REVEALED: The top five highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, and their most highly rated game

• The Call of Duty franchise tops the list of highest-grossing franchises with approximately $30 billion in total revenue since its first release.
• The Pokémon franchise is in second place with $27.1 billion in total revenue since its first release.
• Nintendo’s Super Mario franchise is in third place with a total revenue of $22.6 billion since its first release.

A new study has revealed that the popular Call of Duty franchise is the highest-grossing video game franchise. It also noted that the most highly rated games in the franchise are ‘Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’, and its sequel ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’ as both have a Metacritic score of 94.

The research was conducted by casino experts KingCasinoBonus.uk and analysed data gathered from both Levvvel.com and Metacritic.com.

The highest-grossing video game franchise is Call of Duty, with a total revenue of approximately $30 billion. Since the first game was released on October 29, 2003, this franchise has gone on to dominate the first-person shooter genre, breaking records along the way as the franchise’s publisher (Activision) released the 19 games that are currently out. The franchise’s joint top-rated games are ‘Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’, and its sequel ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’, as both have a Metacritic score of 94.

The second highest-grossing video game franchise is the Pokémon franchise, with a total revenue of approximately $27.1 billion. The first games, ‘Pokémon Red Version’ and ‘Pokémon Blue Version’, were released on February 27, 1996 and since then there have been 66 different games released. Overall, the Pokémon franchise is arguably larger than the Call of Duty franchise; when taking into account merchandising but based on the total revenue for its games it has to settle for second on this list. The Pokémon franchise’s most highly rated game on Metacritic is the 2013 3DS game ‘Pokémon Y’ with 88.

The third highest-grossing video game franchise is Nintendo’s Super Mario franchise, with $22.6 billion in total revenue. Arguably the most recognisable video game character of all, the first Mario game was released on July 9, 1981; making it the oldest franchise in the top five. There is a three-way tie on Metacritic for the highest-ranked Super Mario game with ‘Super Mario Galaxy’, ‘Super Mario Galaxy 2’, and ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ all with a very impressive Metacritic rating of 97.

The Final Fantasy franchise is in fourth place, as Square-Enix’s role-playing game anthology has a total revenue of $18.8 Billion. A genre-defining franchise, the first of the Final Fantasy games was released on December 18, 1987, and since then there have been 15 numbered releases; although there has also been a number of remakes, sequels, and spin-offs for fans to play. The most highly rated game in the franchise is ‘Final Fantasy IX’ with a Metacritic score of 94.

In fifth place, Dungeon Fighter Online has a total revenue of approximately $18 billion. This side-scrolling hack-and-slash game was first released in August 2005. The most obscure of the games in this list, Dungeon Fighter online is a game that started as a small project in South Korea before it was ported to Japan under a different title, then acquired by Tencent who finally named it Dungeon Fighter Online. ‘Dungeon Fighter Online’ has a Metacritic score of 78, and the majority of its 850 million registered users play in China.

Other notable game franchises that didn’t quite break into the top five but are amongst the highest-grossing games by total revenue include; ‘Space Invaders’, ‘Pac-Man’, ‘Street Fighter’ and ‘Dragon Quest’.

A spokesperson for KingCasinoBonus.uk commented on the study: “It’s interesting to see that older franchises aren’t necessarily the franchises with the highest total revenue; as Call of Duty is a newer franchise than Pokémon, Super Mario, and Final Fantasy. It is also interesting to note that Super Mario has the highest Metacritic score of the top five’s games even though it is the third highest-grossing franchise.”

Credit to: https://kingcasinobonus.uk/