Is PC gaming growth a myth?

Music publishers have figured out that they can manipulate algorithms on services like Spotify by creating Stream farms of cheap phones, all stream the same song on repeat for hours on end. 

The digital marketplace and "big data" have created an opportunity to manipulate accounts and user numbers to make something seem more popular than it actually is. 

Steam users have noticed odd player data on Steam, too. 20,000 hours of play time in a single game? Not likely. Fake accounts running duped processes to boost numbers is more likely. Valve isn't filtering this stuff out of their MAU numbers. Public engagement is an important factor in driving mob behavior. 

So what is a good tell tale for what is really happening in the PC space? First you look at the most common and necessary part of a PC. For gaming, that would probably be the mouse. Then you look at the most common mouse. Luckily for this we can look at the company that supplies 80 percent of the CMOS chips in optical mice. Pixart Imaging is the secret ALPS of PC gaming. Then look at their yearly financial figures (have to love public disclosure requirements). Lets look at 2018 to give us a good 5plus year span of pre, during, and post lockdown. 

They definitely shipped a lot more sensors, but with the inclusion of Bluetooth Audio, and etc. So what can we really tell from this? 

A: The optical mouse CMOS company needed to make more than just CMOS for optical mice. That is usually a sign that they have saturated the market back in 2018.

B. The market for optical mice isn't growing nearly as fast as Valve would like people to believe the PC market is growing. This doesn't even show a 10% increase. 

The data really puts to question whether the PC gaming market is growing as fast as Valve and AMD, the two largest stakeholders in PC gaming outside of Microsoft, say it is. Logic that seems to fly in the face of all the media outlets that claim mobile and tablet is the preferred game device of kids; the gift-getting, consumerism engine.