According to The PC Gaming Alliance, PC game sales have risen globally by 15% year-over-year in 2011, reaching a record turn-over of $18.6 billion.

The report notes that PC gaming growth was particularly impressive in China, whose year-over-year growth hit 27%, or $6 billion.

The free-to-play market was cited as one of the primary reasons for the impressive growth.

Publishers such as Bigpoint and Tencent performed extremely well, and according to the Alliance, “Tencent will have surpassed Activsion as the company that generates the most revenue from PC games” once the “full numbers are presented for 2011.”

Games such as Skyrim and Battlefield 3 were also mentioned, with large revenues being drawn through digital distribution channels.

According to the Alliance, “growing access to broadband connections and the increasing ease of digital distribution delivery solutions and payment” will elevate growth to 37%, or $25.5 billion by 2015.

The PC Gaming Alliance has been going for 4 years, and is a “non-profit, industry-led consortium,” whose members include staff from AMD, Intel, Epic Games, Capcom, Razer and more.