very small market still. The Sims 2 alone made more money than the entire free-to-play market combined did in the previous four years. That may change in the next few years, but it doesn't change the facts that exist right now.
Four of the top five on that list are from 2004 or earlier. Meanwhile of course total console game sales have exploded to the moon during that time.
First of all, would you mind showing me the sales data from Steam? No? Then how do you intend to use that as part of your argument exactly?
Which game on steam has sold 11 million copies on the service, like Starcraft did at retail? 20 million like Sims 2? 9 million like Half-life 1? 12 million like Half-life 2? I'd wager it's not even remotely close.
It's my opinion that Steam is moving a mid number of high priced new releases, and a lot more lower priced discounted games (eg buying Shogun for $9.99 or Torchlight 2 for $9.99 during discounts). A quick look through their top 50 best selling reveals the strong majority are $20 or less, with many being $11.99 or less. Is Steam popular? Of course, but what does that have to do with whether the PC gaming market has consolidated into a few hit franchises with less total games produced per year?