The most successful games of the first half of 2025 by the numbers: a detailed look into revenue, sales, and other metrics
Wrapping up the week with a comprehensive piece on the most successful game releases over the past six months. Today, we will discuss the best-selling new releases, sales leaders, and the top indie games on PC and consoles. If a particular title didn’t get its own section, you’ll likely find it on one of the many charts featured.
Some of the games covered in this article
What data did we rely on?
In addition to official sales data and open sources like Steam, we leveraged insights from analytical firms and the following charts:
- GfK (consoles) | January–June — a weekly chart of the UK retail market based on physical game sales in the country (without specific numbers).
- Famitsu (consoles, primarily Switch and PlayStation) | January–June — a weekly Japanese retail chart indicating the number of physical copies sold.
- Circana (PC and consoles) | January–May — a monthly chart of the best-selling (in dollars) premium games in the USA, both physical and digital. An important note: based on data from retailers and a rather limited pool of publishers. Primarily, major companies like Electronic Arts, Sony, and Microsoft. As a result, Circana charts often don’t include titles from independent developers and publishers like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
- Newzoo (PC and consoles) | January–May — a monthly ranking of the most profitable and popular games worldwide (based on Monthly Active Users, MAU). Compiled from data across six key markets (USA, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France).
- VG Insights (PC) | January–June — an analytical service evaluating gross revenue and the number of copies sold for premium releases. These are the data used in the article unless stated otherwise. We occasionally cross-checked information with other sources like GameDiscoverCo, Alinea Analytics, etc.
