The Most Successful Games Ever

The video gaming that we love so much today first became popularised during the 1980s thanks to the release of the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System. These two consoles would change how we spent our free time, and while it took a few decades, gaming has become the world’s number one favourite pastime. In that time, tens of thousands of games have been created and distributed to gamers from across the planet, but only a very small handful of those games were so successful that they became entirely new franchises of their own. These are the most successful games of all time.

  1. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds

As of the end of 2018, Playerunkown’s Battlegrounds entered into legendary status when it managed to sell a total of 50 million copies, launching the battle royale genre into the public light, and it has retained much of its  popularity to this day. It’s important to note that the 50 million copies sold does not include their free mobile game, which, when included, means that almost half a billion people have downloaded and played this game at some point.

  1. Grand Theft Auto V

The Grand Theft Auto series is one of the best-selling franchises of all time in the video game world, and while developer Rockstar has had a lot of successes with their games over the years, nothing comes quite as close to the fifth iteration of GTA. GTA V was first released in 2013, and over the years it’s been ported over to just about every system imaginable, and along with the release of GTA Online, it’s safe to say that it’s been nothing short of a money printing machine almost from the day it became available to play. Without any solid evidence of a 6th instalment in the works, GTA V continues to be Rock Star’s crowning achievement in terms of pure sales, and rivals the popularity of even Australian betting sites.

  1. Minecraft

Minecraft isn’t just a success through the sheer amount of copies that have been sold, but also because of the many streamers and content creators that have created franchises of their own using Minecraft, such as PewDiePie and the Lewis & Simon YouTube Channel. Minecraft was an otherwise small game that first saw the light of day in 2009, and its blocky textures and simple gameplay made it an instant hit with both adults, teenagers, and children. Microsoft, who bought the rights to the name a few years ago, has been able to rack up over 200 million copies sold, and it’s estimated that there are around 250 million players worldwide, with a significant portion of them coming from China.

  1. Tetris

Despite the massive success that is Minecraft, it doesn’t quite hold a candle to Tetris, a game that has been overflowing with sales for decades, and one that has been played by hundreds of millions of players. Well over half a billion copies of Tetris have been sold, and it’s been called the best game of all time by countless reviewers, critics, and gamers over the years.