Games
Bow down before video game royalty as we look at 10 of the most popular games in history.
Gamers might well be fiddling while Rome burns, but 2016 has at least been a fantastic year for games. While we’ve heard the swan songs of a handful of greats like The Witcher and Uncharted, we’ve seen the triumphant return of Gears of War and Deus Ex, and welcomed brave newcomers like The Division.
Now more than ever, the Franchise is king, as sequels follow sequels and remasters plug the gaps. Fledgling developers need to work harder and harder these days to make their new IPs stick, and ensure they’re not simply swept away by the competition.
All of which got us to thinking – not about which franchises have endured the longest, particularly, but about which have been most successful over the years, not just in terms of longevity but in units shifted. As a result, we’ve gone back through the annals of video game history to look at the 10 best-selling franchises ever.
10. Minecraft
Developer: Mojang
First title released: November 18, 2016
Units sold: 106 million
At this point, barely half a decade since its global release, it’s hard to imagine what kids did before the advent of Minecraft. They probably went outside or rode bikes, or something equally perplexing. That said, it’s certainly not hard to imagine how Mojang’s genre-defining crafting behemoth has surpassed 100 million sales in such a comparatively short time. At the last count, according to Mojang themselves, Minecraft had shifted 106 million units across all its platforms, a figure made all the more impressive when you consider that Notch’s baby is still so young. With consistent updates and a handful of spin-offs – including the TellTale-developed Story Mode – there’s plenty to go round.
9. Sonic the Hedgehog
Developer: Sega
First title released: June 23, 1991
Units sold: 112 million
The blue blur was Sega’s primary mascot for years following the release of the Mega Drive/Genesis, which at the time was the only real competition for Nintendo’s world-changing NES and SNES consoles. While Sega’s hardware days are long done with after a few disastrous non-starters, they still regularly churn out games starring everyone’s favourite azure rodent, now most often seen standing alongside one-time arch enemy Super Mario himself on various Nintendo systems. Who’d have thunk it, right? While it’s fair to say that Sonic hasn’t had a hugely popular game of his own for a few years, that doesn’t seem to have stopped the speedster from shifting in excess of 110 million units.
8. Final Fantasy
Developer: Square
First title released: December 18, 1987
Units sold: 115 million
The evolution of Final Fantasy has been a spectacle to behold. An almost 30-year opus beginning with a top-down 8-bit role-playing game and ending (so far), with one of 2016’s biggest surprises, Square’s tenuously-linked sci-fi fantasy series is a mainstay of many a games collection. For gamers of a certain age, Final Fantasy VII will always be the best RPG ever made, but every one of the 15 numbered entries and their myriad of spin-offs has its own legion of fans. Yes, even XIII.
7. Need for Speed
Developer: EA Canada, Black Box, Criterion, Ghost Games
First title released: August 31, 1994
Units sold: 150 million
EA’s arcade racer has had its fair share of low-points, and we’re not just talking about the whiffy movie starring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, either. Over the years Need for Speed has been passed from developer to developer, and some of them have made interesting choices. Anyone remember Need for Speed: The Run? No? You’re better off. But the franchise has also seen some incredibly high-quality entries, and Criterion’s Burnout-alike iterations, Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted and Rivals, are often counted among the best it has to offer. Whatever your preference, 150 million sales prove EA aren’t messing around.
6. The Sims
Developer: Maxis
First title released: February 4, 2000
Units sold: 175 million
Not many games out there allow you to create entire towns full of people, replete with nightclubs and restaurants, holiday hotspots and love nests and then populate them with little denizens of your own devising. Well, The Sims does. Maxis Games’ fantastically addictive life simulator not only lets you create these characters, but also control every aspect of their lives, from their appearance to their career. Or, if you get bored, you can always just build a wall around them until they starve (we never did that, of course; a friend of ours did). Despite a recent decline in popularity, thanks in part to deviations from the established formula, The Sims has still sold over 175 million copies since the year 2000.
5. Grand Theft Auto
Developer: Rockstar North
First title released: October 1997
Units sold: 240 million
According to Rockstar North’s parent company Take Two Interactive, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has sold between 220 and 240 million units since the original top-down crime spree sim was released all the way back in 1997. Despite being heavily censored and even banned in several countries, GTA continues to be ridiculously popular, and Grand Theft Auto V is often lauded as one of the finest games of the last console generation, earning the Game of the Year accolade from many outlets in 2013.
4. Call of Duty
Developer: Infinity Ward
First title released: October 29, 2003
Units sold: 250 million
You can’t keep a good shooter down. It may have its naysayers and detractors, particularly since the dissolution of original series developer Infinity Ward (which has since re-formed, to various degrees of applause), but the Call of Duty series still regularly produces the most pre-ordered game of any given year. We gave up counting how many times it has jumped the shark a long time ago, and these days we just shut up and strap in for the ride, but there was a time when Call of Duty was almost, almost, the flag-flyer for realistic and affecting portrayals of war in video games. Then they added zombies and went to space, but hey, memories. Whatever you may feel about the direction it has taken, 250 million sales (as reported by Polygon earlier this year) don’t lie, and Call of Duty’s intense, twitch-heavy online mode still draws gargantuan crowds from all around the world.
3. Pokémon
Developer: The Pokémon Company
First title released: February 27, 1996
Units sold: 280 million
Whoever would have thought a video game about capturing and training little monsters would be so addictive and captivating. According to figures published by The Pokémon Company in November of this year, the franchise is a veritable meta-empire, encompassing several different anime series, comics, card games and a mind-boggling array of video games, all centred around catching as many Pokémon as you can with which to challenge and beat your friends and enemies. Given the sheer volume of releases across various mediums per annum, it’s not surprising to see that 280 million copies have left the shelves in the last two decades.
2. Tetris
Developer: The Tetris Company
First title released: June 1984
Units sold: 495 million
Tetris is one of those games that everyone’s dad used to play all the time. How many times did you roll out of bed, slip on your He-Man or She-Ra slippers and wander groggily downstairs to find that your old man hadn’t been to bed yet and was still sitting, blurry-eyed, at the dining table having spent an entire night with your Game Boy? Really? Just us? We don’t believe you. Created and designed by Russian genius Alexey Pajitnov as a game in which to outwit and outfox your opponent, and later brought over to Western audiences by developer Henk Rogers, Tetris became an instant puzzle classic that is still enjoyed today, 33 years after its inception. The sales figures are staggering, too, as Rogers told Venturebeat that around 495 million copies have been sold between the original boxed version and paid downloads since his version launched.
1. Mario
Developer: Nintendo
First title released: July 9, 1981
Units sold: 528.5 million
It’s hardly surprising that Nintendo’s frighteningly popular platform-hopping plumber is the star of the best-selling video game franchise of all time. Mario, and his brother Luigi and their various friends and foes, have been duking it out on Nintendo devices for 35 years, in so many different forms that you’d probably be hard-pressed to count all the releases. In fact, we’re not even going to try. Since the first title way back in 1981, the franchise as a whole has shifted half a billion units. Even to say it out loud is mind-boggling. The princess may be in another castle, but Mario is the absolute King of video game protagonists – and one shows no signs of letting up now a new Nintendo console is on the near horizon.
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