Report: Half of all PC games are downloaded now

July 22nd, 2010

Although not as fast as in music, digital downloads are slowly overtaking in-store sales of PC games. A new report released this week by market researcher NPD revealed that digital downloads represented 48 percent of all PC game sales last year, compared with 52 percent in-store.

After surveying the purchasing habits of 180,000 consumers, NPD ranked the top digital retailers as follows (based on market share):

1. Steampowered.com
2. Direct2drive.com
3. Blizzard.com
4. EA.com
5. Worldofwarcraft.com

NPD did not release percent share, but Steam moves an estimated 80 percent of all PC game downloads, followed by Direct2Drive with 10 percent, and the rest splitting the remaining 10 percent of downloads.

By year end, it’s likely downloads will fully overtake physical media as the most popular way to buy PC games, insiders say. In contrast, game downloads account for less than 10 percent of all console and handheld sales.

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