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　　Sold out Staples Center for the League of Legends Season 3 World ChampionshipsResearch firm DFC Intelligence says that PC gaming is alive and well, raising their internal forecast for the global PC market from $22 billion to $25 billion. Analyst Jeremy Miller says that although Asia contributes a large portion to the market, core PC gameplay in the west has increased, as "core gamers seem to be willing to spend more money than ever."

　　Much of that comes on the backs of League of Legends and Dota 2, which DFC says were the number one and two PC titles of 2013, respectively, with Dota 2 having the most growth in 2013. DFC says that due the domination of League of Legends and Dota 2, the MOBA genre is "far and away the largest because of those two games". PC FPS and MMORPG's come in second and third, with strong showings from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 communities to help PC FPS surpass MMO's in 2013.

　　The firm found that while free-to-play is still a huge factor in the growth of the PC market, upfront payments are also working in favor of publishers.

　　"The big surprise is that an upfront payment business model still seems to do very well. Dota 2 charged a $30 beta fee before going free-to-play and a great deal of people took advantage of that," DFC's David Cole told GamesIndustry International. "So really we see a hybrid business model working where you can call it F2P but still charge upfront,"

　　The International 3 at Benaroya Hall "Also the traditional model where you charge a one-time fee is also very attractive....but again there is now a greater ability to upsell consumers after the initial purchase. We think this is a major driver of growth versus the pure free-to-play games."

　　Based on the performance of 2013, DFC Intelligence is forecasting 2014 to be a record year for PC games. According to Miller, “the pipeline of big new titles is looking very strong and core gamers seem to be willing to spend more money than ever."

　　"2013 was a slow year for releases on the PC in large part because developers were gearing up for new console systems. We actually think the launch of the new console systems will help lift the PC game business because there is large overlap between console and PC gamers and it becomes another platform for developers.

　　On February 11, DFC Intelligence will be releasing a complimentary brief in conjunction with GameIndustry International. This brief will look at forecasts for the substantial expected growth of spending among core gamers across all major platforms.

　　Earlier this week Riot Games released impressive statistics around player activity for League of Legends, including 27 million daily players, 67 million players per month, and 7.5 million players concurrently during peak hours. Yesterday, a new report by of more than 50 percent of China's gaming cafe's showed millions of players across both League of Legends and Dota 2 in the country.

　　Source: DFC Intelligence