In a very reassuring finding for our line of work, a study by DFC Intelligence has found that almost half of all players around the world are on PC. According to the report, over three billion people are gaming consumers, in one form or another.
The research was published this August, and although it lives behind a paywall, stats gleamed by IGN give a breakdown on its findings. It’s believed that 3.1 billion, some 40% of the population of the planet, consume video games, and of those nearly half are into mobile gaming, which is the fastest growing audience.
Onto the good stuff, though: 48% of the people of that 3.1 billion are on PC. That’s 1.5 billion if you don’t have a calculator near. Comparatively, only 8% are considered to be primarily console users, but they have the highest spending per player. Asia leads the regional breakdowns of the available data, contributing 1.42 billion gaming customers, and 53% of the mobile marketplace. Europe is next, with 668 million, and 17%, respectively. Latin America has 383 million and 11%, while North America has 261 million and 4%, and the last percentage is held by MENA, at 7% of the worldwide mobile players.
Mobile gaming continues to be one of the most important sectors in the industry. So much so, Fortnite developer Epic and Apple are in the middle of a large-scale legal tussle over how Apple runs the iOS marketplace.
So far this year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is leading in sales. Companies that make an effort with PC releases tend to see tangible benefits, like SEGA with Persona 4: Golden this summer. Many of Steam’s top-sellers keep selling for years, and some, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, continue to outdo their own records.
If you want to expand what you play on PC, we have lists of the best free games, best FPS games, best RPG games, best story games, and best upcoming games, for you to sink some time into.