Best-selling video games of the decade in the US

Nobody should be surprised that Grand Theft Auto 5 was the best-selling game of the decade in the US in terms of dollar sales. The game has appeared in almost every top ten sales chart since it launched in 2013, and continues to in 2020.

The NPD Group has released data that outlines the best-selling games of the decade, showing that Grand Theft Auto 5 was sitting very comfortably at the top. As of November 2019 the game had sold 115 million copies worldwide, and already in 2018 it was reported as the most profitable entertainment product of all time.

The rest of the top twenty best-selling games of the decade is made up of ten Call of Duty games, making it the best-selling franchise of the decade. Call of Duty: Black Ops sits in second place, Black Ops 2 in third, Modern Warfare 3 in fourth, Black Ops 4 in fifth, Ghosts in sixth, WW2 in eighth, Black Ops 4 in ninth, Advanced Warfare in eleventh, and the most recent Modern Warfare in twelfth.

In 2015 the Call of Duty franchise surpassed 250 million units shipped worldwide, with sales of more than $15 billion. Both of these numbers are almost certainly significantly larger at this point in time, five years on.

Red Dead Redemption 2 slipped in-between two Call of Duty games to take seventh place in the chart. At last count the game had sold over 26 million copies. Despite selling 176 million copies, Minecraft sits between another two Call of Duty games in tenth place.

While Nintendo do not share digital sales data, two first-party games still made it into the top twenty. These games were Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in fourteenth, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in nineteenth.

The top twenty best-selling games of the decade in the US are as follows.