Licensed to Sell

Fact: Games with TV and movie licenses still sell embarrassingly well. Nearly one-quarter of the 100 top selling games of the past year were based on characters from movies (like Pirates of the Caribbean) or television characters (like Spongebob Squarepants). The next most common genres – Action and Sports – covered 15 games each.

Even though neither Wii Sports nor Wii Play are represented in the top 100, their effect is clearly visible with minigame collections outnumbering role-playing games, simulations, and strategy games. Moreover, the number of music games represented in the top selling software from the last year is significant: 7 titles out of 100.

More telling are the unit sales per genre, shown below.

Licensed games still lead with over 34 million units (or 20% of the top 100 total), but the sports category catches up substantially. Moreover, the genre of shooters – driven primarily by Halo 3 – leaps from fourth place (in terms of number of titles) to third place in unit sales. The music game category, led by the phenomenal sales of Guitar Hero III, pushed it to the fifth spot on this sales chart.