Even though author JK Rowling controversially believes that being a woman might be more than a state of mind, people bought "Hogwarts Legacy" in droves last year. It was the top-selling game, beating out new entries in the popular "Call of Duty" and "Diablo" franchises.
That is if current trends from November held up. December can be a real confounder because "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III" came out in November - and quickly rose to the number two spot. It could have beat Harry Potter but we won't know until Activision releases its numbers. Also impressive was "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom", because it was only available on one platform, the Nintendo Switch, while Harry Potter was also available on Xbox, Playstation, and PC.
Not being on all platforms likely hurt "Baldur's Gate 3" but it still did an impressive 7.5 million copies even without Xbox and Switch, certainly the best-selling effort in the history of Larian Games, which already had a reputation for making great 'Dungeons&Dragons-type' games.
Baldur's Gate 3, which I'll play if Diablo IV would just stop putting out free seasonal content. Or Baldur's Gate shows up on Xbox.
Also putting in good showings were "Madden NFL 24" from Electronic Arts and "Marvel’s Spider-Man 2", which is actually owned by Sony, along with the Spider-Man character in films.
Video games have continued to exercise their dominance over music and movies. They are 3X the revenue of those other two combined, while video game developers can eat lunch in peace and not be hounded for autographs.
