I own a lot of games and I own zero of these titles. 🤷♂️
The Best-Selling Video Games Since 2020
Submitted 1 day ago by noumenon@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/839c50eb-70d1-4620-a1a5-a58096d3f4e5.webp
Comments
acme401@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
TransDesiTrekkie@startrek.website 1 day ago
It’s awful seeing a game based on a bigots work being bestselling.
It just feels like a reminder that so many people don’t care about trans people at all because of “nostalgia” and not caring that Rowling benefits and hurts us.
sighs I’m sorry for that rant just sad/disappointed/angry to see this.
UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Harry Potter was such a crucial part of my child and teen years. I cried when Dumbledore died. I read several of the books over a dozen times, and did an annual reread of the whole series for awhile.
I’m not trans but that TERF cunt will never see another cent or good word from me. I spit on her name as she spit on my childhood. Solidarity, friend.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 20 hours ago
From a trans girl: thank you. <3
ohshittheyknow@lemmynsfw.com 20 hours ago
Yeah I can only separate art from artist when the artist isn’t actively contributing to make the world shitty.
87Six@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
You will be surprised to know that you don’t agree on much of anything with most people.
Why tf do we need to investigate every damn niche of a creator’s mind before deciding to buy?
Idgaf he’s a bigot, a cow or a racist. If I like x thing that was made, and them being a bigot, cow or racist does not impact the product I’m buying, then I’m buying it.
Every day we use products that were made under the control of CEO’s that would shit on us rather than shake our hands, that have ruined so many lives you can’t count them because it’s probably “illegal” since they sleep with everyone in power, but somehow we draw the line at bigotry.
If you don’t like supporting bad people you better move in a forest and start raising some chickens because almost everything we buy supports some form of moronity that we can’t even comprehend. That one product you don’t buy won’t make a sliver of difference.
You not buying it is whatever, but expecting others not to is really pretentious.
gmtom@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Idgaf he’s a bigot, a cow or a racist. If I like x thing that was made, and them being a bigot, cow or racist does not impact the product I’m buying, then I’m buying it.
Congrats on perfectly respresenting the core of what is wrong with modern society.
“If it doesn’t get in the way of my mindless consumerism, I’ll happily support people who are openly racist”
People like you, more so even than the bigots themselves, are why society is turning to shit.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The problem with Rowling is she has a massive influence over the space.
It’s not like some random black metal artist who lives in a cabin that no one’s heard of. She’s quite literally a billionaire from this franchise and spends a ton of that wealth lobbying against Trans people.
Quite literally the profits from Harry Potter are going towards hate.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I guess you don’t care about a lot of the other categories either.
- Rank 1, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16 are developed/published by a patent troll that stifles the whole games industry with frivolous patent suits and milks their audience dry while investing hardly anything into their games.
- Rank 5 and 6 are published by a corporation widely known for their leadership being extremely misogynistic and exploitative.
- Rank 17 is published by a corporation that’s known for being extremely exploitative.
Btw, most of the corporations on the list donated to Trump, spy at their customers, use anti-competitive tactics, overwork and exploit their developers, employ psychologists to squeeze as much money out of vulnerable customers (e.g. those with psychological issues) and so on and so on.
And you apparently don’t care about any of that. The only thing you care about is that a game that actually includes a trans character is based upon a 20-30yo book series that contains no anti-trans content, but was written by an author who later went on to post some anti-trans garbage years after the series was done and dusted.
TransDesiTrekkie@startrek.website 15 hours ago
I haven’t played 99% of the games listed here. Pokémon Shining Pearl has been the only one I played.
I don’t support any of the other companies either and I’m well aware they donate to fascists.
The reason I brought up the HP game is because the author directly has been doing a lot of harm to trans people. This doesn’t condone what these other companies are doing but I find that many people tend to look the other way with the HP franchise as a whole.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It’s really simple: don’t buy it but pirate it and enjoy it anyway. As the game itself is pretty solid for what it is, just works and does not sell addons and has no mtx-shop, which really baffled me.
I don’t like her stupid ass and can’t stand her silly propaganda. I don’t even like harry Potter at all, yet still enjoyed my time in the game. Like i highly dislike star wars, yet cherished the Kotor games very much.
I usually strip the art from the artist. And in those cases I won’t purchase but download. Me not playing it does absolutely nothing, but me not buying it does a microscopic tiny fraction.
nforminvasion@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Speaking of your coincidental “And/or” spelling, as much as I know you probably don’t think it would be good, Andor is 1000% worth watching. It is one of the best antifascist, anticapitalist pieces of art I’ve ever seen. It honestly does play into being in Star Wars but it leaves behind the fantasy.
Really, stupidly good show. Tony Gilroy absolutely delivered with that show.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Some chunk of that is from counter-boycotters and anti-trans NGOs (allegedly even some GONGOs like citizengo), who bought up a lot, then dumped them onto G2A, gifted them for cheap, etc.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m sad Howard’s legacy sold so well.
Also Cyberpunk sold better than I expected given the launch.
awfulawful@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
CDPR spent the time fixing CP2077 and then released a killer DLC, putting the entire game on sale a ton along the way. They also listened and reconfigured entirely some of the clunky parts of gameplay/RPG elements.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Screw a bad launch as long as the Dev delivers in the end and not just pisses off. And they did. It’s one of the greatest games of all times. And I’m gaming daily since pong and pacman.
There are tons of shitty releases that stay shitty but offer micro transactions and 2646 dlcs. CP has one add-on that is also fantastic.
Being an early adopter sucks in this industry. That’s why I waited over a year to play it and had not one single issue in 3 playthroughs.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I played it at release, and I had a negligible number of technical issues on PC. Not everyone had a bad time with it back then.
gmtom@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Idk, I’ve tried to play it at least half a dozen times since it was “fixed” and it still just seems rushed and unfinished, just less buggy now.
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
i’m wondering if the boycott had adverse effects and promoted the game in more gamer-centric spaces that otherwise wouldn’t have cared that much
obviously it’s a harry potter game, it was always gonna sell well. but 2nd best selling game of the last 5 years??? ouch
leave_it_blank@lemmy.world 1 day ago
To be fair, Hogwarts Legacy is a very good game, I started playing yesterday and the atmosphere of the movies is perfectly captured! I did expect a cash grab, but I was totally wrong.
the16bitgamer@programming.dev 1 day ago
As someone who has beaten the game. The cash grab part is just after your first day and the “open world” starts up.
It’s not a bad game, but it gets pretty bland and generic once the main loop of ditching school starts.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, I know at least one part of this is pretty out of date. Baldur’s Gate 3 just got confirmed a few weeks ago as having sold over 20M copies. We have so many round numbers here because companies generally only share milestones.
verdi@feddit.org 23 hours ago
Not just out of date, complete and utter fabrication.
TIL people eat shit from the “visual capitalist” and swallow it whole. I’d bet my right nut this image took 15min of AI “prompt engineering” and 30 of photoshop copy-paste. None of if is remotely reliable.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Its source is a wiki, noted in the bottom right corner. I’ve seen plenty of these numbers reported publicly before. By its very nature, it’s going to lag behind real time.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 21 hours ago
Where are you getting the term “visual capitalist”? And why did you learn about this phenomenon today? Misinformation has been rampant for over a decade now.
ashughes@feddit.uk 21 hours ago
This has to be one of the worst designed data visualizations I’ve seen in a long time. God knows social media isn’t wanting for shitty dataviz, but this one is particularly awful. It’s an assault on my senses trying to read it.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised from a company called “visual capitalist”.
MinFapper@startrek.website 1 day ago
I’m pleasantly surprised that it takes two did so well. I hope it shows publishers that there’s a market for couch co-op!
Scrollone@feddit.it 1 day ago
Too bad their newer game (Split Fiction) wasn’t that good. I read good reviews about it, but when I played it it was completely disappointing: stupid story, repetitive games, no “aaahh” moments like in their previous games.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 day ago
I did not know that It Takes Two was that popular.
morphballganon@mtgzone.com 1 day ago
I wonder how many of those are the free version that you can only play when playing with someone who has the paid version
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This is number of copies sold. It really did sell that high. And if that blows your mind, wait until you find out Human Fall Flat sold like 40M copies.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Maybe, although the title says “best selling”
jeffw@lemmy.world 1 day ago
sirico@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Pretty much all single player games guess we best roll another overwatch clone
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Since the graphic is counting sales in units sold I guess free to download “live services” wouldn’t really appear.
Would be interesting to see the same counting revenues.
blue_skull@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well at least one of those Switch Sports sales was a double buy by me because somehow the first digital copy I purchased, and played many times and put maybe 20 hours into golf, just decided to up and pretend I never bought it. One day it just told me I needed to buy it and my trial period was over. Despite having already bought it years before. I couldn’t find the proof of purchase email even though I had one for every other game. I emailed Nintendo, they said they had no record of my purchase even though they could clearly see dozens of hours played across multiple sports. I also have a video of my kid playing it like a year before this happened. I eventually just re bought it. It was honestly one of the weirdest and unsettling experience. Like a portion of my life was deleted and only I remembered. Even my brother was doubting me.
Unattributed@feddit.online 1 day ago
You can hate me for saying this, but there’s no way Minecraft shouldn’t be on that chart. If this data is right Minecraft Revenue and Usage Statistics (2025), the sales between 2020 and 2023 would be ~100M.
Davel23@fedia.io 1 day ago
I suspect these are the best selling games which released between 2020 and 2025. For instance, Breath of the Wild has sold about 33 million copies, over 10 million more than Tears of the Kingdom but was released in 2017.
Unattributed@feddit.online 1 day ago
If that’s what they are counting, then the graphic should say that…
Odo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, it would have helped if Visual Capitalist had included that bit of info. Their source is this page on the Video Game Sales Wiki, which does say “The following titles are the best-selling games released in the 2020s, as of 2025.”.
Unattributed@feddit.online 23 hours ago
Yup, and the article (Ranked: The Best-Selling Video Games Since 2020} that was published using that data mis-represents it:
This visualization ranks the best-selling video games from 2020 to 2025 based on global unit sales using data from Video Game Sales Wiki (Fandom).
IMO - I find the “Visual Capitalist” site to be a questionable source of information… There are quite a few red flags when it comes to that site.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
Elden Ring being 3rd and Baldur’s Gate 3 being tied for last is quite a surprise.
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The .0 here just seems incorrect. They only appear have the first significant digit.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I had no idea Animal Crossing was that high. It’s a stupid game with no point to it… and I can’t help but play it 2-3 times a week, even if it’s just to check in. It definitely has its moments. I gave my wife shit for paying $60 for it, and I played it daily for most of the year since we got it. (She dropped it after a couple weeks, which tanked my progress since only the first player can advance the island. We started over with me starting an island and she played here and there. Then she quit, and I wanted to start over again… and she hasn’t used the new island yet, and I’ve had it for over 7 months now. It will be my forever island.)
And Hogwarts over everything but Animal Crossing? That’s kinda wild. I did not think that game was that big. Currently playing it, it was recently given away on Epic Game Store, I wonder if giveaways count (probably not). It’s basically the Harry Potter simulator we’ve all wanted for the last 20-25 years. Whenever those books and movies started coming out. Except it doesn’t have Harry Potter, or anything from the series but the places.
daannii@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well. I have about 1500 hours in AC and around 160 in Hogwarts. So those are probably both my most game hours.
Next is probably outlast trials. I have an eclectic taste in games.
AC is a cozy designer game. And you can play with friends. It was the best game for a pandemic. Not just a girls game either. Half my guy friends played the hell out of that game. I also was a AC new leaf fan so I was so ready for new horizons.
Its not that different than games like Minecraft. I think it appeals to people in similar ways.
As for Hogwarts.
Rowling had nothing to do with the game aside from owning the IP.
No input or anything on the game.
For a lot of us millennials who grew up with Harry Potter ,the game felt like being in a Harry Potter movie. It was a beautiful game at 4k. Like I couldn’t believe how beautiful every square inch of the castle was. I spent a lot of time exploring. I did literally every single side quest and found all the demiguise statues. And all the items. And all the animals. All the mounts.
I do believe there was 60-80 side quests ? Something like that.
That’s how I spent 160 in the game.
I get that a lot of people don’t want Rowling to get any money as she is anti trans.
I’m not here to defend her.
I will say though that a very large portion of things we love and that bring us happiness are tainted.
And we have to decide for ourselves if we can separate the art from the artist or not. And it’s a personal decision.
Examples. Walt Disney was antisemitic.
Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in wonderland was a pedo. Bill gates was a visitor of Epstein’s Island. A shit ton of actors and musicians are pro Israel Zionist. A lot of sports players have domestic battery charges. Alfred Hitchcock was a bad guy (me too situations).Speaking of. Harvey Weinstein was part of many many movie productions.
I’m not excising any of these people nor their behaviors.
What I’m saying is. We all get to choose if we want to separate people from their work.
And some will and some won’t.
And I don’t think bitching me out in 500 words because I genuinely loved the Hogwarts game , is conductive when you too likely still enjoy media by a shitty garbage human.
Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, Helldivers 2 made it on the list!
For Super Earth! o7
yesman@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
If you ranked games by revenue, none of these games would be on the list. Candy Crush and Clash of Clans would fire their CEO if their revenue was pathetic as Activision.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
If you ranked by budget, none of them would be on the list either. Monopoly Go would just take up rank 1-20.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s crazy that I only own two of these games and they couldn’t be more different. Animal Crossing and Cyberpunk 2077.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 1 day ago
I haven’t bought a single one of these. I’ve played It Takes Two with my brother over Parsec though.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
My backlog is well over 5 years out. I haven’t gotten up to games from 2020+ yet. Lol.
I’m currently playing “Red Dead Redemption 2” , and “Psychonauts”.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Animal Crossing was a birthday gift. And technically Stadia refunded my money for Cyberpunk.
7112@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Palworld numbers are amazing.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Super Mario Bros Wonder sucked. I hope they don’t take it’s sales as a direction on the franchise because it is my least favourite.
Also how is Hogwarts so high and 90% off, must have had a huge fall off.
brsrklf@jlai.lu 1 day ago
I liked it. It’s a decent attempt at refreshing 2D Mario, and some of the level gimmicks were quite fun. I think they’ve tried to recapture the effect of “every level a new idea” in 3D World, though I’d agree they were not as succesful in this one.
It’s a lot better than NSMB U IMO, that one was incredibly bland (especially after NSMB Wii, that one was great).
Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Nsmb wii was brilliant, really enjoyed it. The new one had fine parts but was just too disjointed and became tedious and zany which I wouldnt usually tiento Mario
atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think the reason it’s sold so many copies is because it’s been on perpetual sale everywhere. People were majorly against buying it and that dampened some people’s interest initially but when the game is $5, a lot of people will buy it just because it’s cheap.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Hell. Epic games gave it away for free like a week ago.
greybeard@feddit.online 22 hours ago
Everyone is allowed their own opinion. So I’m not going to say you are wrong for disliking it, but I completely disagree.
I consider Super Mario World to be the best in the franchise, and Wonder was probably better. I loved the game. I found most of the “New Super Mario” (The 2D series) games bad, or at least missing the magic of the first games with tight controls and well thought out levels. Wonder was a return to that.
Agrivar@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Baldur’s Gate 3 was pretty good - aside from the mega-thirsty player-sexual NPCs - but I’m replaying the originals now and enjoying them more. Didn’t play a single other game in this list!
taiyang@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I guess we just need more global pandemics. It’s a great boom to the video game industry, literally everyone was playing games when AC:NH released.
Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I’ve stolen a handful of these
PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
It’s a disgrace seeing 2 COD games in the top 5
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 hours ago
My gpu that I bought in 2021 came with a copy of cod cold war. And EVGA or Nvidia probably paid for that, I just didn’t.
Linktank@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Shameful.
msage@programming.dev 1 day ago
People keep buying calls of duty like their lives depend on it.
Make it make sense.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It’s probably “everyone in school is playing it, so I have too”. Yet only 5 people actually like it 😁
Must be…
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Our demographic is dwarfed by the type of person who only plays 4 or fewer games per year. These people play Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, EA’s soccer game, GTA, etc. Call of Duty is one of the highest selling games each year because it sells to people whose only video game for the year is Call of Duty.
massive_bereavement@fedia.io 1 day ago
Switch Sports was quite bad tbh. I'll rather play the original Wii game.
MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 1 day ago
I also was shocked how little content the game had on release.
baatliwala@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Surprised at no minecraft, has it peaked?
GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 day ago
GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Hahahaha this is fantastic! X’D
criss_cross@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m assuming they didn’t bundle Nightreign sales in this?
Yeah the choice of using Wylder here was sloppy
GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Hopefully they didn’t, as it just would be inacurate data. But yeah I think whomever made the graph just put top image search result and nobody in the publication cared enough to check… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
Pokemon still sells?