Wondering about the best selling video games of all time? Good, then we have a real treat for you!
Video games have come a long way since the launch of the table tennis simulation game Pong in 1972. Gaming has grown into a prominent part of the entertainment industry, raking in as much as around $75 billion in revenues last year, while generating entire families of devices and consoles. In the industry’s existence of more than four decades, there are many notable, culture-defining games, but few as widespread and influential as the 15 games on this list. These seminal games have sold almost 1.10 billion copies on the aggregate, translating into billion, if not trillions, of dollars in sales. Here are the best-selling games of all time, ranked according to number of copies sold and paid downloads.
15. Grand Theft Auto IV. Launched 2008. 25 million copies sold.
We start our list of best selling video game of all time with Grand Theft Auto IV. This action-adventure video game, along with the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise, may have received parental complaints over themes such as gang violence and sex, but those concerns did little to stop this particular game from earning $310 million in sales during its launch day for Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), which recently hit its all-time stock price high.
14. Call of Duty: Black Ops. Launched: 2010. 26.2 million copies sold.
Call of Duty Black Ops ranks 14th in our list of the 15 best selling video games of all time. This first-person shooter video game set in the Cold War sold 5.6 million copies 24 hours after launch, accounting for 25% of all copies sold. This debut-day success led to more than $1 billion in sales for game distributor Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), also around 25% of the company’s total revenues for that year. Even those figures don’t make Black Ops the most lucrative game of the Call of Duty franchise.
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13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Launched 2011. 26.5 million copies sold.
The most lucrative Call of Duty title sold 6.5 million copies in the U.S. and U.K. 24 hours after launch, leading to $400 million in sales just for that day. Overall, the franchise has become a reliable source of income for Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), whose other properties include Guitar Hero, Warcraft, StarCraft, and even Candy Crush Saga from recent acquisition King Digital Entertainment.
