In their Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry report, the Entertainment Software Association has revealed the top 20 best-selling games of 2016 (by units sold) in the United States.
Citing data from The NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service/Digital Games Tracking Service, here’s The ESA’s full list:
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Battlefield 1
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Madden NFL 17
- NBA 2K17
- The Division
- Overwatch
- Minecraft
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- FIFA 17
- Pokemon Sun
- Pokemon Moon
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Star Wars Battlefront
- Final Fantasy XV
- Titanfall 2
- NBA 2K16
- Rainbow Six Siege
- Far Cry Primal
- Dark Souls 3
The NPD released their top 10 best-selling games of 2016 in the US list in January, and it also saw Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in 1st and Battlefield 1 in 2nd. After that though, the NPD and ESA lists vary.
The ESA’s report also says the best-selling video game genre of 2016 (by units sold) was Shooter, with a 27.5% market share. Action was next at 22.5%, with RPG at 12.9%, Sports at 11.7%, Adventure at 7.8%, Fighting at 5.8%, Strategy at 4.3%, all others at 4.1%, and Racing at 3.3%.
Other stats from the report show that the most important factor influencing decisions to purchase video games is quality of the graphics (price is 2nd, interesting story/premise is 3rd, and online gameplay capability is 4th), the average gamer is 35 years old, and 48% of US households own a dedicated game console. Their survey gathered data from more than 4,000 American households.
[Source: The ESA via Rich Taylor, NeoGAF]
