After several years of flat to stagnant growth the PC game market grew 19% in 2020 to reach $36 billion. While much of this growth was because of increased usage due to stay-at-home orders, there are encouraging long-term signs for PC games.
The most notable trend in PC games is that Western publishers are now among the biggest players in terms of revenue. For many years, China and Asia in general have been the dominant players in the PC game space. Market growth slowed as much of the products from Asia moved to mobile platforms. This has changed as growth in PC games has recently been driven by high-end game publishers.
For years, Asian game companies dominated the top publisher list for PC game revenue. However, in 2020, 6 out of the top 10 PC game companies were from North America and Europe. This included leading console game publishers Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft.
In PC game distribution there is significant competition among several players including Valve with Steam, Epic Games, Roblox and Microsoft. Microsoft has become a leader in driving PC/console crossover for games with its Xbox Game Pass service. Even Sony is looking at PC games with a 2020 release of hit PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn for PC.
The new DFC report on the Worldwide PC Game Software Market looks at market growth and changing business models. China remains the leading market, but overall growth has slowed. Among many trends in PC games, increased consumer spending on high-end PC game software and hardware is the most important. Not only is it expected to drive increased revenue for major games but it is driving an entire new infrastructure of hardware and support services.
