By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Call of Duty Has Been the Best-Selling Game in the US in 10 of the Last 12 Years

Call of Duty Has Been the Best-Selling Game in the US in 10 of the Last 12 Years - Sales

by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2021 / 2,824 Views

NPD Executive Director and Video Game Industry Advisor Mat Piscatella has revealed the best-selling video game in the US by year in terms of dollar sales going back to 2009.

Call of Duty has been highest earner in the US for 10 of the last 12 years, while two Rockstar Games - Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption II - as the top earners in 2013 and 2018, respectively.

The list of best-selling games in the US by Piscatella was in response to him predicting Call of Duty: Vanguard as the best-selling game for this year.

Call of Duty Best-Selling Game in the US in 10 of the Last 12 Years

Here is the list of best-selling games in the US by year in terms of dollar sales:

  • 2009 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  • 2010 - Call of Duty: Black Ops
  • 2011 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
  • 2012 - Call of Duty: Black Ops II
  • 2013 - Grand Theft Auto V
  • 2014 - Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
  • 2015 - Call of Duty: Black Ops III
  • 2016 - Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
  • 2017 - Call of Duty: WWII
  • 2018 - Red Dead Redemption II
  • 2019 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  • 2020 - Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


More Articles

10 Comments
LivncA_Dis3 (on 18 August 2021)

way to state the obvious of course cod is best selling every year except when rockstar releases a game lol

  • +1
Kakadu18 (on 17 August 2021)

People will never get tired of CoD.

  • +1
rapsuperstar31 (on 17 August 2021)

I haven't played a Call of Duty game before. Don't really have a desire to do so.

  • +1
chakkra rapsuperstar31 (on 18 August 2021)

If you like FPS games I highly recommend you Modern Warfare. It is an awesome experience (again, that is if you enjoy fps games)

  • +1
yvanjean (on 17 August 2021)

When did you burn out on Call of Duty. I loved Call of Duty 2 & 3, Call of duty 4: modern Warfare had a great campaign and I remember how disappointed I was with my purchase of World at War. I don't think I have return to the series since World at war. I may of picked up MW2 from a discount bins. It might be time to revisit some of these campaigns.

  • +1
Salnax (on 17 August 2021)

I don't understand how annualized shooters do so well when games like Fortnite and Warframe cost less to play and receive updates year after year.

  • +1
Signalstar Salnax (on 17 August 2021)

Are there any annual shooters besides COD? All the other major FPS franchises now look like they take a few years in between releases.

  • +2
NextGen_Gamer Salnax (on 17 August 2021)

@ Salnax: Fortnite and Warframe will never be on the current NPD charts because they are free-to-play. The best-selling lists only tracks titles that have an upfront cost, and can be either retail (physical) or digital sales (PS Store, Nintendo eShop, Xbox Store, etc.) if that publisher chooses to provide digital sales data (which pretty much all do except Nintendo). What it DOES NOT include is any free-to-play sales. For a game like Fortnite, all those in-game microtransactions are just included in the giant grab-bag of DLC/MTX/etc. money NPD tracks.

  • +2
yvanjean Salnax (on 17 August 2021)

Some people only buy console for annualized Call of duty and Madden.

  • +10
method114 Salnax (on 18 August 2021)

Well I wouldn't compare fornite to COD at all. Fortnite is not an FPS and all the building is probably annoying to people who just want to run and gun. I personally hated building in that game.

  • +1