NEW YORK - Nearly 1 million copies of the top-seller "World of Warcraft" PC game in 2005 still wasn't enough to swing domestic retail sales of computer games from its slide to below $1 billion, a research firm said Tuesday. As online gaming picked up in popularity, annual U.S. retail sales of PC game software sank 14 percent to $953 million last year, down from $1.1 billion in 2004, according to data by the NPD Group.
Overall volume totaled 38 million units, a 19 percent decline from 47 million units the year before, NPD said. The research group attributed the dwindling volume — which reflects only games sold on CD-ROMs — to increased game play through Web sites and subscriptions to massively multiplayer online, or MMO, games.
News source: Yahoo News