According to an analyst from DFC Intelligence PC gaming is now outperforming consoles in terms of revenue, and it’s all thanks to the humble MOBA.
“On a global basis PC games have surpassed console games,” DFC Intelligence owner David Cole informed PCR.
Essentially, high performing games such as League of Legends and Dota 2 have pushed PC gaming to a new level and, despite the release of new consoles, and a lack of big new releases, the PC market is still managing to outperform consoles.
In the current market, claims Cole, consoles are becoming a prestige item, not a necessity, whereas the PC is increasingly becoming a device that people need. That is one reason for the increase, another is growing market for PC gaming, particularly in Europe.
“Among core gamers there is a heavy overlap with most console gamers also playing on a PC,” he explained. “The big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true. This means PCs have the broader audience.”
Comments
24 responses to “PC Gaming Revenue Has Now Overtaken Console Gaming”
Praise be unto GabeN!
Also, this GAF thread about the same topic is a hilarious mountain of salt. I’ve spent most of my morning enjoying the goal-post shifting.
Great, you mean I’m going to have to change my sign again? Why can’t they make up their mind and declare one or the other truly and utterly dead, staked, salted and burned?
Just make a sign about the Wii U or Vita and you should be set for awhile.
PC gaming would have been dead except Valve buffed the Necronomicon in Dota 2’s 6.79 patch almost a year ago.
Ha! I hate mass necro units :/
I’ve never booted up a ftp moba, never considered myself l33t enough for that environment. Just how much money can they make/charge inside a ftp game? Honest question as ive never spent a cent on/in ftp games (even planetside 2)
Good news though, means MS and Sony have to pull their collective fingers out.
Dota 2 makes money through selling customisations in game. More importantly, it forces literally tens of millions of people to install Steam and see the front page of the store every time they log in.
League of Legends collects a few hundred million a year from selling skins and champions too.
So the answer is: quite a lot.
All good if you can’t be arsed telling me, but how much does each character cost and what do you estimate each player spending per month?
I haven’t played Dota 2, but I’m a big LoL fan. Characters can be purchased either with real world money or with an in-game currency earned through playing. If you go with the real world money cost, characters would range from about $2 to $8, I’d say. The only things that you HAVE to buy with real world money are cosmetic stuff like skins, and they’re generally more expensive (say, $5 to $20) – being, after all, entirely optional.
As for how much is spent each month, it’d vary wildly between players. In my two years of playing, I’ve only spent money on purchasing characters twice – most of my money goes to skins. Of those, I’ll only buy one when I really like the character and the skin both – I’ll buy maybe half a dozen skins a year. But that’s just me; I know a lot of people who have a lot more invested.
That’s not how it works, if you read other articles its like 1% of players make up the vast majority of purchases in a typical free to play game.
Personally I sunk $100’s in LOL but then I also played for two years straight from when it was still in beta. I would buy a champion here for what was it $10 or a bundle of champions for 20 if i really wanted to play them. I would buy a skins for my most played characters as a once a month kind of thing. Because I was happy to support the developers for making a game my friends and I spent literally 1000’s of hours playing with bi weekly updates balances and new champions.
I’ve stopped playing a fair while ago because that all changed, skins started costing $30+ because “more work” and balances patches and champions stopped coming. They kept basically flat out lying to their consumers and always this “soon TM” nonsense. Basically they stopped caring about players and only about money (coincidentally t started when tencent bought them out). There wwas ALWAYS a handful of 5-10 champions that were flat out broken at any givne time either being massively OP in a certain play level or being so useless merely selecting that character got you abused by your team.
But you will find something like only 10-20% of players actually pay money in a FTP environment, these free loaders keeps new players and the game alive for those who stay and pay so it works out for most involved. However games like Dota/LOL and path of exile are the exception because they have 0 tolerance for pay to win, which ruins 99% of all ftp games.
In lol the price changes, i think it starts off at about $10 a character, and goes down from there (i haven’t played LoL very much). you can also buy the characters using currency you earn from playing games, so they can technically be free.
In DotA 2, every hero is free from the moment you start playing, there’s no grinding to get a certain character.
DOTA costs nothing. LOL makes you pay for each hero using either real money or currency earned in game. I’ve personally spent maybe $10-15 on DOTA 2 but I know others that have spent hundreds. Considering I’ve got over 1000 hours sunk into it it’s a small price to play. This is where MOBAs stake their claim, it’s infinite replayability. I mean I genuinely can’t think of another game I’ve even sunk 100 hours into. So even if I’d spent over $500 it’s still better value for money than any other AAA game. Furthermore I can sell those (well most) items if I wish, so there’s some form of return. I don’t think LoL has that option.
See the front page of the store? Mine boots straight to my library. It’s configurable in the settings.
Simple answer
Dota 2: Free to play all heroes but a lot of cosmetic items (i.e. costumes, couriers, wards, HUD skins) are sold. There are rather common “treasure” chest drops that require a $2.50 key to unlock to get a random item from a certain set of items. You also buy tickets to watch tournaments in the in-game client (i.e. rather than a stream on Twitch) where you can control camera, save a replay choose your commentary etc.
LOL: Not as knowledgeable on this but the heroes (legends) can be bought. There is a rotating set of free to play heroes but not all heroes are accessible straight up unless you grind out games or pay for them. I think someone did the maths that it would be over $500 to get every legend. They have ‘skins’ too.
Good news for PC Fanboys, bad news for console fanboys…
Just news for gamers
Ah, very good. I shall now dance the celebratory dance of my people.
MMMMMMMAAAASTERRRR RAAAAAAAAACE!
Can’t remember said this but if you’re out there, all credit to you.
“Gamers play games, fanboys play platforms.”
HA! Thanks
Yes, yes they do
PC GAMING IS DEAD
READ:
IT ISN’T
I thought PC gaming was so rife with piracy that it was a dead platform? Oh really? 25 billion in revenue you say?
So turns out that stuff about piracy was just BS that was being used to foist ridiculous DRM onto us showing a total lack of understanding the market they service. What a surprise.
I think the real issue here is that with Pc’s out numbering consoles by the millions why wasn’t it ahead in the first place.
A better example would be in a per capita(probably wrong word here) type basis, such as 1 million ps4/XB1 players spent roughly $800 each where as 1 million pc players spent $900 each type situation. Which would be a better overall indication of spending than arbitrary totals with 0 meaning.
Buckle up peeps! Shitstorm of ftp mobas inbound!
Soz, post stuffed up.
Do they count the tornament tickets in dota 2 as part of this? Valve takes a cut so I can see why.
Also this is almost entirely because of China.