The PC Is A Really Profitable Platform For Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts has revealed its Q1 FY16 earnings results and according to them, the PC is the second – if not THE – most profitable platform for the publisher.

[TheGreatGamer]

PC won't overtake consoles any time soon because of the rampant pirating

[Black0ut]

Even after all the pirating there's without a doubt a huge audience to sell games to. Not everyone that uses a PC is a pirate. I've gamed on steam since 07 and despise people who pirate software. You'd be surprised how many are the same as me. Edit: spelling

[PC_60]

Even though PC was the second highest grossing platform for Ubisoft last year with all their shitty ports

[JasonKCK]

You're stoned if you think console is immune to piracy. PC is profitable because of its massive install base. In fact it's so big console can never catch it. It's a numbers game, and 3 billion is a big number. PC overtook console years ago. 302 million just in 2014.

[slappy508]

There's over 120 million active users on steam. There's no chance of pirating steam games bud.
And what about the console market, why do you think Microsoft attempted to instutute DRM on it's console, don't you think they were a little bit concerned over all the people buying second hand games or renting games (like pirating they get zero revenue for this, but I'm willing to wager more people trade in their games and rent then people who pirate)

[steve30x]

Are you for real in saying steam games can't be Pirated. I know of at least one forum dedicated to pirating steam games and most Steam games get cracked within minutes of getting released. Saying that in the past five weeks I've bought 24 games on steam when they wre at a reduced price. Games I pirated before because there is no demo so theres no try before you buy.

[slappy508]

To be honest with you steve, I didnt know there was a way you could pirate games that are on steam. There will always be someone smart enough to find a way, but Im sure that Ive read somewhere that steam scans your library bought from them periodically so it can be very risky for a user.
I am aware that you can add pirated games that were gotten from another source to your library via "Add a non steam game to library" and Im sure of you saying MOST steam games getting pirated as a bit of an exaggeration as Ive yet to see anyone in my group of friends to have had it done

[ONESHOTV2]

what do you call used games.

[AndrewLB]

PC gaming revenue is higher than Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo COMBINED.

https://opengamingalliance....

https://opengamingalliance....

[Aenea]

Okay, combined figures are of course nice and all, it just means all sales from every publisher imaginable combined while this article is about one publisher.

If you look at the figures of some of the larger publishers (not just EA) you will notice though that consoles account for way more sales than the PC.

[BG11579]

And the graphics are fake as hell...
Look at 2013 numbers from a respectable well renown institute that actually make it's living from these kind of studies.

http://www.gartner.com/news...

[hiredhelp]

Oh stop pirating crap why dont you go spend bit time with a pc that has steam and cdkey sites, and the array of free to play titles to see that Pirating isnt as bad as it was to be known.
Plus last gen devs used this piracy as way to excuse there titles not on pc then look at how last couple years been to PC and now more so than ever this gen PC PC PC Support.
PC has a large legit install base fact pc obviously not going be larger than 3 combines consoles doesnt need to be we have a community its growing fast each year.
Im glad to be a gamer from days of old 80s ive had manyyyyyy consoles built manyyy pc's i enjoy both..
pirating didnt start with video games VHS Did then 8bit tape to tape cartridge copying floppy disc coppying Cdr to Cdr Image to dvd... List goes on all platforms had its share. But pc is a never ending growing install base with legit core gamers.
With refund options now online dx12 price wars hardware pc gaming great.

[thisismyaccount]

Dunno how dsogaming can claim that the PC is more profitable. Sure it has surpassed PS360 (barely), but last time i checked, i´m pretty sure that PS360 are considered "Consoles" right?

When both consoles get much cheaper(PS4, XB1), the already big gap of 3:1 should increase. The PC might be profitable, but not as much as the console <<<market>>> .

http://i.imgur.com/QMdk258....

[stragomccloud]

Ummm... The pc market is larger and more profitable than consoles despite popular belief.

[MrSwankSinatra]

No surprise because PC has always been hugely profitable for EA. Back in the day during the North American video game crash, EA survived and thrived off of the PC platform.

[TheColbertinator]

Its a shame that the PC gets such shoddy ports often from the big publishers despite bringing in major profits

[JasonKCK]

True, PC does get some bad ports.

[starchild]

I wouldn't say often. The truly bad ports are few and far between. Most PC games I've played have run just fine.

There's a perception aspect to it, though. Some people think that any game that doesn't run at high framerates on their mid-range hardware is a bad port. These people need to learn the difference between truly badly optimized games and games that are justifiably demanding.

[q8kik]

You'd think that PC should be with out a doubt the most profitable platform for almost every major title out there, with Steam boasting about their "120" million users, but nope.

35 million current gen owners are alraedy showing us that they buy more games (especially if combined) than those "100" million active users............It's really quite pathetic.

Even franchises that used to be PC exclusives are selling better on consoles, like Farcry and The Witcher 3.

Again that's 35 million VS "100" million.
Can somebody explain? The numbers don't add up.

[SteamPowered]

PC gamers have thousands of games to chose from. Current gen hasn't hit triple digits yet. We are spoilt for choice right now. No need to jump on another EA annual rehash.

[JasonKCK]

Was about to say the same thing. PC has far more choices.

[q8kik]

Oh Plz give it a rest

The Witcher 3, Considered by many as the current holy grail of PC gaming, it's touted as a PC game too by many and still only a third of the sales are PC sales.

Explain.

Edit

It indeed has hit the triple digits mark

http://www.game.co.uk/en/ga...

[starchild]

The PC has a much larger library of games to choose from. And I'm not just talking about the colossal back catalogue. The actual number of games releasing on PC during any given time frame is much greater on PC than on any console, therefor PC gamer dollars are spread out among more games.

This is proven time and again when industry analysis shows overall revenue generated broken down by platform. PC game sales as a whole dwarf any single console platform. In fact, PC game sales generate more revenue than all three major home consoles combined.

[Aenea]

@starchild Yet for individual publishers even a single console platform can generate more revenue than the PC can, let alone if you combine all console sales...

[q8kik]

@starchild

I was talking about major multiplats from publishers like EA Activision SE and Capcom. I really don't recall any of these publishers saying that PC generates more profit for them than consoles.

Yes, of course there are games like LoL and WOW Tera and what not that generate alot of profits, but i was referring to major multiplatform publishers.

If you can prove me wrong then shoot.

And plz don't refer companies like Blizzard that make most of their games on PC.

[Seafort]

@q8kik

What you don't seem to get is PC game sales sell over the long term not short term like they do on consoles.

Witcher 3 PC sales will surpass console sales over the next year while consoles will have moved onto to something more "shiny" and then you'll be comparing that.

PC platform has hundreds of games coming out every month we don't put all our eggs in one basket as there is so much choice out there.

So game sales is distributed into many smaller parties rather than one or two publishers like on consoles.

And why should we include all the publishers? That's what console fanboys do. You even add both consoles together against the PC and say look consoles are selling much better than PC...

In a few years time when PS4 has had it's day the PC platform will still be there selling games, making profits and console fanboys will be arguing over PS5 and XboxTwo sales against the PC.

Same shit, different generation :)

[q8kik]

@Seafort

"Witcher 3 PC sales will surpass console sales over the next year"

You wanna bet ?
50$ on Steam

What say you ? :P

[starchild]

@q8kik

It seems you want to arbitrarily limit what can and can't be counted. My whole point is that PC gaming and console gaming are overlapping but fairly separate markets. PC gamers on average don't have exactly the same tastes as console gamers. There are a great many games on PC that don't show up on console and likely wouldn't do well on console.

PC gamers as a group are spending significant amounts of their time and money on these other types of games. Overall there are simply a wider breath of games to choose from on PC. Not only the AAA multiplats from big publishers like EA, but many other genres uncommon on consoles, such as RTS, MMORPGs, world building games, and a huge variety of creative independently published games.

In addition to those, the PC also shares many exclusives with one or the other console-- games like Street Fighter 5 and Shenmue 3, which it shares with PS4, or games like Sea of Thieves and Gears of War Ultimate that are shared with XB1. All these different games on a single platform means that PC gamers have a huge number of games to choose between. And that's before you factor in the multi-decade-deep back catalogue of games that are still being bought and played on current gaming PCs.

[BG11579]

This doesn't add up and numbers don't seem logical to me.
There is no proof that PC over come PS4's profits.
They are evenly dividing the profit from PS4 and Xbone, but the true is that the PS4 always has sold more games than the counter part. So why dividing the profit by half?
There are twice PS4 as there as Xbones sold. After E3 one can say that the PS4 is having more and more support. Doesn't that mean that one console is more profitable than the other console?
At this point to have a miserly 0.5 difference is nothing has we don't know the real number per platform. This article doesn't or arguments for the title itself.

[Kingdomcome247]

Don't forget to factor in EA Access for revenue generated on the Xbox One.

[BG11579]

@Kingdomcome247 What about it?
Even the article agree with me about PS4 been more profitable:
"Our guess is that PS4’s sales are higher than those of Xbox One, thus PS4 is the most profitable platform for EA, making the PC the second most profitable platform for the big publisher."

[triple_c]

It looks like the PS4 and PC are the most profitable platforms according to third party devs like Ubisoft and EA meanwhile the Xbox One is in third place. No wonder Microsoft is bringing so many of their Xbox exclusives to the PC..

[Aenea]

Still, if they keep doing that they might shoot themselves in the foot 'cos I'm planning on getting an X1 once more exclusives I like come out so it can sit next to my PS4, but if most of them come out for the PC anyways I might just put that money into a new, more capable, PC instead...

[Father__Merrin]

120m steam users yet ps4 version sells more, all the better games are on consoles and that's the platform everyone talks about. Pc gaming is more a cling on to console gaming

[Seafort]

You realise you're being controlled by the gaming media and console creators to believe that right? :)

Wake up it's all about short term profits. They are all in it together. Making money and telling you what you want to hear.

So sad.

[Psychotica]

I have a PS4 and a PC, what's all these "better" games on PS4? Bloodbourne is about the only one I can think of and anything cross platform is almost always better on PC.

[ShottyGibs]

I have a PS4, X1 and a PC too. I'm with Psychotica..

please tell us all these games that are "better" on PS4?

[stragomccloud]

Way to believe the propaganda! More consoles sold just means there are more idiots who believe that dribble than don't. Which is basically the same as society. Look at how many people think Apple is the best at everything!