Analysts have calculated the number of PC gamers in 2024 – the vast majority choose old games

PC Gamer shared findings from the analytical company Newzoo from the annual report on the state of the interactive entertainment industry, concerning the audience of computer games.

Image Source: Valve

As PC Gamer notes, Newzoo’s findings were extrapolated from an annual, comprehensive survey of 73,000 users, as well as data from more than 10,000 released games.

According to Newzoo’s findings, the number of PC gamers worldwide will reach 907.5 million in 2024 (873.5 million in 2023). By comparison, console gamers account for 653.1 million.

Newzoo reports PC gaming market showing steady growth (Image source: Cyberia Nova)

Newzoo data showed that PC gamers gravitate toward older games, with 67% of their time spent in 2024 playing games that were more than six years old, 25% playing games between two and five years old, and 8% playing newer games.

Among these 67%, games-as-services dominate:

• 7.1% of total time was spent on Counter-Strike 2 (formerly Counter-Strike: Global Offensive);
• 6,4 % — на League of Legends;
• 6,2 % — на Roblox;
• 5.8% – on Dota 2;
• 5.4% — on Fortnite.

Image Source: Valve

Thus, PC Gamer journalists emphasized that PC gamers overwhelmingly prefer hits of the past: 92% of the time they spent in 2024 was spent on games that were released more than two years ago.

This reflects the vastness and diversity of the PC audience. Not everyone has access to the latest hardware or the ability to buy the latest releases. And we can’t forget about the variety of free-to-play games (see list above) on PC.