List of best-selling video game franchises

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

This is a list of the best-selling video game franchises worldwide, ranked up to 50th place by reported software unit sales. Mario is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, with over 893 million units sold since its first commercial release in 1983. Nintendo, the publisher of Mario, has the most franchises on the list with eight entries.

For this list, sales figures must be directly attributed to a franchise to be included. In instances where overall figures for a franchise are not known but sales of a single game within that franchise are, sales for that game will be attributed to the franchise. Sales of expansion packs and episodic video games are included. Metrics such as "players" or "installs" are not listed as they typically refer to user engagement rather than sales; even for paid games, these metrics could include free trials or other free promotions and cannot reliably be substituted for sales figures.

The listed publisher correspond to each franchise's most recent release, and release years refer only to the first commercial launch, excluding any pre-release stages. Rankings serve solely for numbering purposes and are not meant to be precise, reflecting the list's limited scope because there is no credible, comprehensive sales-tracking source for the video game industry,^[1] unlike for films, which have box office tracking sites such as Box Office Mojo and The Numbers. Tied ranks are resolved using the standard competition ranking method, in which entries with equal figures share the same rank and following ranks are increased based on the number of tied entries.

Overview of best-selling video game franchises

Rank	Franchise	Sales (millions)	Debut year	Publisher(s)	Ref.
1	Mario[b]	893.5	1983	Nintendo	[5]
2	Tetris	520	1988[c]	Various[d]	[9]
3	Call of Duty	500	2003	Activision	[10]
4	Pokémon	489	1996	Nintendo / The Pokémon Company	[11]
5	Grand Theft Auto	460	1997	Rockstar Games	[12]
6	Minecraft[e]	350	2011	Mojang Studios	[13]
7	FIFA	325	1993	Electronic Arts	[14]
8	Assassin's Creed	230	2007	Ubisoft	[15]
9	Final Fantasy	204	1987	Square Enix	[16]
	Wii[f]	204	2006	Nintendo	[19]
11	The Sims	200	2000	Electronic Arts	[20]
12	Resident Evil	178	1996	Capcom	[21]
13	NBA 2K	167	1999	2K	[12]
14	Madden NFL	150	1988	Electronic Arts	[22]
	Need for Speed	150	1994	Electronic Arts	[23]
16	Sonic the Hedgehog	140	1991	Sega	[24]
17	The Legend of Zelda	133	1986	Nintendo	[19]
18	Monster Hunter	123	2004	Capcom	[21]
19	Pro Evolution Soccer	112.5	1995	Konami	[25]
20	Red Dead	106	2004	Rockstar Games	[12]
21	Mortal Kombat	100	1992	Warner Bros. Games	[26]
	Tomb Raider	100	1996	Various[g]	[27]
	Gran Turismo	100	1997	Sony Interactive Entertainment	[28]
	Bejeweled	100	2000	Electronic Arts	[29]
25	Borderlands	99	2009	2K	[12]
26	Tamagotchi	98.1	1996	Bandai	[30]
27	WWE 2K	98	2000	2K	[31]
28	Dragon Quest	95	1986	Square Enix	[16]
29	Just Dance	90	2009	Ubisoft	[32]
30	Battlefield	88.7	2002	Electronic Arts	[33]
31	Donkey Kong	82	1981	Nintendo	[19]
32	Halo	81	2001	Xbox Game Studios	[34]
33	Civilization	80	1991	2K	[12]
	The Walking Dead	80	2012	Telltale Games / Skybound Games	[35]
35	Worms	75	1995	Team17	[36]
	The Witcher	75	2007	CD Projekt	[37]
37	Super Smash Bros.	72	1999	Nintendo	[38]
	Counter-Strike	72	2000	Valve	[39]
39	Animal Crossing	70	2001	Nintendo	[19]
40	God of War	66	2005	Sony Interactive Entertainment	[40]
41	Metal Gear	65.1	1987	Konami	[41]
42	The Oregon Trail	65	1971	Gameloft	[42]
43	Tekken	61	1994	Bandai Namco Entertainment	[30]
44	Far Cry	60	2004	Ubisoft	[43]
45	Street Fighter	58	1987	Capcom	[21]
46	Kirby	50	1992	Nintendo	[38]
	Destiny	50	2014	Bungie	[44]
	Overwatch[h]	50	2016	Blizzard Entertainment	[45]
	Marvel's Spider-Man	50	2018	Sony Interactive Entertainment	[46]
50	Pac-Man	48	1980	Bandai Namco Entertainment	[47]

See also

• List of video game franchises
• List of best-selling video games
• List of best-selling game consoles
• List of highest-grossing media franchises

Notes

1. Sales for the Mario Kart franchise are attributed to Mario Kart 8 (8.46 million)^[3] and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (69.56 million).^[4] A figure for the overall franchise is not known.
2. The Mario franchise consists of many sub-series, including Super Mario (430 million)^[2] and Mario Kart (78.02 million).^[a] These sub-series accumulated enough sales to be listed in the top 50, but are grouped into the main series.
3. The release date of the first Tetris games sold commercially.^[6] Earlier games were given out for free.^[7][8]
4. Tetris does not have a primary publisher. It is licensed by the Tetris Company.
5. Sales for the Minecraft franchise are attributed to the 2011 game. A figure for the overall franchise is not known.
6. Wii Sports (2006) was bundled with the Wii console in all regions except Japan.^[17] Nintendo includes those bundles in the overall sales figure.^[18]
7. Tomb Raider does not have a primary publisher. It is owned by Embracer Group.
8. Sales for the Overwatch franchise are attributed to the 2016 game. A figure for the overall franchise is not known.