An organisation that combines the two giants of gamer chip creation, AMD and Intel, has announced through a new report that PC gaming grew once again in 2012, managing to generate well over £10 billion.

Known as the PC Games Alliance, a non-profit organisation with aims to further PC gaming as a platform, it announced that the the global PC games market managed to rake in $20 billion (£13.24 billion) last year in revenue, an eight per cent increase over 2011. Some of the big sellers were Diablo III, Borderlands II, Guild Wars II and of course Minecraft. These games helped buck the trend of reduced PC gamer numbers in subscription MMO games likes of World of Warcraft, which slumped well over a million players.

However China was one of the biggest markets, with around a third of the entire industry's sales credited to the region. However the Asian markets have always been fans of the MOBA and with growth of games like DotA 2 and League of Legends, no doubt a big chunk of cash was raised by those games in 2012.

According to the report, there are now over a billion PC gamers worldwide- which dwarfs the current-gen console market for any individual system. Indeed, to get close to that number you need to pool the player base of three different systems – not all of them contemporary.

According to Shacknews, super high end graphics hardware was a driver of revenue for the PC industry too. Nvidia's Titan was specifically called out, despite its near £900 cost.

KitGuru Says: I bet the growth of Indie gaming has made a big impact on PC revenue too. With increased exposure for titles priced between £2-£10, many people are happy to drop a few quid on a game they play for a few days and move on. Those pounds add up.

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