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This is a list of the best-selling video games worldwide, ranked up to 50th place by reported software unit sales. The game considered to be the best-selling video game to date is contested among reliable sources. Sources are split as to whether the title should belong to Tetris, a 1988 multi-platform puzzle video game created by Alexey Pajitnov, or to Minecraft , a 2011 multi-platform sandbox game created by Markus Persson and developed by Mojang Studios. Sources such as Forbes, Encyclopedia Brittanica, and IGN consider Tetris to be the best-selling video game by combining the sales of all of its different versions, totaling 520 million as of 2025. [4] [5] [6] [7] Other sources, however, such as the BBC, Guinness World Records, and GamesRadar, consider the best-selling video game to be Minecraft, which has sold 350 million copies as of 2025, [8] rejecting the aggregation of each Tetris release. [2] [3] [9] The closest competitor to either is Grand Theft Auto V , which has sold over 220 million copies. [10] The best-selling single-platform game is Wii Sports , with nearly 83 million sales for the Wii console. [a]
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The 1998 game Snake is estimated to have shipped on over 400 million devices, [11] but is not listed as it was pre-installed and freely accessible on Nokia mobile phones. Another sales issue involves The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , which game director Todd Howard claims has sold over 60 million copies, [12] is deemed contentious due to Howard's history of making exaggerated statements about his games for promotional purposes. [13]
For this list, standard re-releases, remasters and enhanced versions of games are considered iterative updates to the original, thus their sales are combined. In contrast, remakes generally contain significant deviations from the original and are considered separate products. [14] Likewise, expansion packs are not combined with the base game to avoid inflating sales figures. Additionally, titles with unique release structures are classified based on their specific publishing context. Other metrics, such as "players" or "installs", typically refer to active users engaging with the game rather than sales, thus are not listed; even for paid games, these metrics could include free trials or other free promotions and cannot reliably be substituted for sales figures. [15] [16] Paid bundled titles are also included in this list; their sales often benefit from being packaged with other products, typically at a discounted price. [17]
The listed developers and publishers correspond to each game's original release, and release years refer only to the first full public 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, [18] 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.