Since the good old days when “Space Invaders” were released, video games have turned into a multibillion-dollar industry. However, there are only a few titles which succeeded in gaining hundreds of millions of sales so far. We created a list of the best-selling video games as of 2019. Check it out and count how many titles have you guessed.
Also, read our article about the global video game development companies based in Ukraine
Top 10 Selling Video Games of All Time
10. Diablo 3
- Sales: 30 million copies
- Year released: 2012
- Developer: Activision Blizzard
This famous action RPG was first released on PC. Then consoles took their places in the market, and eventually a Nintendo Switch version became available in 2018. Unfortunately, Activision Blizzard didn’t provide sales reports for the last 4 years so the total number of sold copies could be a few million higher.
9. Wii Sports Resort
- Sales: 33 million copies
- Year released: 2009
- Developer: Nintendo Wii
Wii Sports Resort is the 3rd most popular Wii game of all time, Nintendo's stats state. This title had four factors that led it to incredible success:
- it came as a sequel to an already popular videogame
- it was bundled with the Wii MotionPlus peripheral to improve the system’s motion controls;
- it was later bundled with the console alongside Wii Sports;
- it featured quite a funny gameplay.
8. Mario Kart Wii
- Sales: 37 million copies
- Year released: 2008
- Developer: Nintendo Wii
Surprisingly, this videogame has overtaken Need for Speed and became the most successful racing franchise ever. In Mario Kart Wii gamers select characters from the Mario series, - all of them are invited to take part in kart races on 32 different tracks. They are allowed to use different items to crash opponents or gain bonuses.
7. Super Mario Bros
- Sales: 40 million copies
- Year released: 1985
- Developer: Nintendo Wii
According to Guinness World Records, Super Mario Bros is №1 best-seller among NES games so far. The iconic platformer which entertained the whole generation, was later released for the arcade. It is also the only game that has been rolling out to the servers of the game dev companies along with the projects where various levels are created and shared.
6. Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow
- Sales: 45 million copies
- Year released: 1996
- Developer: Nintendo Wii
Pokemon is considered to be the era-determined videogame in Japan. First, it was offered to the gamers in 2 versions: Red and Green. Then, after expansion to Europe and the U.S., it became available in Blue and Yellow (special ‘Pikachu’ edition) versions.
Although Nintendo didn’t provide exact numbers of sales, several researchers figured out that 4 versions mixed global sales have exceeded 45 million copies.
5. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds
- Sales: 50 million copies
- Year released: 2017
- Developer: PUBG Corporation
Believe it or not, but currently Playerunknown's Battlegrounds takes first place among the top-selling games on PC. You may wonder why Fortnite isn’t here. Well... although both games come in the same genre niche (Battle Royal) Fortnite is free-to-play and doesn’t sell any copies.
4. Wii Sports
- Sales: 83 million copies
- Year released: 2006
- Developer: Nintendo Wii
Here is the best-performing company's title.
This funny simulator was successfully bundled in almost all territories right after the launch of Nintendo Wii. Today the videogame is the top-selling single-platform exclusively developed item of all time.
3. Grand Theft Auto V
- Sales: 110 million copies
- Year released: 2013
- Developer: Rockstar
In the fall of 2018, GTA V became the 3rd videogame to make 100 million copies sold. But there is another noteworthy record: as of 2019 Grand Theft Auto V is known as the most profitable release in the world (not only in the gaming industry!). As of April 2018, it's already generated more than $6 billion in revenue and more than any other game, book, or movie.
2. Minecraft
- Sales: 176 million copies
- Year released: 2009
- Developer: Mojang
As of May 2019, Minecraft has overpassed 176 million copies sold (if not to count more than 200 million Chinese users registered for free).
Thousands of kids and teens used to play Minecraft for several years and many of them, it was the only game that really mattered. Minecraft fans were allowed to create almost everything they wanted within the huge virtual world. Even when players felt tired of that freedom, they could be involved in some fantasy story and reach some goals. Being so engaging and well-crafted this adventure has become one of the most popular video games of all time.
1. Tetris
- Sales: 500 million copies
- Year released: 1984
- Developer: The Tetris Company
What video game has sold the most copies? Tetris is considered to be the most evergreen video game ever created. Millions of people still love it and big tournaments are still held. Since its first release the iconic puzzler was distributed to 50 different platforms.
There are a lot of modern versions of the initial puzzler which are still being developed and promoted. For example, Tetris 99, a battle royale-inspired videogame, was published recently for Nintendo Switch.
Conclusion
Since our list is based on copy numbers it doesn’t represent the popularity. A lot of the games are free to play - in many cases, it is enough to download or connect online. So if you were curious what are the most popular video games in the world, now you have it. Read about the process of video game developing
If you have an idea or concept that can be turned into a masterpiece and take its place among the most popular video games feel free to contact the Melior Games team. These guys are really talented and experienced in developing any genre for any platform.
