The Best Selling Video Game Franchises of All Time

When I play a video game I never really stop to think about how big a franchise is or how much money the video game makes.   Maybe that’s just the old school in me.  I mean I recognize how popular a game is but somehow I just never really associate the dollars and cents with it all.  Perhaps it’s because it’s a “game.”  It’s not that I’m stupid and don’t know that video games are a huge industry.  It’s just weird associating it with “business” you know?

But in case you ever wanted to know what franchises made the most money in the gaming industry, you’ll love the infographic we have after the jump.  The revenue figures are staggering….

Click on the photo to enlarge – Thanks to Culturellement Geek for this graphic

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12 Comments

  1. I’m also curious if expansions are taken into consideration? Wow had at it’s peak what? 10 million subscribers? The base game was $20-60 depending on date of release and there are like 4-6 expansions now(? not going to look it up but I can think of at least 4) and each of those were $20-40/per. Plus monthly subscriptions. Same for EverCrack. So would that just count as “1” game? Back at it’s peek the game was pulling $250 mil in annual revenue. SO if that is the case MMORPGs probably crush every single game in this category.

  2. Had a look at vgchartz to see how Halo compared to these figures. It lists 18 installments for Halo, even though there are only 7 games. If the data has just been lifted from the site this way, I’m not really sure we can learn anything from this chart.

  3. If the list were done in order of average units per game it would look like this…

    1. Mario
    2. Gran Turismo
    3. Pokemon
    4. GTA
    5. COD
    6. Zelda
    7. Donkey Kong
    8. Sonic
    9. Final Fantasy
    10. Need 4 Speed
    11. Star Wars
    12. Mario Kart
    13. Sims
    14. Lego
    15. FIFA

    It seems the key to FIFA’s success is pumping out a barely updated sequal every 6-12 months!!

  4. Wow, Super Mario and Pokemon are the top 2 bestselling video games franchises of all time? I remember playing Super Mario as a kid 25 years ago. Very nostalgic. Have not played Pokemon though.

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