Ben Porter, director of the consulting firm NewZoo, presented a report at GDC this week, sharing key insights from the company's annual review of the state of the gaming industry.

The data was gathered through an annual large-scale survey involving 73,000 players, as well as analysis of information from over 10,000 games. According to the report, the PC gaming market continues to grow steadily: in 2023, the audience reached 873.5 million players, and by 2024, it is expected to increase to 907.5 million. This significantly surpasses the console audience, which is estimated to reach 653.1 million people in 2024.

As Porter notes, these 908 million PC gamers primarily prefer older games with long-term support (live-service).

PC Master Race wallpaperImage: pcmasterrace.org

From January to December 2024, 67% of PC gamers' time was spent on games released six or more years ago. Another 25% of time was spent on games aged 2-5 years, and only 8% on games less than two years old.

A more detailed breakdown of the games that account for 67% of gaming time:

Thus, 92% of PC gamers' time is spent on games that are at least two years old. This highlights that long-term support and updates for such projects play a key role in their popularity. 

Main image: reddit.com


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