NPD Group, a market researcher says that the number of PC games downloaded through the internet nearly in parity with games sold number in US retal store.

For example in 2009, there are 21.3 million PC games downloaded vs 23.5 miliion purchased on retail stores. It is predicted in 2010, PC online game downloads will increase beyond retail stores as the new services have been launched like OnLive.

In other side, PC online game downloads showed the significant growth while PC retail sales showed the decline in 2009. PC online downloads reached 48% of total 2009 and it covered 36% of dollar sales.

This result can be understood as the consumer can pay less when they choose to download game via the web than in psysical form from retail stores. Game distributing via web takes less cost than selling them on stores.

Here are top 5 Frontline retails in 2009:

1. Steampowered.com
2. Direct2drive.com
3. Blizzard.com
4. EA.com
5. Worldofwarcraft.com

Top 5 Casual Digital Retailers in 2009
1. Bigfishgames.com
2. Pogo.com
3. Gamehouse.com
4. iWin.com
5. Realarcade.com