electricmastro
Member
Warcraft is prob one of the most tricky to gauge considering how ingrained it is with subscriptions and expansions, and determining how much of that keys into actual sales.
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What are the best-selling gaming franchises of all time?
- Thread starter electricmastro
- Start date
electricmastro
Member
Doom is another franchise I'm uncertain as to how much it sold. Seems that a lot of the people who ended up playing it early on used shareware copies instead of actually buying the game.
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laynelane
Member
I did a little looking into Fallout and the wiki said it's over 55 million - the sources are not exactly what I'd call ironclad, though. Still, with the numbers that Fallout 4 sold - and Fallout 3 and NV combined roughly equaling it - it's feasible that that the franchise is over 50 million.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
World of Warcraft wasnt sold.
You subscribed to it.
If I pay for one month but dont pay next month then sub the month after that how many sales is that?
What if I just sub for the year?
What if the year after that I only sub for 6 months?
Thats why WoW "sales" arent included in the list....it wasnt actually sold.
Then it became Free to Play(lvl20 cap) and you bought whatever the latest "expansion" was if you wanted to keep going.
If we include subs and DLC wouldnt Fortnite just clean the floor with every game as every skin, gempack etc counts as a sale no?
Theres a different metric for those kinda games......Revenue.
nial
Gold Member
Franchise sales (without counting Tourist Trophy) were 77,020,000 units as of September 30, 2017, Gran Turismo Sport (released in October 2017) brought an additional 12,977,000 units as of seemingly late 2021, which makes the total number 89,997,000 units.
Gran Turismo 7 has sold, at least, 3.440.000 units across retail and digital in the US as of January 4, 2025, while retail only sales in Japan are of 565,386 units as of June 15, 2025 (PS4 sales as of June 1, 2025). The game also received a platinum award in January 2023 for selling over 400,000 units (retail+digital) in Germany, and plus the 30,000 retail units it sold at launch week in Spain, we have, at the very least, 4,435,386 units we know of Gran Turismo 7. Which also means that we, at least, have a semi-official number of 94,432,386 units for the Gran Turismo series.
GTPlanet has estimated around 14,400,400 units sold of Gran Turismo 7 (which I agree with), which would put the number at 104,397,000 units, but you can use 94M for now.
nial
Gold Member
electricmastro
Okay, I looked it up, and if we count Tourist Trophy (which you should, as Polyphony Digital definitely does), which has sold, at least, 400,000 units in the US and 400,000 units in Europe (as both regions required 400,000 units sold for a game to gain a Greatest Hits and Platinum re-release respectively), and 113,775 units in Japan as of December 31, 2006, that 913,775 unit sales figure would add to the overall number as 95,346,161 units for the Gran Turismo series.
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electricmastro
Member
Yep, which makes it trickier to gauge how many units count as being sold.
Sooner
Member
Pokémon success overall goes far beyond the games.
electricmastro
Member
Mario, Tetris, Pokémon, Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, and FIFA didn't surprise me sold over 300 million copies.
Yet for some reason, Call of Duty still surprised me it sold over that same amount.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
Call of duty is untouchable, battlefield has a decorated history as well, halo had its moment in the spotlight.
electricmastro
Member
Why has every other FPS franchise sold less than 100 million anyway?
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Once you tried CoD after playing any other ADS shooter on console, those ADS shooters felt ancient and unresponsive by comparison.
Hell id go as far as to say pretty much only boomer shooters had any chance of feeling as good as CoD......but they were boomer shooters so they were already falling out of favor on console.
(Funny cuz CoD was build on the Q3A engine and pretty much every game on that engine felt amazing to play, CoD just made them work for consoles).
CoD games just felt better to play.......once they did CoD4 it was practically gameover........they brought in FOMO and RPG-esc elements to the shooter genre to the masses......there was no going back from that.
TitanFall was supposed to be the chosen one......it was supposed to take that spot.....then they made TitanFall an Xbox One console exclusive with no Singleplayer campaign......then they made a sequel with an amazing Campaign because we always knew they could.........but dumbed down the Multiplayer and released it to die....................we were robbed of the Ultimate Universe in which TitanFall was king of the hill for MP shooters.
Funny story Call of Duty was basically a sequel to Medal of Honor Allied Assault.
After Allied Assault did so well EA the geniuses decided to NOT use the team that made Allied Assault and instead use their own new teams to make Medal of Honor........the team they abandoned ended up being Infinity Ward.
EA are kings of the fumble........twice with similar teams they could have had Call of Dutys spot.
electricmastro
Member
I guess out of all the listed FPS, Borderlands would have to be the one that resonates with people the most then, since it even outsold Battlefield.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Destiny did 40+ million on one game.
If Destiny 2 wasnt F2P it would probably be on the list easy work.
A Destiny 3 not being F2P would likely have the franchise nearing if not surpassing 150 million.
Borderlands needed 5(7) games to get to where it is, and its most successful game did 22 million.
Battlefields highest is somewhere around 15 million we'll see what Borderlands 4 and Battlefield UT do numbers wise.
The Battlefield test is looking super positive, if they can cut up that announce(lol) trailer well, I could see this being the most successful Battlefield.
Shubh_C63
Member
I was NOT expecting Destiny to be in Top50s best selling franchise of all times.
Guild Wars is a F2P you can complete a lot of game. Destiny 2 F2P you can't do a single seasonal/story/Expansion mission. Except Strikes/Gambit/Crucible, everything else is paywalled.
Even Harder Strikes are paywalled. Most F2P people have been converted or has no intention of buying. Being F2P actually helped Destiny 2 Sales.
I don't know about other games F2P strategy but Destiny really shouldn't be considered a True-F2P.
Guild Wars is a F2P you can complete a lot of game. Destiny 2 F2P you can't do a single seasonal/story/Expansion mission. Except Strikes/Gambit/Crucible, everything else is paywalled.
Even Harder Strikes are paywalled. Most F2P people have been converted or has no intention of buying. Being F2P actually helped Destiny 2 Sales.
And Read Dead at 100Million with only 3 games. goddamn.
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electricmastro
Member
It reportedly sold 50 million before going free-to-play: https://br.ign.com/destiny/69931/news/franquia-destiny-vendeu-mais-de-50-milhoes-de-copias
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
The issue is when does it count as a Destiny 2 sale or a Destiny 2 DLC sale if the game Destiny 2 is free but the DLC isnt?
Thats my point, Destiny 2 sales arent counted because Destiny 2 isnt for sale.
Because, if we count Destiny 2 DLC sales as Destiny 2 sales, then where does Apex Legends fall on the sales chart?
Where would Fortnite? It has a player base of like half a billion?
If we count every player who has bought anything does that translate into sales?
If the player buys 2 items is it 2 sales for Fortnite?
Theres a different metric used for games that dont have an upfront fee, and it isnt sales.
electricmastro
Member
Well, except for when Destiny 2 was pay-to-play for two years of course.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Yeah so all "sales" since 2019 would not be counted.
Thats almost 5 years.......
Anyway my point was/is once a game is free to play its "sales" figures going forward are zero because the game isnt for sale anymore regardless of its monetization strategy.
Destiny gets massive influxes of players whenever a new content drop happens, over the 5 years its totally plausible Destiny 2 sales could have reached 50 million.
Which would have put the Destiny series somewhere around 100 million.
A Destiny 3 should theoretically do better than the last so lets say it does 50+.
The Destiny series would be somewhere around 150 million.
electricmastro
Member
Borderlands made it to 92 million mainly on 3 games too.
electricmastro
Member
Looks like Kirby is now a 50 million mega-hit franchise: https://gonintendo.com/contents/500...es-50-million-sold-smash-bros-hits-72-million
![L*][*N*K](/data/avatars/m/842/842515.jpg?1750247637){kind=avatar}
L*][*N*K
Member
Aren't they? Do they have to have a "A Mario Bros Tale" as a tagline to be counted as a Mario Game?
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Maybe. Mario game without Mario is illogic. But we assume they count as Mario games.
PlayStaytion
Member
Gacha.
L*][*N*K
Member
They are mario games, they are characters from the mario world and their games take place inside the mario universe, this just seems like a symantics argument almost like a Jordan Peterson type shit
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Donkey Kong then is a Mario character too.
L*][*N*K
Member
They are all the same franchise, like Marvel characters all the same universe
electricmastro
Member
Red Dead and Diablo apparently managed to sell 100 million despite each having less than five games.
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electricmastro
Member
Having a hard time finding non-Arkham/Lego game sales for Batman. Hmm.
electricmastro
Member
Finally found a reported total figure for all the Doom games. Looks like it's 20 million, which is far below Kirby's sales. https://insider-gaming.com/doom-the-dark-ages-trailer/