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NPD: PC Game Sales May Grow This Year Thanks to StarCraft, WOW, Civ V
A few weeks ago, the NPD Group released a study stating that in the first half of 2010 digital sales of PC games were higher than physical sales. Those numbers were clarified a little bit today during a GDC Online panel. Digital distribution may not be the overwhelming winner that it at first appeared to be, and physical sales may actually be on the rise for PC games.
According to NPD's director of client development for gaming, Michael Klotz, 79 percent of PC game revenue in the past three months has come from physical sales. A higher number of digital sales were made, but since many digital purchases cost much less, less revenue was produced from these sales.
Despite an overall down year for the game industry, Klotz expects that PC gaming sales may be up year-over-year thanks to major releases such as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Civilization V, and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. This increase in physical PC software sales would be pretty remarkable in a year where sales are down for most other platforms.
As for where digital distribution is succeeding, Klotz pointed to Dead Rising: Case Zero as a success story. He said that he expects to see more of this type of downloadable prologue -- essentially a paid demo that is larger than the average demo -- but also noted that it could be difficult to offer this for original IP.
[via GameSpot]
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