We've been doing these "best-selling video games" of the month articles for quite some time, and by far the strangest month to cover has been March 2020. Not because the lists below from GameStop ($GME) or Amazon ($AMZN) are unusual, they're actually quite normal.
This is the first time a majority of GameStop's data has been online-only orders, as store closures around the world have forced people to stop shopping in stores like they used to. So while gift cards are still the most popular items to buy for gamers, physical/boxed/disc retail games have been supplanted by digital downloads and online shipping.
Nintendo ($TYO:7974), Sony ($SNE), and Microsoft ($MSFT) are selling more games than ever as everyone is stuck indoors and looking for fun distractions. Meanwhile, as we've covered, Nintendo Switch consoles have become scarce as production issues and price gougers have contributed to a massive reduction in Switch inventory.
Without any further ado, let's look at how dominant Animal Crossing has been for a second straight month. Mind you, the game only came out a week and a half ago.
Amazon
|
Name |
Category Rank (Avg) |
Platform |
|---|---|---|
|
Animal Crossing: New Horizons |
2 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Digital Code) |
4.4 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Doom Eternal |
13.3 |
PlayStation 4 |
|
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe |
14.9 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Final Fantasy VII Remake |
17 |
PlayStation 4 |
|
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
20.8 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Persona 5 Royal |
24 |
PlayStation 4 |
|
Luigi's Mansion 3 |
26 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Doom Eternal |
27.1 | Xbox One |
|
Minecraft |
27.1 | Nintendo Switch |
|
Resident Evil 3 |
27.2 | PlayStation 4 |
|
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild |
27.9 | Nintendo Switch |
Animal Crossing, a "social simulation" game created by Katsuga Eguchi and published by Nintendo, wasn't just the best seller at Amazon: both the regular edition and the digital code for download were the top-two most-ordered things in Amazon's Video Games category.
Other games might have released in March, or are coming out in a few days (Resident Evil 3), but it's likely that nothing will slow Animal Crossing's dominance. That game is being seen by many as a cure to being quarantined: it's a tropical vacation and an infinite amount of menial tasks to relax with. Pure bliss in a chaotic context.
GameStop
|
Name |
Category Rank (Avg) |
Platform |
|---|---|---|
|
Animal Crossing: New Horizons |
1.8 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Persona 5 Royal Steel Book Launch Edition |
37.5 |
PlayStation 4 |
|
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe |
43.9 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
48.3 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Pokemon Sword |
59.8 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Super Mario Party |
79.7 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare |
89.1 |
PlayStation 4 |
|
Luigi's Mansion 3 |
94 |
Nintendo Switch |
|
Pokemon Shield |
96.8 |
Nintendo Switch |
Animal Crossing averaged being the first best-selling item at GameStop. The next video game on the list is at 37. This game will sell more than anything else by the end of the year, easy, as long as the Switch bottlenecks its sales with production issues, and of course if both children and adults still enjoy fun distilled into a product.
Both lists have been edited to remove duplicate listings, gift cards, accessories, and other non-game items. The Amazon list, in particular, had a cutoff: a minimum of 10 days on the best-sellers list. Some games were number 1 for a day or two, but then fell off, and that doesn't accurately represent what sold the best during the month.
None of these lists account for digital sales, which are how most games are purchased these days. It's only physical boxed retail discs sold or ordered.
The best-sellers lists are based on sales-rank data reported by both companies every day throughout the month. In this case, we looked just at the "Video Games" category, averaged each product's sales rank for the year, and then weighted based on the number of days each product remained a best-seller.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.