The PC Gaming Alliance “Horizons Research 2011” Reports Record in PC Gaming …

SAN FRANCISCO — The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), a not-for-profit, industry-led consortium dedicated to driving the worldwide growth of PC gaming, this day unveiled its third annual “Horizons” research report. Prepared exclusively for PCGA members by market research firm DFC Intelligence, this timely report covers 2011 year-end sales figures and encompasses major aspects of the PC gaming software industry worldwide through 2015.

Brief highlights of the findings

The global PC games market continued to show surprisingly strong growth in 2011, reaching a record US$18.6 billion, representing overall growth of 15% over 2010. No geographical market segments tracked showed a decline in 2011 in overall PC game revenue, while China continues to grow at nearly twice the rate of the overall global market for PC games with growth of 27% resulting in record 2011 revenue of US$6 billion. Additionally, the mature game markets of Korea, Japan, U.S., U.K., and Germany demonstrated significant growth in 2011, together recording increased revenue of 11% in 2011 to US$8 billion.

The substantial investment in the PC game space seen in 2010 continued through 2011, with concrete signs that these investments are paying off. The year was capped by December IPOs of Zynga and Nexon at a valuation of around US$7 billion each. Zynga revenue in 2011 nearly doubled to US$1.1 billion – about the same as that of Nexon. Both companies earn most of their revenue from PC games.

The Zynga IPO also put a spotlight on a rapidly growing opportunity in PC games: Free-to-Play (F2P). Germany-based Bigpoint, a provider of browser-based F2P games, raised US$350 million in 2011 as the company continues to expand outside its home territory. According to DFC analyst David Cole, “A massive portion of the US$10.1 billion revenue in Asia is generated from the F2P model. Companies like Zynga and Bigpoint are now successfully building on that model in North America and Europe.”

The biggest investors in PC games continue to be massive Asian companies enjoying great success in their domestic markets and looking to expand globally. The most notable global success story of 2011 was Chinese company Tencent’s majority acquisition of Riot Games for US$400 million. Tencent launched Riot’s flagship F2P product in China in summer 2011, and by November of that year, Riot Games was claiming over 11 million monthly active players. Once full numbers are presented for 2011, it is expected that Tencent will have surpassed Activision Blizzard as the company that generates the most revenue from PC games.

Random News

Details :
Submited at Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 5:00 am on PC games by admin
Comment RSS 2.0 - leave a comment - trackback