Top 10 Best-Selling Video Games In History

Most Popular Video Games In History

The gaming industry has always been driven by numbers. From the fierce rivalry of Sega vs. Nintendo in the '90s to today's more subdued console wars and monthly Circana reports, sales figures remain a central topic in gaming discussions. While new monetization models focus on metrics like monthly active users, player retention, and in-game revenue, one age-old question persists: Which video games have sold the most copies of all time?

To answer this, we conducted extensive research, reaching out to publishers, analyzing financial reports, scouring news articles, and reviewing interviews. The result is a meticulously compiled list of the ten best-selling video games of all time.

1. Tetris – 520 million

Arguably the most timeless video game ever created, Tetris sits comfortably atop the list of all-time bestsellers with 520 million copies sold, according to The Tetris Company. That number includes sales across all available platforms, with the majority coming from mobile (425 million paid mobile downloads as of 2014, according to Henk Rogers, The Tetris Company's managing director).

Tetris was initially released for the Soviet Union-developed Elektronika 60 computer, and variations of the classic puzzler have since been made for over 50 different platforms. Notably, it helped launch the Game Boy to success, eventually selling 35 million copies on Nintendo's handheld console.

Modern variations of the classic are still being released: Tetris Effect: Connected brought the puzzler to current-gen consoles with an emotional twist, while most recently, in 2020, SEGA released Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.

2. Minecraft – 300 million

Minecraft has sold over 300 million copies as of October 2023, Mojang announced during this year's Minecraft Live (via Windows Central). That figure captures the sales total across Minecraft's many platforms. With film, Netflix, education, toy, and many other projects completed or in the works, Minecraft has transcended the medium in a way few others have before it.

3. Grand Theft Auto V – 200 million+

Grand Theft Auto 5 is the best-selling console/PC-only game of all time (the top two entries on this list have mobile versions). Sales of Rockstar’s ambitious open-world adventure passed 200 million units by the end of July 2024. That number compiles the game’s sales totals across three console generations and PC.

GTA 5 was the fastest entertainment release from any medium to reach $1 billion in retail sales — and it’s since earned Rockstar and Take-Two billions more, making it the most profitable entertainment release ever, at least as of 2018. Total sales for the franchise sit at 430 million units sold. Rockstar is now in development on GTA 6, due out Fall 2025.

4. Wii Sports – 82.9 million

According to Nintendo's official sales figures, Wii Sports is the company's best-selling game ever. While most entries on this list were bundled with a console at some point, Wii Sports was bundled with the Wii in nearly all territories at launch. At nearly 83 million copies sold, it’s the top-selling single-platform exclusive of all time.

5. PUBG – 75 million

Given its critical role in the rising popularity of battle royale games over the last five years, it’s unsurprising that PUBG has been such a massive sales success. Krafton creative director Dave Curd told The Verge it has sold 75 million copies of PUBG as of December 2021.

That will likely be the shooter’s final sales tally, as it went free to play a month later in January 2022. While free mobile downloads don't count toward its sales total, it's worth noting PUBG Mobile had been downloaded over 1 billion times as of March 2021.

6. Mario Kart 8 + Deluxe – 70.43 million

With nearly 62 million copies sold as of March 31, 2024, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains the best-selling Switch game, according to Nintendo. Factor in sales of the original Wii U release and that total rises to over 70 million, good for the sixth-best-selling game of all time.

7. Red Dead Redemption 2 – 64 million

The most recently released game to earn a spot in the top ten is Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar’s western epic has sold "nearly" 64 million copies through March 2024, according to publisher Take-Two’s latest financial report.

The series has collectively sold over 89 million units, putting the original Red Dead's sales total around 25 million.

8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 60 million

After years of silence regarding Skyrim's sales numbers, Bethesda's Todd Howard revealed in June 2023 that the RPG has sold over 60 million units since it was first released in 2011. We’re sitting here, it’s 12 years after Skyrim. We’re looking at a game that has over 60 million copies, and all these people playing… they’re still playing it."

9. Terraria – 58.7 million

Perhaps the biggest surprise on this list is Terraria, the hit 2D sandbox game from developer Re-Logic. As of June 2024, 58.7 million copies of Terraria have been sold, according to the developer, with 32 million on PC alone.

10. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – 50 million+

The Witcher 3 was added to this list in May 2023 when CD Projekt Red announced its seminal RPG passed 50 million copies sold. Total sales for The Witcher series sit at over 75 million.

The developer is now working on several games new Witcher games, including The Witcher 4 and a Witcher 1 remake.