PC gaming to grow 5% yearly thanks to India, Brazil, Russia, China

PC gaming will grow to $24 billion by 2017, spurred on by rising living standards in BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China, analysis firm IDC has predicted.

The IDC expects digital PC gaming to grow at a rate of 5% per year outside America, thanks to an increase in disposal income levels in key developing markets like India and the inability of consoles to penetrate these markets as expected.

In North America, the digital growth is expected to be 4% as IDC expects PC-based social gaming to be canabalised by smartphones and tablets.

IDC also found that barring casino games, the growth of PC gaming is being fuelled by hardcore games, with casual titles finding the going tough.

"Other than the casino genre, it’s been tough sledding for most casual-leaning PC game genres in the past year. Most of the growth is coming from hardcore-oriented freemium titles such as Tencent’s and Riot Games’ League of Legends, Valve’s Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2,Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks, and a handful of Chinese MMORPGs," said Lewis Ward, IDC’s research director for gaming.

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