Not a good chart. They mix franchises and titles in the same chart which is a strange choice. Mario Kart 8 certainly did not sell that much, seeing as there are only 13 million Wii U’s. They meant Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Switch. They also got the wrong logo for Super Mario Bros, somehow. It’s the New Super Mario Bros. logo but with the “New” cut out.
Top-selling video games ever (2025)
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Innerworld@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Best-Selling-Video-Games_02-web.webp
Comments
memphis@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
At that point, it’s combining SKUs of what they consider to be the main “game”. Non-deluxe Mario Kart 8 is a rounding error. Tetris gets really weird to count.
verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 3 weeks ago
Visual capitalist is a slop media creation. Content and traffic are absolute, actual real data be damned.
halloejsovs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Don’t know about the numbers but Mario Kart 8 is for switch.
setsubyou@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mario Kart 8 is a Wii U game that was later ported to Switch under the name Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
The number looks like they added the sales numbers for both together, which I think makes sense. It’s expanded but not a new game.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
My problem with those stats is that “Tetris” always count every iteration of it
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
If we’re going by THAT metric, Pokémon would top this list hahaha
Master_Increase_4625@indie-ver.se 3 weeks ago
Tetris really, truly shouldn’t appear at the top of any best-selling games list. The only reason it does is because every installment of Tetris is still counted as just being Tetris for some reason.
slampisko@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be fair, every installment of Tetris kinda is just Tetris /hj
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Not really. They are developed independently, marketed and produced, sold independently to different times since its inception. Counting them all as a single game is wrong in my opinion. It’s like counting every Tennis game as the same game, because they all try to realize the same genre.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you’re going to include pack ins like Wii Sports then Windows Solitaire and Minesweeper smoke everything…
uservoid1@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
MeatSweat@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
has Human Fall Flat really sold more than Overwatch? I always thought it was a small indie game. It even beats out Stardew Valley
I’ve seen it on storefronts a lot but haven’t tried it before
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It is a small indie game. And yes, it sold that much. Every time I see that stat, it blows my mind.
watson387@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Me too, because the game itself sucks pretty bad.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The game was auper popular in China for some reason. Probably was a hype among Chinese streamers, like how Among Us suddenly got a meteoric rise in sales.
Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Overwatch ranks in the top 15 and that still wasn’t good enough for Blizzard to not chase out all their good devs because the numbers weren’t as high as they promised their shareholders.
FatVegan@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
While blizzare is known for being a shitass company, readjng that some suit told Jeff Kaplan out of nowhere that overwatch needs to generate x million dollars by the end of the quarter or they are gonna fire 2000 people and it’s gonna be on him. It left such a disgusting taste in my mouth.
Railcar8095@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why they put a character of overwatch but not one of Terraria, which has sold more, was made by some passionate team and it’s still very much loved by the community?
Prox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Including Wii Sports is kinda bullshit. It was a pack-in for the console. Not like people had a choice there.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Most people buying a Wii were doing so for Wii Sports anyway.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Nahhh everyone wanted Red Steel (lawl)
rozodru@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
to be fair it was a console seller and A LOT of people bought the Wii just to play that at family gatherings and like inviting people over for dinner. My parents bought a Wii just for it and never bought another game for the Wii.
I was working at an EB Games when the Wii came out and a good chunk of people would just buy the console with no games attached to it. They just wanted Wii Sports. AND THEN when they brought out the new version of Wii Sports…man that thing sold like hot cakes.
moakley@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Tetris was bundled with the original Game Boy. It’d still be in first though.
IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m surprised World of Warcraft didn’t make it :o
Mac@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yeah especially since all-time peak active subs was 12m and still has 2.2m daily active players as of Jan 2025.
It would surely be on a chart for repeat customets, though.
…And all-time revenue generated, of course: ~$15b (also Jan 2025).Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 3 weeks ago
Isn't WOW a subscription?
rozodru@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
you still have to buy the game before you pay the subscription.
commander@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Didn’t think the Witcher 3 had caught up to infinite releases Skyrim. TW3 will have another big bump when the new expansion hits. It’ll probably get rewnewed interest from modders as well
Frigidlollipop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It makes me happy to see that Stardew Valley made the list!
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Does GTA V equate to selling one playable copy or is it because its somehow bundled with shark cards? Also how is Tetris counted, because there are multiple Tetris games. Do they count smartphone games? How fits free to play with micro transactions into this discussion? Some have a buy once for full price to unlock main game with additional optional DLCs (in example Overwatch 2 and Paladins worked like that). It’s a bit unfair to put them all in one. I also do not count built-in or bundled games like Wii Sports.
Is there any source? Just sharing an image?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Also how is Tetris counted, because there are multiple Tetris games.
I think Tetris is in it’s own cateory here. We’re talking about over 40 years of re-licensing the same thing to nearly every platform in existence, short of a number of 8-bit computers and consoles. And all that happened under many different publishers, sometimes multiple times on the same system. Added up, it’s no surprise that it’s in the top spot. Nothing else on this list even comes close to having numbers like that.
Meanwhile Minecraft and GTAV are closing that gap in a fraction of the time, on a fraction of as many platforms.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
With a magnitude of additional potential customers.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
GTA V has tapped three generations of consoles now, plus PC. I bet a lot of people have bought it twice.
It’s also been out 13 years or something and it was free to claim on EGS at some point. Wouldn’t be surprised if that counted as sales too, since Epic presumably paid them for those claims.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I know I bought it twice. Once when it came out new on Xbox 360 and later (much later) on PC.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah so activision (blizzard) made a game that people paid for, then replaced it with a f2p version, then added the ability to buy a bunch of the paid shit in a bundle? Can’t say that surprises me if it is the case; they made it pretty clear how out of touch they were the moment their rep asked “don’t you have phones?” as if “can I buy and play this?” was the only question any gamer had.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
then replaced it with a f2p version, then added the ability to buy a bunch of the paid shit in a bundle?
The way it works or worked in Paladins and Overwatch 2 is, that the characters can be got for free by just playing the game. But you can buy the all (and future) characters lets say for 20 Euros / Dollars. It’s not really different from games you purchase for 20 Dollars, that do have free to play paid stuff in it too. So it’s not really that different from full priced games, after you purchased it.
Ok_imagination@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Isn’t pubg free?
STUNT_GRANNY@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not at launch; it became free-to-play later.
shiv@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Mobile is but there are micro transactions everywhere. They likely make a shit ton of money off that because people are stupid.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Ugh PUBG was one of the best games ever when it came out for computer. Full of jank, sure, but every time you started a new game, it was an ADVENTURE! I always landed far away from people so I could get max exploring in. I loved that there were tons of garbage items on the floor, like clothing and stuff. It made every time you found a nice gun or attachment feel AWESOME. Then as the round is further in, I’m armed to the teeth and driving a bike with a sidecar towards the action. Then I hit a twig and my bike launches into orbit, doing 500 flips, exploding on impact. Except the time it didn’t—I was driving and my partner was in the sidecar, we launched and did a million flips, and it landed without so much as a bounce (doing damage to us and lighting on fire, but not killing us!) I wish I had a clip from that moment, with our reactions.
Then PUBG mobile came out, and a friend of mine was sooo into it, and soooo stoked that he got so many kills and was so good at the game. I’m not a teen anymore so I’m not a fun-ruiner like I was back then; I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was playing against majority boys with bad AI, and the game has crazy auto aim for players.
The computer version removed all bad loot, so everything you find was guns, ammo, attachments… suddenly everything was inundated with loot. If I wanted that, I’d just go play a game with load outs! I want to have to hunt for good gear, that’s what made the game so unique for me!
Then PUBG went full on garbage mode. Removed proxy-chat, went F2P, and added bots. Fuck bots! Ruins the concept of the game completely. I uninstalled the day bots were added and never played again.
I am very happy to have had a few 1v99 wins before bots were added. My first win against 99 others happened maybe 50 hours in, and my watch warned me my heart rate hit 180. I’ve never felt that kind of rush from a game before or since.
dropped_the_chief@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Like it, or not, Minecraft has real staying power. Kids around the world are going to relate to things to Minecraft forever, now.
moakley@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why would anyone not like it? Minecraft is great.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I never played Minecraft before, with one exception last year. I was trying out the PS3 emulator on my PC and tested Minecraft (offline) on it. I can see why people like it. Its pretty cool game and wish I was more into it.
Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I love the idea of it but literally struggle to play it with my child I can’t stand builder games rather be playing Lego’s at that point.
But I still do it because she loves it.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Dude I played Minecraft as a teenager and now my kids play Minecraft with minimal encouragement by us. It’s got hella staying power
squirrel@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
Tetris!
Etterra@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
Okay but do they mean Super Mario Bros as a standalone cartridge or bundled with the NES console?
sleepmode@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Made me realize I have nearly every decent variant of Tetris for all the consoles my Brick Hammer can run installed. Probably play Apotris the most, though.
Sunsofold@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
No way this is a remotely sane comparison.
Any Tetris game released after 1988 is essentially a sequel while most of these games have no sequels to include, and even if you just dismissively wave that away, it has had almost 40 years to sell those copies.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“All-time units sold”, not “all-time units sold under certain conditions to normalize the list”
Sunsofold@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
Un-normalized data presented as a graph is just encouraging bad interpretations. I know it’s just a look at stupid game sales data but bad data visualization is bad data visualization, regardless of the data it is made from.
CumbrianCucumber@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Didn’t Minecraft overtake Tetris years ago?
I’m pleasantly surprised to see Human Fall Flat here though. I don’t hear many people talk about it, but it has a seriously fun multiplayer
shiv@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Pubg is only up there because it’s on pc / Xbox / PlayStation / and mobile.
otp@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve literally never heard of “Human Fall Flat” before seeing this image
commander@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
From what I interpret off the Wikipedia page, it had sold single digit millions by COVID and then went viral in China during COVID and that’s how it ended up selling tens of millions more
otp@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Fascinating!
I’d be interested in seeing a list that was adjusted for the “number of gamers” at the time. A game selling a million copies today isn’t the same level of accomplishment as selling a million copies in 1985 when there was a smaller global market.
ServeTheBeam@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Very fun multiplayer game. My son and I love it. I’m surprised of the sales count too though. I didn’t expect it to be that high.
Harvey656@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I honesty thought it was more of a streamer game. Had no idea it sold that much.
devolution@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I played it with my daughter and called it the flobby Bobby game.
tuckerm@feddit.online 3 weeks ago
Me neither. And I… have it on Steam, apparently?