PC Digital Downloads Outpacing Retail Sales

It’s a bit more general than gaming news, but there are enough PC gamers reading to be interested in two sides of a recent NPD report: digital download is now outpacing retail in copies sold (though retail still has more revenue), but PC sales overall are still in decline, MCV reports.

The numbers claims that 11.2m PC games were purchased in North America between January and June 2010. In the same period just 8.2m boxed PC games were purchased at retail.

However, the good news for bricks and mortar retail is that the real money remains in physical product in total dollar revenue terms traditional retail still accounts for 57 per cent of the market.

The bad news is that even when the numbers are combined the overall PC games market is down 21 per cent year-on-year for the period, with unit sales falling 14 per cent.

Steam remains the largest digital games retailer, followed by Direct2Drive, EA.com, WorldOfWarcraft.com and Blizzard.com. In the casual space Bigfishgames.com grabbed the largest share followed by Gamehouse.com, iWin.com, Pogo.com and Wildtangent.com.