10 Best Selling Gaming Franchises in History

Video game franchises are big business, which is why you keep seeing Nintendo churn out new games in many of its franchises. The same is true for other developers, and that’s not going to change. A successful franchise means that any new title will already have a pre-existing audience upon release, so they’re typically guaranteed to sell well. They don’t always, but for the most part, the math works in the publisher’s favor. There are many excellent video game franchises out there, but only some stand above the rest (with a handful coming anywhere close to $50 billion in revenue). We looked through the numbers and found the 10 best-selling gaming franchises in history, arranged from lowest to highest revenue.

10) LEGO

Of all the video game franchises out there, LEGO is probably the most diverse. It takes existing IPs and creates games around them, using its own unique spin. The games are highly detailed and entertaining, but mostly, they’re easy to pick up and play … like LEGO bricks themselves. Tons of great LEGO games span all kinds of properties, and many have sold incredibly well. Total sales figures aren’t well known, but it’s clear that the multitude of LEGO titles have sold in excess of 100 million copies since the first, LEGO Fun to Build, arrived in 1995. Unfortunately, the franchise’s total valuation isn’t clear, so it takes the bottom spot on the list despite its high sales volume.

9) Tetris

Tetris is probably the best rags-to-riches story in gaming because it came out of the Soviet Union from one man’s work and became the second-best-selling video game franchise of all time. Granted, it took a lot of work and time to reach that milestone, but humbler beginnings don’t really exist. The game first gained widespread recognition outside the USSR when it was included as a pack-in game with the Nintendo Game Boy, and since then, multiple versions of Tetris have appeared on all kinds of devices. According to the Tetris website, over 520 million Tetris games have been sold since the first version’s release, giving the franchise an overall valuation of around $2 billion, though this figure could be much higher, as the franchise’s equity isn’t publicly available.

8) Minecraft

If you want to look at a success story, start and end with Minecraft, the most successful independently developed game in history. While it’s now owned by Microsoft (for a $2.5 billion purchase price), it was developed by Markus “Notch” Persson, who used community involvement and an extended open beta to polish the game as much as possible before its official release. Minecraft has since grown into a behemoth, featuring toys, plushies, games, and more. While the total franchise valuation sits at around $10 billion as of writing, only around $4 billion is attributed to the game itself, which has sold around 350 million copies.

7) Assassin’s Creed

The Assassin’s Creed franchise began in 2007, introducing the world to an unusual time travel mechanic that didn’t actually involve time travel. The games include detailed historical analysis and beautiful recreations of the past, often requiring historians and countless photographers to capture real buildings and ensure fully accurate reproductions in-game. There have been 14 mainline Assassin’s Creed games as of writing, and they’ve largely all sold incredibly well for Ubisoft. The franchise has sold around 230 million copies of its games, valuing it at over $8.3 billion, a figure that doesn’t account for other merchandise or its unfortunate live-action feature film.

6) Grand Theft Auto

Unsurprisingly, Rockstar Games’ biggest franchise, Grand Theft Auto, is one of the best-selling game franchises in history. When it was released, GTA V reached $1 billion in sales faster than any other game, and it’s continued to sell incredibly well ever since. With the forthcoming release of GTA VI, expect the total franchise valuation to jump significantly, as it’s highly likely that any sales record set by its predecessor will be quickly broken. Combined, the GTA franchise has sold over 460 million units, though GTA V represents its biggest earner. The total franchise valuation sits at around $13.6 billion, though around $8.6 billion of that falls on GTA V’s shoulders.

5) Final Fantasy

When it comes to Japanese Role-playing game franchises, the cream of the crop is Final Fantasy. The franchise began in 1987 on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, it has seen the release of 16 mainline games, numerous re-releases, and a significant remake of Final Fantasy VII. It’s a major multimedia franchise that hasn’t done particularly well outside of gaming, but it’s nonetheless been incredibly influential in the world of JRPGs. In terms of video game sales, the company has sold over 200 million units across its many games, and total revenue from game sales is around $19 billion.

4) FIFA

For decades, EA Sports published games in the FIFA franchise, but that ended with FIFA 23. Since then, the name of the game has been EA Sports FC, essentially the same, minus the FIFA license. Regardless, the FIFA franchise dominated for decades, selling hundreds of millions of copies across pretty much every available platform. Throughout that time, EA Sports moved more than 325 million copies of the franchise’s games. While it’s not entirely clear what the total valuation was before EA switched it up after FIFA 23, lifetime revenue was likely well over $20 billion.

3) Pokémon

Nintendo unleashed the Pokémon franchise on its fans in 1996, releasing Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue for the Nintendo Game Boy. The games were incredibly popular and addictive, allowing players to trade their Pokémon to catch all 151. Since then, the Pokémon franchise has grown into a multimedia juggernaut, encompassing anime, comics, live-action films, trading card games, and much more. Nintendo continues to release new Pokémon games semi-regularly, and the games always sell well. The total valuation for the Pokémon franchise is well over $150 billion, but much of it is in merchandising. In terms of video game sales, the valuation is closer to around $30 billion.

2) Call of Duty

The Call of Duty franchise started kind of small, as one of many first-person shooters set during World War II. It didn’t take long for the franchise to build up steam, overtaking Medal of Honor and other popular FPS series to become the best-selling FPS franchise in history. Since its inception, Call of Duty games have sold over 500 million copies across its dozens of titles, and while some have sold better than others, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. In terms of valuation, since the beginning and as of 2025-early 2026, the Call of Duty franchise is estimated to be worth between $30 and $35 billion.

1) Mario

The best-selling video game franchise in history is the Mario franchise. There are so many Mario games that it’s difficult to count them all, but they number in the hundreds across every Nintendo platform. While the total number of sales isn’t known as of writing, in June 2025, the franchise set the Guinness World Record for “Best-selling videogame series” with 893,464,669 units sold. The franchise’s estimated valuation in 2025 was around $60 billion, making it significantly more valuable than any other video game franchise. It’s likely gone up since then, as the Nintendo Switch 2 has been released, and Mario games keep flying off shelves.

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