THE LAST DECADE was something of a golden age for PC gaming. It saw the gap between consoles and gaming PCs widen even further, as the hardware we play on became more powerful and capable than ever before.
But it also saw the emergence of the blockbuster game as a rival to the kind you see in theaters. In 2007, 14 years ago, Halo 3 took the largest launch-day sales of any media property at that time, with first-day sales of $170 million, overtaking the likes of Harry Potter and Spider-man at the movies. Since then, in 2017, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds took $900 million on its first day, toppling 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V ($815m).