The market for PC-based gaming is currently in flux with the advent of digital distribution and subscription-based games making it more difficult and less attainable to determine how large and how healthy it is. On the other side, WoW?Cataclysm?Classic is one of the most lucrative PC WoW cataclysm Gold games ever with more than 12 million gamers paying every month to experience the vast multiplayer world of the game. Valve Software's Steam service is also growing and its collection of PC games available for download and present growing daily.

However purchases of PC games in brick-and-mortar shops are in decline, a lot lower in actual. A week after announcing a recession-fighting $21.3 billion for non-PC gaming industry sales in 2007, the NPD Group revealed that US PC software sales have plummeted 23,4 percent, up to $701.1 million dollars in retail. The decline to 29.1 million copies was significant considering the trends in the preceding years. For 2007 the number was $911 million. This was down by $59 million over the $970 million which was up 2 percent over the previous year. In large part due to the launch of WOW, US PC game sales reached a record-breaking $1.1 billion in 2004.

The range of PC games may have played some influence on the decline in 2008. Two of the most well-known releases included extensions: WoW?Cataclysm?Classic: Wrath of the Lich King and Crysis Warhead. Lich King demanded players to have the 2007 Burning Crusade expansion--which itself needed the original WOW to play. Crysis Warhead could be played as a stand-alone title However, the entire plot is inspired by the events in the original Crysis that was launched in 2007.

The highly-anticipated Will Wright game Spore was also released in 2008, but the sales so far haven't comparable to the famed game's predecessor, The Sims. After making 1 million worldwide sales within its initial week on the market the game continued to sell over 2 million units in the world. In the final year of its existence it had moved over 720,000 units in US retailers.

In a curious twist, The NPD Group did not issue its own year-end PC figures the way it did in the past. Instead, the figures were released through the tainment announcement by the Software Association that highlighted the combined sales of 2008's games that totaled around $22 billion when PC revenue is included.

"Even in the midst of a recession gaming industry has continued to help the nation's state, local and national economies by delivering records-breaking sales numbers and rapid technological advancement," declared ESA president Michel Gallagher in a statement. "Our industry's outstanding creators, artists and storytellers, in conjunction with our commitment to buy Cataclysm Classic Gold  providing the highest quality entertainment has fueled rapid growth and transformed games on video into one of the sought-after media available today."