10 Video Games That Sold WAY Better Than You Think
These games shifted a ton more units than anyone ever expected.
Though the film industry is relatively transparent where budgets and box office grosses are concerned, the world of video games sadly isn't quite so upfront with the bean-counting.
In addition to game budgets rarely being disclosed, the surge in digital purchases makes it infinitely more difficult to track sales and figure out quite how well a game is actually doing.
Of course, if a game sells well enough the publisher will inevitably trot out the sales data on a press release, but due to the generally opaque nature of the business, it's easy to lose sight of just how well a game has performed.
These 10 video games, for instance, all sold far above the level that most observers are aware of.
In some cases this is because the game got off to a slow commercial start but sold consistently for years, or perhaps it enjoyed a massive sales resurgence after being ported to other platforms.
Whatever the cause, these games all shifted far more units than you likely ever knew, ensuring not a single one of them came close to being a commercial bomb, no matter what the doomsayers might've suggested...
10. Ring Fit Adventure
When it hit stores in October 2019, Ring Fit Adventure was an instant hit with players and critics alike, though in a crowded release frame its sales hardly set the world alight.
And then the pandemic happened.
With mass closures of gyms worldwide, demand for the game massively outpaced supply, to the extent that copies of Ring Fit were selling for up to $300 online, more than five-fold its retail value.
Within a year of its release, Ring Fit had sold roughly 6 million copies, and in Japan had even outpaced physical sales of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - albeit partially a result of Ring Fit not being available as a digital download due to the required peripherals.
As the world slowly adjusted to home workouts and repeated lockdowns, though, the Ring Fit frenzy seemed to calm down.
The headlines may have faded away, but the game continued to be a quiet sales juggernaut as gyms remained shut in many countries. By February of this year, Ring Fit had shipped 8.68 million units worldwide, making it the 12th best-selling Nintendo Switch game to date.
This put it far above the likes of Super Mario Maker 2, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, and Mario Tennis Aces.
It's all the more impressive considering that Ring Fit launched for a higher price than your average Switch game due to its peripherals, but such was people's desperation to ensure they stayed healthy(ish) during lockdown.