Games have at all times existed in a numbers-obsessed business. Sega vs. Nintendo outlined a technology within the ’90s, whereas at this time’s comparatively gentle console wars and month-to-month NPD studies maintain gross sales figures close to the forefront of games-related dialogue. New monetization fashions require new metrics for achievement — month-to-month energetic customers, participant retention charges, in-game income, and so on. — however one of the business’s greatest questions stays: What are the best-selling video video games of all time?
To reply this query, we got down to compile essentially the most correct checklist potential by reaching out to publishers and digging by way of monetary studies, information tales, interviews, and extra. The result’s the next checklist of the ten best-selling video video games of all time.
Some notes up entrance:
- Pack-in video games are counted towards gross sales totals, contemplating most video games on this checklist had been, at one level, bundled with a console.
- Free downloads are usually not counted as gross sales, which excludes massively profitable video games like Fortnite and League of Legends from a listing like this.
- Attributable to an absence of accessible gross sales information, we couldn’t embody sure video games that will belong on this checklist. For instance, we reached out to Activision-Blizzard looking for up to date gross sales numbers for Diablo 3 (30 million items bought as of June 2015) and the Name of Obligation franchise however didn’t obtain up to date info to incorporate these video games on this checklist.
10. Overwatch – 50 million
Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch bought 50 million copies, in keeping with a Bloomberg report printed in April 2022. Overwatch elevated the hero shooter style with sensible recreation design, thoughtfully crafted heroes, and continued esports help. In October of 2022, Overwatch was changed by its free-to-play sequel, Overwatch 2.
9. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – 50 million+
The Witcher 3 was added to this checklist in Might 2023 when CD Projekt Pink introduced its seminal RPG handed 50 million copies bought. Complete gross sales for The Witcher sequence, in the meantime, sit at over 75 million.
The developer is now engaged on a number of video games new Witcher video games, together with The Witcher 4 and a Witcher 1 remake.
8. Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 – 55 million+
The most just lately launched recreation to earn a spot within the high ten is Pink Lifeless Redemption 2. Rockstar’s western epic bought over 55 million copies by August, in keeping with writer Take-Two’s newest monetary report.
7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 60 million+
After years of silence relating to Skyrim’s gross sales numbers, Bethesda’s Todd Howard revealed in June 2023 that the RPG has bought over 60 million items because it was first launched in 2011. “We’re sitting right here, it’s 12 years after Skyrim,” Howard informed IGN. “We’re taking a look at a recreation that has over 60 million copies, and all these folks taking part in… they’re nonetheless taking part in it.”
Subsequent up for Bethesda Recreation Studios is Starfield, its space-set RPG coming to Xbox and PC on September 6.
6. Mario Kart 8 + Deluxe – 69.04 million
With over 60 million copies bought as of December 31, 2023, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best-selling Swap recreation, in keeping with Nintendo. Consider gross sales of the unique Wii U launch and that complete rises to over 69 million, good for the sixth-best-selling recreation of all time.
5. PUBG – 75 million
Given its vital position within the rising recognition of battle royale video games during the last 5 years, it’s unsurprising that PUBG has been such a large gross sales success. Krafton artistic director Dave Curd informed The Verge it has bought 75 million copies of PUBG as of December 2021. That can probably be the shooter’s remaining gross sales tally, because it went free to play a month later in January 2022.
Whereas free cellular downloads do not depend towards its gross sales complete, it is value noting PUBG Cellular had been downloaded over 1 billion occasions as of March 2021.
4. Wii Sports activities – 82.9 million
In line with Nintendo’s official gross sales figures, Wii Sports activities is the corporate’s best-selling recreation ever. Whereas most entries on this checklist had been bundled with a console in some unspecified time in the future, Wii Sports activities was bundled with the Wii in practically all territories at launch. At practically 83 million copies bought, it’s the top-selling single-platform unique of all time.
3. Grand Theft Auto V – 185 million+
Grand Theft Auto 5 is the best-selling console/PC-only recreation of all time (the highest two entries on this checklist have cellular variations, too). Gross sales of Rockstar’s most bold GTA but surpassed 185 million items as of August 2023. That quantity compiles the sport’s gross sales totals from throughout three console generations and PC between 2013 and 2022.
GTA 5 was the quickest leisure launch throughout all mediums to succeed in $1 billion — and it’s since earned Rockstar and Take-Two billions extra, making it essentially the most worthwhile leisure launch ever, a minimum of as of 2018.
2. Minecraft – 300 million+
Minecraft has bought over 300 million copies as of October 2023, Mojang introduced throughout this 12 months’s Minecraft Dwell (by way of Windows Central). That determine captures the gross sales complete throughout Minecraft’s many platforms. With movie, Netflix, schooling, toy, and lots of different initiatives accomplished or within the works, Minecraft has transcended the medium in a means few others have earlier than it.
1. Tetris – 520 million
Arguably essentially the most timeless online game ever created, Tetris sits comfortably atop the checklist of all-time bestsellers with 520 million copies bought, in keeping with The Tetris Company. That quantity contains gross sales throughout all accessible platforms, with the bulk coming from cellular (425 million paid cellular downloads as of 2014, in keeping with Henk Rogers, The Tetris Firm’s managing director).
Tetris was initially launched for the Soviet Union-developed Elektronika 60 pc, and variations of the basic puzzler have since been made for over 50 totally different platforms. Notably, it helped launch the Recreation Boy to success, finally promoting 35 million copies on Nintendo’s handheld console.
Trendy variations of the basic are nonetheless being launched: Tetris Impact: Related introduced the puzzler to current-gen consoles with an emotional twist, whereas most just lately, in 2020, SEGA launched Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.