We love video games — and we’re willing to spend our money on them. A lot of money. In America alone, people spent over $43 billion on games in 2018. Globally, video gaming’s global revenue was estimated to be nearly $140 billion in 2019.
For an industry that used to be associated with slackers and stoners, video gaming has become a money-making juggernaut, with some titles bringing in billions of dollars and selling millions upon millions of titles. In fact, if you could earn just a few days’ worth of revenue from some of these games, you’d be set for life.
Given the different categories of video games — arcade games, mobile games, console games, PC games and more — it’s difficult to compare which video games are the most lucrative.
These, however, are 25 video games that have made an insane amount of cash.
“FIFA”
Electronic Arts has some huge gaming franchises — like “Battlefield,” “Star Wars,” “The Sims” and “Madden” — but its main cash cow appears to be its soccer franchise, FIFA. In 2018, EA made $5.1 billion in revenue. During that year, over one-fifth of that money came from “FIFA 18” and “FIFA 19,” which made $790 million and $482 million, respectively.
The company and its titles are not without controversy. Central to their revenue streams is loot boxes, which at one point were so egregious in “Star Wars: Battlefront II” that Hawaii attempted to pass a regulatory bill against them. The bill failed.
In late January 2019, EA announced it would stop selling FIFA Points (which were bought for real world money and used for loot boxes) in Belgium after its government launched a criminal investigation into company for not complying with the country’s gambling laws.
