Study - games revenue to hit $70 billion by 2017, PC largest contributor

A new study from market research firm DFC Intelligence predicts industry revenue across consoles, mobile, PC and the web will grow from $52 billion in 2011 to $70 billion in 2017.

The report, posted over on Gamasutra, noted casual and other new consumers are expanding the market, but it's the core gamer - males between the ages of 12 to 30 years old - which will drive the growth in revenue.

"Digital distribution, already widely accepted among core gamers globally, is clearly broadening access to products and driving much of the industry growth," said DFC Intelligence CEO David Cole, who expects digital to make up 66% ($46.2 billion) of revenues by 2017.

Cole feels more firms focusing on browser and social titles need to gain core support in order to grow revenue

"The bottom line, is core gamers spend money on products they like and right now the game offerings on sites like Facebook are simply not appealing to that demographics," he said.

In order to compile its figures for the study DFC pulled numbers from Xfire, Live Gamer, and GamerDNA over the last five years for its study.

DFC found during its study titles played on PC will make up the largest percentage of the revenue with 39% ($27.3 billion), due to the metrics pulled from the aforementioned gaming networks. The firm found titles such as Diablo III, Minecraft, and League of Legends easily pulled in 1 million DAU despite little or zero retail presence.

As far as other formats were concerned regarding revenue growth, DFC expects consoles to contribute 36% ($25.2 billion) and mobiles titles to contribute 25% ($17.5 billion) to revenue.