2021 was a great year to be a video game company, or at least it was if you had a big existing franchise to repackage and make tons of money off of. A surprising number of 2021’s best-selling games were also best-selling games in 2020, and the rest were part of big, beloved franchises. Like Pokémon, for instance.
In fact, 2021 was huge for the Pokémon games. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, despite being remakes of games from 2006, were the third best-selling games in December and the fourth best-selling games the entire year in the US, according to The NPD Group. They were also the best-selling games on Nintendo consoles for both the entire month of December and for the full year.
Specifically, a lot of people were buying physical copies of not just Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but other Pokémon games too, like New Pokémon Snap. In total, physical sales of Pokémon games in 2021 were the best they’ve been since 2000 when Pokémon Gold and Silver first came out in the US. That doesn’t count digital sales, of course, which didn’t exist for Pokémon games in 2000 and have likely surpassed total sales ever since, but it’s still a massive milestone.
Pokémon games aside, Call of Duty was, as usual, 2021’s favorite game to throw money at. Vanguard was the best-selling game for both December and the full year, and Black Ops: Cold War was the second best-selling game of the year.
That makes Call of Duty the best-selling gaming franchise for the 13th consecutive year and marks the third year in a row that a Call of Duty game has topped the charts for a full year since Red Dead Redemption 2 broke its previous streak in 2018.
The rest of the top sellers of 2021 should look pretty familiar. Notably, seven of the top 20 were also in the top 20 last year, and three of them (Mortal Kombat 11, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Mario Kart 8) were also in the top 20 for 2019.
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War
- Madden NFL 22
- Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl
- Battlefield 2042
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Mario Kart 8
- Resident Evil: Village
- MLB: The Show 21
- Super Mario 3D World
- Far cry 6
- FIFA 22
- Minecraft
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- NBA 2K22
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Back 4 Blood
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Forza Horizon 5
The month of December taken by itself similarly had little variety:
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Halo: Infinite
- Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl
- Madden NFL 22
- Battlefield 2042
- Mario Kart 8
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Mario Party Superstars
- NBA 2K22
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Overall, gaming spending for the full year of 2021 was up 8% from 2020 to a new record high of $60.4 billion. Spending in December was down 1% to $7.5 billion, mostly due to increases in gaming subscription spending and recurrent spending balanced out by decreases in premium game sales.
Hardware spending in 2021 was up 14% to $6.1 billion, and the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console of 2021 both in unit sales and dollar sales.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/pokemon-game-sales-2021-best-series-gold-silver-launch
