Talk:List of best-selling video games

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2025

Payday 2 should be on the list, having sold 40 million units according to the publisher starbreeze. (https://news.cision.com/starbreeze-ab/r/2023---the-year-of-payday,c3691450) Laischdon (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

 Done Replicative Cloverleaf (talk) 14:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

List rework

Would anyone be opposed to me reworking this article at some point in the future to be more like List of best-selling albums? Basically what this would mean is reworking the page to list every game that has been confirmed to have sold over a certain benchmark (probably twenty million copies), further break down the list to sort by sale ranges (20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50+), and revoke the top 50 shtick. In most circumstances I would be bold and just do it anyways, but reworking an entire page that has over 195,000 pageviews in the past month this drastically seems like something consensus would need to be reached on. λ NegativeMP1 16:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I've seen the "remove the top 50 and expand to tiers" idea floated around a few times, but I have to say I'm just not a fan of it. I like that this list has a hard cap and that it feels "connected" in a single table. Tiered lists have a very "disconnected" or "split" look that doesn't work for me. The hard cap prevents future bloat and avoids the inevitable discussion about raising the cut-off every few years. Plus, 50 entries seems just right—anything more and it stops feeling like a prestigious list of best-sellers.

I'm not opposed to reworking or expanding the list in other ways. Like, the "As of" suggestion from the discussion above seems like a good addition for clarity. Prefall 00:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

The "As of" idea was one I had in mind as well, I'm just concerned about the table having too much information or becoming bloated if it gets added. And while I see where you're coming from with the "disconnected" or "split" lists not working that well, I personally disagree with the "anything more and it stops feeling like a prestigious list of best-sellers" statement, because selling over 20-25 million units is still no joke. To me, it would still be a pretty major achievement and wouldn't decentivize the list at all even if greatly expanded to include every game that has sold above that number. λ NegativeMP1 00:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I once brought up a similar topic but instead, I wanted the list to be top 25 so it would make things less complicated. Therefore I'm not really finding this idea any amusing and rather keep this a straightforward list. Kazama16 (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The Oregon Trail

I wanted to have a discussion first before the inclusion of this entry on the list. The Oregon Trail (1971) has reportedly sold 65 million units according to USA Today.[1] However, I'm getting some Tetris vibes from this where the creator of Tetris was presenting the sales by counting every single version of Tetris and it was advised not to include it on this list per multiple previous discussions. Although I'm surprised no one talked about The Oregon Trail sales for almost a decade now. Kazama16 (talk) 14:17, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

After rechecking multiple sources. I think it's different from the case of Tetris as it's only about the sale figures of The Oregon Trail from 1971 and not about the whole series. [2] [3] [4] Kazama16 (talk) 18:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. This article from The Atlantic says it is 65 million sales across its iterations. Not to mention, why would a text-based game with no graphics sell so many copies, especially when it is not even the most popular version of The Oregon Trail. Lazman321 (talk) 18:51, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't say that the sales figure includes those iterations. It is after the timespan of 40 years and those iterations. Also the phrase "most widely distributed educational game of all time" refers to a single game, and not series. Kazama16 (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Counter Strike Global Offensive

According to a official data leak taken from Valve's own steam data, CSGO sold more than 46 Million copies by July 2018 prior to going F2P on Steam. Because this data is pulled real numbers from Valve’s own backend, means it's not an estimate from third parties but rather an official internal data point that briefly became public which lead to a scandal. Therefore shouldn't CSGO be raised to sales of 46,305,966? [5] Never17 (talk) 03:23, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

They are displaying the players, not sales. For comparison, there are many cases like this where the game is not free to play but if the source refers to "this game has this amount of players" and not "this amount of sales or copies/units sold" then it probably not gonna be on this list because it would be more precise and accurate. You can take Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag for example where Ubisoft confirmed it has 34 million players and interestingly the game is not free to play. Therefore, you won't find a reputable source citing that it has sold 34 million units. See this article from Gamekult to understand better. [6] Kazama16 (talk) 05:50, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah okay, got it Never17 (talk) 10:12, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for reliable sources (in particular journalistic ones) to wrongly report a figure (for example confusing sales and players) if the sales numbers are not the main subject of the source. If there is no official communication from the publisher to be found and if only one supposedly reliable source mentions it, it's probably because they made a mistake or are quoting a rumor.

Case in point, the source used for CSGO says it "sold more than 40 million game copies" but it pulls this information from Steam Spy - a third party which gives estimates about players not sales - in June 2018. Quand nous chanterons (talk) 12:37, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

There are other sources listed too not just Steam Spy and fact checking is a thing too. It just a theory that they might use Steam Spy but there is no guarantee about it. Kazama16 (talk) 13:02, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

This is not a theory? It says in the fourth page : "The combination of the two aspect result can be seen in the popularity of the CS:GO. Since their release on 21st August 2012, CS:GO has been sold more than 40 million copies of the game with 88% user rating and more than 400,000 daily active players [10]." (the [10] referencing "[10] SteamSpy, 2015. [online]. Available: https://steamspy.com/. [Accessed: 26-Jun-2018]"). Quand nous chanterons (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Removed now from the list. Kazama16 (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Remakes

Do Remakes have their sales count towards the sales of the original game, IE something like Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green or do we only include ports? Never17 (talk) 02:05, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

No since they're much different from their original releases, the exceptions seem to be the remake of Super Mario Bros on the Game Boy Advance (formally Mario 3 and World's remakes on the Game Boy Advance too). Personally based on that distinction Tetris on the NES and Tetris on the Game Boy should be combined in my opinion, since they were both developed by Nintendo and were marketed to be the same game but on different platforms, releasing in the same year. LaughinElf (talk) 03:05, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay so remakes are used only if it's basically the same as the original game with minor graphical changes. That makes sense, by this metric we should combine Tetris on the NES and Game Boy as well as potentially other games that fit this definition Never17 (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

According to the Guardian, the original version of Tetris sold 70 million copies worldwide from it's various remakes and re-releases by 2009 [7] So we should probably include that Never17 (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

No, that wouldn't be fair enough. We should only combine the original version and their enhanced versions. Tetris NES and Game Boy are usually treated as different games so no we shouldn't combine them. Remake is a whole another thing. Like Resident Evil 4 and its remake are different things. Even BBC is against the idea of counting various versions of Tetris as a singular game. [8] Kazama16 (talk) 05:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 March 2025

Change Skyrim sales from 30,000,000 to 60,000,000; 30,000,000 figure is now 10 year old data and Bethesda CEO stated 60,000,000 sold in 2023. https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/mustafa-mahmoud/skyrim-has-officially-sold-over-60-million-copies/ Ajthorpe95 (talk) 17:52, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

 Not done per a talk page consensus mentioned many times above. The method in which that 60 million sales figure was disclosed is widely viewed as inadequate. λ NegativeMP1 18:21, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 March 2025 (2)

Im family fun (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I WANT TO EDIT SKYRIM SOLD 60 MILLION NOT 40 MILLION

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ToThAc (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)