10 Most Profitable Arcade Games That Made BILLIONS
8. Donkey Kong - Nintendo (1981)
Revenue To Date: $1.744 billion
Donkey Kong was a revolutionary game when it came out, and while it was revised to indicate that adorable little fellow called "Jumpman" was actually Mario, that's not what made this cabinet sell. The gameplay features four different screens, which may not sound like much, but most games back then had only one.
If you look at Pac-Man, you can see that it's the same screen over and over again, but with greater difficulty. The same is true of Donkey Kong regarding the increased difficulty with each level, but those levels are completely different, uniquely challenging, and bizarrely entertaining.
Donkey Kong was incredibly successful for Nintendo, as well as the game's legendary designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. The arcade cabinet sold like crazy, with a combined total of 152,000 cabinets making their way from Nintendo to your friendly neighborhood arcade.
The cabinet's overall revenue by 1982, which was just one year after it was released, was $654 million, and when that's adjusted for inflation into 2019 dollars, it amounts to $1.744 billion. If you just look at the total number of quarters dropped into the cabinets, you'd be looking at 2,616,000,000!