Hogwarts Legacy Just Broke A 14-Year Games Industry Streak

According to newly released data, 2023's best-selling video game was Hogwarts Legacy from WB Games. And that means that for the first time in over a decade, the top-selling game of the year wasn’t another Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, or other Rockstar-published game.

Released in February 2023, Hogwarts Legacy wasn’t a hit with critics and ended up not winning many major awards. But there are a lot of Harry Potter fans in the world and the first big, AAA open-world game set in that universe was bound to be a smash hit—even if it’s not very good. It also helped that the game was ported to basically every platform under the sun, including the Nintendo Switch. So it’s not a big shocker it sold very, very well. Yet, it is surprising to see it break a long-running streak that started all the way back when George W. Bush was still in the White House.

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Wowza, that’s a lot of CoD! It’s interesting to see that the only games that can crack the top spot and beat out Call of Duty are open-world games, like GTA and 2023's Hogwarts Legacy. That might explain why so many studios and publishers keep making bigger and bigger open-world video games. People seem to like them. Though, not as much as your average Call of Duty.

If you are curious about the top 12 best-selling games in 2023 across all platforms, here’s that list:

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