While there is a widespread perception among gamers that consoles dominate the market, some recent reports suggest that the PC gaming industry remains very strong and, in fact, is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. This amount of growth has spurred a lot of competition among hardware manufacturers, and many boutique gaming PC makers have emerged as serious market influences.
According to the annual report released by PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), there was very strong growth in the software industry in 2010. The total global PC games market reached a record $16.2 billion (a 20% growth over 2009). Estimates say that this market sector could grow to $23 billion by 2014. One possible reason for all this growth is the multiple business models distribution methods in the software industry. Games are available on disc, through digital download, or can simply be played online. Some are ad supported and others rely on in-game economies. With revenues going up like this, the hardware industry is growing to keep up.
The PCGA also released a report that claimed the shipment volumes for PC gaming hardware in 2009 was twice as large as the combined shipments of the Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 consoles. The report suggests that revenues from hardware sales could grow to $61.3 billion by 2014.
There is a lot of competition for a slice of all that revenue, but unlike the console market where there are only three choices for a gaming platform, the PC gaming community is seeing competition from many privately held companies that began very small but have since become major players in the marketplace.
Digital Storm, for example, began in a garage in 2002, but now they offer systems that are consistently ranked as some of the top in the industry. In 2003 another company, CyberPower, was listed in the Los Angeles Business Journal as the fastest growing private company in LA that year. There are also many others who share a similar history, such as Velocity Micro and Origin, who were able to start small but still deliver the high end hardware that gamers require to play the most recent games. Two other companies, Voodoo and Alienware, started in much the same situation and were eventually purchased by larger companies (HP and Dell, respectively) because these small companies already had the expertise they needed to market to the gaming community.
Another trait that these companies share is the ability to customize their offerings to the individual needs of the gamer. This is something that consoles are simply not able to do. In the PC market, a consumer can order gaming laptops or desktops and have them customized to meet his or her particular preferences and gaming style. This kind of individualized service is what allows these small companies to compete with the larger, more established companies. As the market continues to grow, it is very likely that other boutique PC gaming companies will appear to try and claim a part of the potential revenues.