Video games stand as the largest entertainment industry worldwide because they generate more than 200 billion dollars in annual revenue. The complete picture requires more than revenue figures. Unit sales provide the complete picture. The game succeeded because it sold millions of copies during its first decade, which marketing budgets failed to achieve. The list shows which games have sold the most copies worldwide through verified data that existed until 2026. The official source confirms every number that appears in the document.
Quick overview
1. Minecraft (2011): 350 million+ copies sold
Mojang Studios' sandbox game holds the Guinness World Record for 350 million copies sold as of April 2025, up from 300 million in October 2023. No other single game title has reached that number. The game maintains its sales because players can choose their own objectives within the game. The game attracts more players through its open design than any game that limits itself to one specific genre. The mobile Pocket Edition, at around $7, brought it to markets where console gaming was never common. Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014, and the IP has since grown into LEGO sets, an education edition, and a 2025 film that grossed $313 million in its first week.
2. Grand Theft Auto V (2013): 225 million+ copies sold
According to Take-Two's Q3 FY2026 earnings call in February 2026, GTA V has now sold 225 million copies. It launched on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, came back for PS4 and Xbox One the following year, and got another release for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2022. Each generation brought new buyers. GTA Online is the engine behind the longevity: Rockstar kept adding content for over a decade at no extra cost, which kept players logging in long after the story was done. GTA 6 is confirmed for November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
3. Wii Sports (2006): 82.9 million copies sold
Wii Sports shipped with the Nintendo Wii in most markets outside Japan. That bundling is often used to dismiss its numbers, but it misses the point. Nintendo included it because the game was the best possible demonstration of what the hardware could do. A five-minute bowling or tennis session was enough for a complete non-gamer to get it. With 82.9 million copies sold on a single platform, it remains the best-selling game ever released on one console. The Wii outsold both the PS3 and Xbox 360 for years, and Wii Sports was the main reason first-time buyers cited for choosing it.
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018): 79 million+ copies sold
Take-Two's November 2025 investor presentation confirmed RDR2 had passed 79 million copies. It was also named the top-selling US title by dollar sales over the past seven years, ahead of every major release since 2018. The game establishes a slow pace because your horse needs time to develop a bond with you, and conversations progress at their natural speed, and players receive rewards for exploring the game world instead of moving quickly through it.
5. PUBG: Battlegrounds (2017): 75 million+ copies sold
PUBG hit Steam early access in March 2017 and broke records almost immediately. On January 13, 2018, it reached 3,257,248 simultaneous players on Steam, a Guinness World Record that no other game on that platform has matched since. PC and console copies reached 75 million units. Add the mobile version, which dominated app stores across Southeast and South Asia, and total franchise revenue has exceeded $17 billion. PUBG didn't invent battle royale, but it proved the format could hold tens of millions of players at once. Fortnite and Warzone both followed its blueprint.
6. Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: 78 million combined copies sold
The Wii U version launched in 2014 and sold 8.46 million on a console with a total install base of roughly 13 million. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch then sold 69.56 million on its own, more than five times the original hardware's reach. The two versions together sold a total of 78.02 million copies. Red Dead Redemption 2 pushed it out of fourth place in November 2025, but the numbers are still extraordinary. The game works because anyone can pick it up on day one and still find depth years later. Nintendo bundles it with Switch hardware, but a large portion of those 78 million copies were bought separately.
7. Terraria (2011): 64 million+ copies sold
Terraria doesn't get the mainstream recognition its sales deserve. A 2D survival game from a tiny indie studio, it has sold over 64 million copies and holds near-perfect user scores on Steam after 14 years. The developers announced a final update more than once and kept shipping new content for free anyway. At a few dollars on PC, the game works on almost all hardware systems, which enabled players from markets without access to expensive computers to play it.
8. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015): 60 million+ copies sold
CD Projekt Red's Q1 2025 earnings report confirmed The Witcher 3 had crossed 60 million copies, a decade after launch, counting only the base game and GOTY edition. The GamingBolt report on the announcement noted the game's 10-year anniversary promotions dropped the price to as low as $5, removing the last barrier for anyone still on the fence. The Netflix adaptation brought in viewers who had never heard of Geralt, and the 2022 next-gen update gave PS5 and Xbox Series X owners a reason to buy or return. Ask any RPG community where to start, and The Witcher 3 still comes up a decade on.
9. Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green (1996): 31.4 million copies sold
The original Pokémon games sold 31.4 million copies on the Game Boy and launched the best-selling RPG franchise in history. The full series has since passed 480 million total sales. What made them work was a clever design constraint: neither version had everything. Red had exclusives, Blue didn't, so completing your Pokedex meant finding someone with the other game and trading. That single mechanic turned a solo RPG into a social activity. It built communities around a shared goal in a way that predated social media by over two decades, and it's still the loop that every successful live-service game is chasing.
10. Elden Ring (2022): 30 million+ copies sold
FromSoftware made acclaimed games for years while the mainstream mostly ignored them. Elden Ring changed that. With 30 million copies sold and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion adding 10 million more, it showed there's a large audience for difficult, lore-dense games when the entry point is approachable. The George R.R. Martin collaboration brought coverage from outside the gaming press. The open world lets players explore at their own pace rather than hitting a wall and stopping. It won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2022, and the standalone follow-up Elden Ring Nightreign sold 5 million copies within weeks of its 2025 launch.
What these numbers actually show
The obvious read is that big games sell. That’s true, though it misses something. Wii Sports outsold almost everything on this list for years, and it was a bowling game packed in a console box. Terraria is built by a team small enough to fit in a living room and has outsold franchises backed by hundreds of staff. Budget and marketing didn't put either of them here.
What every game on this list has in common is harder to pin down. Each one gave players a reason to tell someone else about it. Minecraft players showed off builds. PUBG players needed a squad. Pokémon players needed a trading partner. That word-of-mouth came from the mechanics, not the ad spend.
The Take-Two Q3 FY2026 SEC filing shows GTA V still selling 5 million copies per quarter in 2025, twelve years after launch. That's the real benchmark. “It’s not about the launch week; it’s about what the game is still doing years later. The titles that will break into this list next are probably already out there, quietly building the same kind of staying power.
Matvii Diadkov
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