Have you ever wondered what the best selling games of 2015 were? I know I have. It often keeps me up at night, and I can tell you’re keen to find out too.
Well now we can, old friend. Thanks to the Entertainment Software Association’s annual report on the state of the video game industry (via Tech Insider), we can see with numbers and stats and junk, which games boasted the best sales last year.
Lowest to highest, obviously. Unfortunately we don’t have exact numbers, but into every life a little rain must fall.
10 – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Hardly surprising. I’m pretty sure at this point Activision could send someone round to your house to piss on your bedsheets and rub Dorito dust on all your favourite family photos and you’d still go out and buy the next COD.
Maybe not you you, but you the public. This is certainly evidence, anyway.
9 – FIFA 16
Of course. If you stacked every copy of FIFA 16 sold on top of one another, you could probably climb to the moon. Well probably not to be fair, but you could have a bloody good go at it.
8 – Mortal Kombat X
Proof that there’s still room in this world for hyper violent fighting games that encourage you to rip spines out of bodies. Life affirming stuff.
7 – Minecraft
At this point I’m pretty sure Minecraft has made more money than I could ever comprehend. Even in my imagination I can’t begin to spend the money this game has made, and that scares me.
6 – Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013 to huge acclaim, so when 2015 rolled around the game finally saw a PC release along with shiny remasters for PS4 and Xbox One.
5 – NBA 2k16
Annual release of popular sport videogame continues to crap out buckets of money. In other news, water is wet.
4 – Star Wars Battlefront
I enjoyed Battlefront for a good few weeks when it came out, though it soon revealed it didn’t really have any lasting appeal.
Too late though, I’ve already played my part in getting it to this spot.
3 – Fallout 4
How many settlements saved by now? I imagine enough to give Preston Garvey a raging hard on. For a few weeks back in October, it seemed like everyone was on that Fallout 4 hype, and its place on this list certainly reflects that.
2 – Madden NFL 16
You Madden bro? Between this, FIFA, and NBA 2k16, it seems virtual sport is the big moneymaker. Who knew?
Everyone. Everyone knew.
1 – Call Of Duty Black Ops III
Yep. I don’t think I’ve seen a single self proclaimed COD fan so much as hint that they like Black Ops III. The reaction the first trailer got is second only to the current kerfuffle surrounding Infinite Warfare.
And yet, it’s the best selling game of 2015. How? Either the people who talk shit about the new COD secretly love Black Ops III, or the most hateful people shout the loudest while the majority who enjoy the games just let them get on with it. Probably a little of both.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.