Ben Porter, director of consulting firm NewZoo, is presenting a talk at GDC this week, highlighting key insights from the company’s annual industry report. PC Gamer got an early look at some of his slides, revealing that PC gaming is more popular than ever, with players showing a strong preference for older games.
The findings are based on an in-depth annual survey of 73,000 gamers and data from over 10,000 games. According to NewZoo, the PC gaming market is steadily growing, with an estimated 873.5 million players in 2023 increasing to 907.5 million in 2024. This surpasses the estimated 653.1 million console gamers in 2024.
NewZoo states that these 908 million PC gamers are “heavily skewed toward older live-service games.”
From January 2024 to December 2024, 67% of all PC gaming hours were spent on titles that are six years or older. Another 25% of playtime was dedicated to games between two and five years old, while only 8% of gaming hours were spent on titles less than two years old.
NewZoo further breaks down this 67% segment:
- 7.1% of total gaming hours were spent on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive / Counter-Strike 2
- 6.4% on League of Legends
- 6.2% on Roblox
- 5.8% on Dota 2
- 5.4% on Fortnite
PC gamers overwhelmingly prefer older titles, with 92% of their total playtime spent on games that are more than two years old.
