PC Gaming Statistics 2022
PC Gaming continues to be one of the most popular forms of video gaming despite increasingly impressive competition from both the console market and mobile gaming platforms. The PC Hardware industry alone is set to be worth $70 Billion by 2023, showing that many are still heavily invested in having the best possible hardware in their PC builds for gaming.
And, when it comes to PC gaming, Steam is still the platform of choice for consumers as it still sits comfortably in the top spot when it comes to video game sellers, bringing in $4.3 Billion in 2017 alone.
Sources: VGA24/7, DFCint, NewZoo, Steam
Steam Users
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most played game on Steam with
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is the most played game on Steam as of December 2021 with 554,602 concurrent users.
In September 2021 there were
The number of Steam users jumped from 95 to 120 million users per month in 2020, then in September 2021, another high score was reached when the peak number of concurrent Steam users hit 26.09 million.
PUBG is the best-selling PC game of all time with over
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sold the most units and is recognized as the best selling PC game of all time around the world, with a total 70 million units sold across all platforms as of July 2020.
Steam game sales revenue reached
Steam game sales revenue reached 4.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, that’s an 18.6% increase from 2015
The PC gaming hardware market will be worth
It’s estimated that the PC gaming hardware market will be worth $37 Billion by 2022.
The PC global gaming industry will be worth
PC Global gaming industry was estimated to be worth 178.37 million U.S. dollars in 2021 and is expected to reach 268.82 million by 2025.
Overview
Despite the influx of impressive and affordable consoles over the years, PC gaming has remained a favorite for many. This is reflected in game development as PC is still the most popular platform for game developers with 56% developing games for the platform in 2020. The market is set to reach an impressive worth of $39.5 Billion by 2023.
Sources: GDC, NewZoo
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 32% of game developer respondents to a survey on creativity and productivity whilst working from home game said it was ‘about the same’, with 24% responding with ‘somewhat decreased’ and 20% responding with ‘somewhat increased’.
In 2021, Asia represented more than a third of global PC gamers with 687 million PC gamers, whilst Europe ranked second with 468.4 million PC gamers.
- PC gaming market share statistics reveal that in 2019, its market share was at 24%, which amounted to $35.3 billion. In 2020, that value could rise to $36.9 billion, and is projected to reach $45.5 billion by 2021
- An estimated 48% of all PC owners use the device to play video games.
- PC gaming industry was estimated to be worth 28.04 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and is expected to reach 33.6 billion by 2020. (Video Gaming Africa, 2016)
- The total revenue of the PC gaming hardware industry in 2017 is expected to reach 23.11 billion U.S. dollars. (Jon Peddie Research, 2014)
- Steam game sales revenue reached 4.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, that’s an 18.6% increase from 2015. (VG24/7, 2018)
- The Sims 3 sold the most units and is recognized as the best selling PC games of all time around the world, with a total 7.95 million units sold as of January 2018. (VGChartz, 2018)
PC Hardware
The PC game hardware industry shows no signs of slowing down as it is estimated to be worth $70 Billion by 2023. Thanks to a Steam user survey, we also have a good insight into the inner-workings of most PC gamer’s setups. We know that Nvidia dominates the GPU market with a 74% share, and Intel easily beats off AMD in terms of CPU shares with 74.4% to their 25.6%.
Sources: Steam, DFCint
In 2021, shipments of gaming notebooks were forecasted to reach 27.9 million units, with the growth of 33.7 million units by 2025. Gaming PCs are expected to reach 72.9 million by 2025.
NVIDIA’s revenue from it’s Graphics segment in 2021 amounted to roughly 9.83 billion U.S dollars, whilst revenue from it’s Compute & Networking segment amounted to 6.84 billion U.S dollars.
In the third quarter of 2021, NVIDIA accumulated 7.1Billion and 45% of this revenue was generated through their graphics processing units (GPU) sector.
- 37% of the growth in the peripherals market will originate from APAC (the Asia-Pacific region). South America will also be an area of major growth
- The gaming peripheral market size has the potential to grow by USD 2753.17 million during 2020-2024
- The headsets segment dominated the peripherals market with a share of over 30% in 2019
- The global gaming peripherals market size was estimated at USD 3.88 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 4.25 billion in 2020.
- VR statistics indicate that shipments of PC and all-in-one virtual reality headsets are projected to reach 62 million units by 2025
- PC Gaming Hardware Market to Grow by $3.6 Billion in 2020 Thanks to COVID-19
- A 15% increase of the global gaming PC’s computer graphics hardware market value is expected in 2018 from 2016. (Jon Peddie Research, 2017)
Steam
Steam continues to be a hugely successful platform for gamers as it’s userbase grew once again this year. Reaching 20.31 Million users in 2020, it has seen an impressive growth trajectory for the last few years. FPS and MOBA games are still amongst the most popular on the platform with PYBG, DOTA 2, and CS:GO heading up the rankings.
Sources: GitHyp, Statista
In September 2021, Steam reached a peak of over 26.09 million concurrent users.
In September 2021, Steam had 26.09 million concurrent users and the platform was in May 2021 with 26.85 concurrent users.
- Steam has over 30,000 games in its library. Over 600 of these are virtual reality games
- Steam is the world’s largest distributor of PC games, taking up 75% of the global market share.
- CS:GO had an estimate of 12.54 million units sold in 2017, making it the second highest paid game titles on Steam. (Medium , 2018)
- PUBG is listed as the leading paid game titles on Steam in 2017, with over 600 million U.S. dollars in revenue. (Medium , 2018)
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is ranked 6th as the leading paid game titles on Steam in 2017, with an estimated revenue of 38 million U.S. dollars. (Medium , 2018)
- Steam had a peak of 18.5 million users in January 2018, that’s 23% more concurrent users from January 2017. (Steam; IGN, 2018)
- Steam had 7,672 games released in 2017, this is equivalent to 61% more games in 2017 from 2015. (Polygon.com, 2018)
- Steam’s user retention rate in 2016 was 13.35%, down from 13.79% in 2015. (Medium, 2018)
- Steam had 62.76 million new users on Steam platform in 2017, equivalent to 3.9% more new users from 2016. (Medium, 2018)
- As of August 2017, Valve reported that Steam had 67 million monthly active users and 33 million daily active users. (GeekWire, 2017)
- 34% of Steam sales revenue was attributed to North American according to Valve. (GeekWire, 2018)
- 29% of Steam sales revenue was attributed to Western Europe according to Valve. (GeekWire, 2018)
- PUBG had 550,000 players hourly, the highest hourly average number of players on Steam. (GitHyp, 2018)
- DOTA 2 had an average of 532,000 players hourly on Steam. (GitHyp, 2018)
- PUBG had 27.8 million units sold in 2017, making it the the highest paid game titles on Steam. (Medium , 2018)
PC Games
With over 70 million units sold worldwide, PUBG is the best-selling PC game of all time across all platforms. On PC alone though, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most played game on Steam with over 789k players, followed by Dota 2 with 523k and PUBG with 315k.
Sources: PUBG Corporation, Steam
During a survey conducted in 2021, 27% of game developers worldwide stated they were working on VR games for the Oculus Quest virtual reality headset.
Amazon dominates a survey with 3 out of 5 countries positioning Amazon as their most favourable place to get Digital Video Game purchases by store brand. In the U.S, 42% submitted Amazon as their response with Google Play Store coming second at 36%.
- 66% of game studios are currently making games for PC.
- RPGs and shooters are the most played genres for PC, both at around 13%. Puzzle games come third with 11%
- League of Legends is the most popular core PC game worldwide as of June 2020, followed by Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Siege and then Valorant
- World of Warcraft took the second place among the best selling PC games of all time around the world, with a total of 6.33 million units sold as of January 2018. (VGChartz, 2018)
- League of Legends is the most popular core PC game worldwide as of March 2018, followed by PUBG and then Fortnite. (Newzoo, 2018)