GameIndustry.biz has published their annual Year in Numbers report for 2024. The report includes total gaming revenue, the top ten best-selling games of the year, and the most viewed game trailers.
For those of us who love RPGs, strategy games, and cute life sims, the list of Best-selling Games of the Year in the US is a bit bleak. Or perhaps I live in the wrong country.
Four of the ten US best-sellers are EA-published sports games (with EA Sports College Football 25 taking the #1 spot). The most recent Call of Duty shooters claim another two spots.
Uber-popular souls-like Elden Ring, a game which launched in 2022, still made 9th on the best-seller list. New expansions probably helped!
There are three surprises on the list: Helldivers 2 (#3), Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero (#4), and Dragon’s Dogma 2 (#10).
Dragon’s Dogma 2 was a moderately-anticipated sequel to a cult-classic, open-world action-RPG from Capcom. Reviews were okay to good, but apparently it still sold incredibly well.
Helldivers 2 quickly rose to the top of the multiplayer heap during a normally slow February. Changing the perspective from top-down to full third-person create a high level of immersion, but it was the combination of humor and classic co-op gameplay that kept players engaged for months after release.
As for Dragon Ball, I got nothin’. This is a complete blind spot for me, and I admittedly had no idea Dragon Ball games were this popular. The fourth best-selling game of the year is a flashy anime fighting game, and the fourth in the Budokai Tenkaichi series.
Best-sellers for the UK and Japan are much more diverse. I love that Hogwarts Legacy is #2 on the UK chart, while Japan is full of first-party Nintendo games, as well as huge RPG series such as Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
The report features other interesting stats. Youth-friendly games dominated TikTok (Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft), while League of Legends’ fancy cinematics and music videos won the trailer contest.
Physical game sales also continue to drop, with nearly 10% fewer sales compared to last year. A whopping 95% of video games sold are digitally. And mobile games make up half the total revenue, equal to PC and console games combined.
And total revenue for 2024? $184.3 billion. I think this whole gaming thing is going to stick around.
