The NPD Group announces their research suggests digital distribution of PC games has surpassed sales of boxed retail games over the first half of this year, saying 11.2 million full games were sold via digital distribution, compared with 8.2 million sales of physical boxed copies, though they also point out that boxed sales still generated more than 10% greater revenue than digital distribution, thanks to higher per-unit costs. This is tempered by bad news about overall PC game sales: "Combined sales of both digital and physical PC Games for the first half of this year were down 21 percent, and unit sales were down 14 percent compared to the same time period last year." Just two months ago NPD suggested digital sales were on the verge of eclipsing retail sales, and offered a list of the top five digital distributers, which was refuted by some of the parties involved, but this has not deterred them from presenting almost the same data once again.

Top 5 Frontline Digital Retailers Jan.-June 2010 (based on unit % share)

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

Top 5 Casual Digital Retailers – Jan.-June 2010 (based on unit % share)

1. Bigfishgames.com
2. Gamehouse.com
3. iWin.com
4. Pogo.com
5. Wildtangent.com