Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and FIFA 23 are 2022’s best-selling games, making it the 20th time one of the two series has taken the year’s top-selling spot since records began roughly 40 years ago. Both franchises have seen one of their entries in the number one spot 10 times each now.
This new milestone is, so far, only true for European markets, though considering the U.S. market charts were almost identical to Europe’s in November, it seems likely both games will land at the top on this side of the Atlantic as well.
While this might seem like an unusual state of affairs, considering neither game earned recognition at the Golden Joysticks or the 2022 Game Awards, critically-acclaimed games topping the sales charts is a less common occurrence than you might think.
Previous notable instances where a game’s acclaim also matched its sales performance include The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto 5, though GTA is something of a sales anomaly anyway, since the crime game continues selling millions of copies every year despite being almost a decade old.
2022’s most popular games, including Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and God of War Ragnarok, saw high sales shortly after release, but their numbers dwindled substantially as time wore on.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
