BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka has added to the ongoing debate on the health of PC gaming, stating that he feels the platform is growing in popularity.

"I think there are more people playing PC games and more dollars being spent on the PC space than ever before, but it's taking a different form," Muzyka told CVG.

It is a widely held view that the health of the PC market is one that cannot be determined through physical sales data, as the format continues to shift its focus to digital distribution and online gaming.

The NPD group stated last week that PC software sales had fallen 14 percent in the US last year, with physical software sales amassing $701 million, down from $910.7 million in 2007 and $960.7 million in 2006. NPD has already stated, however, that the decline at the retailers simply accounts for consumers’ switch to online distribution and, even, browser games.

"MMOs are one way that's occurring," said Muzyka, "and there are more people playing flash-based games and casual games, even core games that are played in a casual way, so maybe [they have] a more core experience and you only play them for short bursts or for half an hour or something.”

"It's not a bad thing if people want to play more types of games than they did 20 years ago,” he adds. “It's natural and normal as the audience and technology evolves... As creators we have to adapt to that and continue to make sure that we're satisfying the audience, but it doesn't mean we have to compromise.”

Muzyka believes that it’s the duty of developers to adapt to these new market conditions. "We can still make deep rich experiences but we have to make them easy to access, you have make the control system really easy to use, and you have to make people feel like they're playing an experience that they can play how they want to play it, whether that is long sessions or short sessions."