The PC Gaming Alliance has released a lengthy press release at the Leipzig Games Development Conference lauding the success of PC gaming in the past year. The ‘Horizons’ report reveals that PC gaming was a $10.7 billion industry worldwide in 2007. One of the most surprising figures to come out of the report was that retail sales only accounted for 30% of the total. Unsurprisingly however it was revealed that the Asian online market is approaching half of total worldwide sales.

Online PC gaming revenue totalled $4.8 billion and was the biggest contributor to total PC gaming revenues last year, this was nearly double the worldwide retail sales. Digital distribution sales were approaching $2 billion and advertising revenue (websites and in-game ads included) accounted for $800 million of the total.

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GameSpot is reporting that PC game sales at retail for 2007 in the US totaled $911 million according to NPD statistics. This is 6% down from 2006 which saw $970 million in PC takings. The US PC takings have been on a steady decline since the 2004 peak of $1.1 billion. The NPD however recognise that the rise in digital distribution has played a key role in the falling retail figures, as the NPD doesn’t cover digital distribution figures it is not known how much is missing from the total PC sale figures in the US. This is what an NPD representative told GameSpot.

“The PC games sales landscape is changing to one that is increasingly reliant on digital sources of revenue. Our sales reflect the retail climate but there is a lot of gaming sales activity that is generated from digital downloads and subscriptions. I think the PC market continues to be quite healthy and we’re continuing to work on how to get our arms around the spending that occurs outside of retail. A number of our [surveys] ask respondents to indicate which platforms they game on, and the results of those questions make it very clear that the PC remains very prevalent, if not dominant, in the total gaming picture.”

Sales figures from digital distribution must be substantial, Steam has over 13 million subscribers and there are countless other channels for digital distribution. If figures from digital distribution were to be included in the total PC sales then it is likely that total figures would be closer to what they were in 2004.