How to read the table

Rank is the position when the table is sorted by the sales column. The title links to that game's Wikipedia article. Sales, in millions of copies, is the column the ranking uses. Series, platform, year, developer, and publisher are the context for that number.

Games with the same sales figure share a rank. The next game skips ahead by the size of the tie. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3 both sold 65 million, so both are rank 9, and Super Mario Bros. is rank 11. The same rule puts four games at rank 21 (40 million each) and gives Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rank 25.

Open the data table to see the full list.

Video Game Statistics Glossary

Hover a blue term to read its definition.

Rank

The position of a game when the table is sorted by lifetime sales. Tied sales share a number, and the following rank skips forward.

Sales (millions)

Lifetime copies, in millions, added across the platforms included in the source list. This is the column used to sort and rank the table.

Series

The franchise the game belongs to, such as Mario Kart, Call of Duty, or The Elder Scrolls. A cell that says "None" means the source row did not place the game in a series.

Platform(s)

The hardware the sales figure covers. "Multi-platform" means the copies were added across more than one system. A single name, such as Wii or Nintendo Switch, means the figure is for that hardware.

Release year

The year the game was first released. Later ports and rereleases can be inside the sales total even though the year stays at the first release.

Developer(s)

The studio or person that built the game. In this table the small-team comparison uses ConcernedApe, Re-Logic, and No Brakes Games.

Publisher(s)

The company that financed, marketed, and distributed the game. A game can have one developer and a different publisher, as Stardew Valley does with ConcernedApe and Chucklefish.

Pack-in

A game that shipped with a piece of hardware. Wii Sports was included with the Wii console in most regions, so a large share of its 82.9 million copies followed the console rather than a separate purchase. Wii Fit / Plus was sold with the Balance Board and is hardware-tied in a similar way. The source list still counts those copies, and so does this table.

Mean

The sum of the sales figures divided by the number of games. For all 26 titles the mean is 92.38 million copies. A few very large rows pull a mean above the middle of the list.

Median

The middle of the sales figures after they are sorted. With 26 games, the median is the average of the 13th and 14th values: Animal Crossing: New Horizons at 50.29 million and The Sims at 50 million, which is 50.15 million.

Small team

On the analysis page, a game whose developer was one person or a small independent studio. The three rows used for that claim are Terraria, Human: Fall Flat, and Stardew Valley. Minecraft began that way and later became a much larger platform, so the analysis discusses it on its own.

Multi-platform

A platform cell meaning the sales figure already combines more than one system. It is different from a single-console row such as Mario Kart Wii.

Sources

The sales figures, years, platforms, developers, and publishers were collected for the earlier class table from Wikipedia's list of best-selling video games. Each title in the data table still links to its own article. The pack-in note on Wii Sports follows the footnote on that list.

These pages keep the figures from that class dataset. Publishers revise lifetime totals, so a current visit to Wikipedia may show a higher number for the same game. The comparisons on this site use the numbers printed in the table.

The sales cell records copies. That is different from revenue, budget, review score, or the number of people who played a free version. Cover images on the data table are the box art and logos from the earlier assignment. They help a row be found visually. The sales figure, not the image, is the measurement.