How do video games stack up compared to movies when it comes to gross revenues? We’ve rounded up the top 10 highest grossing video games ever, based on worldwide sales through the end of 2011. DLC sales are not included.

10: Modern Warfare: $700 million

The Call of Duty series went into the modern era with a bang: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was released in 2007 and spawned an instant franchise. Modern Warfare would go on to sell millions of copies across multiple platforms, eventually generating over $700 million in revenue.

9: The Sims: $740 million

The original Sims was released in 2000 and became a best seller among casual and female gamers. The Sims has since become one of the highest grossing PC games ever, generating over $500 million in revenue on PC alone, and $740 million in total.

8: Modern Warfare 2: $780 million

The sequel to Activision’s Modern Warfare wasn’t as groundbreaking as the original, but it still managed to out-gross it, reaching $780 million.

7: Gran Turismo 3/GTA San Andreas (tied): $850 million

Gran Turismo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 3 are two of the best selling and highest grossing PlayStation 2 games ever. Both have generated around $850 million in revenue. However, GTA San Andreas was also released on the Xbox and PC platforms, and was later released on the Xbox 360 as well.

6: New Super Mario Bros. $1,2 billion

New Super Mario Bros. was the first must-have title on the Nintendo Wii. The game gathered great reviews and quickly became a top seller for Nintendo. In just two years, the game passed the $1 billion mark, and has to date generated $1.2 billion in revenue. But even then, it’s still only the 3rd highest grossing Wii game ever.

5: Wii Play: $1.25 billion

Everyone who bought a Wii got Wii Sports, and Wii Play was a natural extension to the bundled title. Wii Play was packaged with a Wiimote and sold separately as well. Despite lackluster reviews, Wii Play went on to sell almost 27 million copies, generating $1.25 billion in revenue for Nintendo.

4: Grand Theft Auto 4: $1,35 billion

Grand Theft Auto was one of the most anticipated titles on the current generation consoles, and gamers had huge expectations for the title. So did Rockstar, who spent $100 million developing the game. But it turned out to be a good business decision: GTA 4 grossed $1,35 billion, making it the highest grossing game in Rockstar’s history.

3: Mario Kart Wii: $1.4 billion

The best selling game for the best selling current-gen console, Mario Kart Wii, was released 2008 and was an instant hit with gamers and critics. It has since sold over 28 million copies, generating $1.4 billion in revenue — the highest grossing Nintendo game of all time.

2: Call of Duty: Black Ops: $1,5 billion

Black Ops took Call of Duty to an all new level: it grossed more than Modern Warfare 1 and 2, combined. This makes Call of Duty Black Ops the best selling title across all current-gen consoles. In all, Black Ops grossed $1.5 billion, and that’s without DLC — DLC packs which have sold millions of copies as well.

1: World of Warcraft: $10+ billion

Not only has World of Warcraft sold over 15 million copies (including expansions), but it has had a base of around 11 million paying subscribers for more than half a decade. This alone brings in over $1.5 billion per year. Overall, World of Warcraft is estimated to have generated over $10 billion in revenue to date.

Remember those slimy, ceiling traps in Half Life, called “Barnacles”, that always managed to grab you when you least expect it? German artist and sculptor Daniel Ritthanondh created an awesome Barnacle lamp that’ll most definitely scare the living hell out of those who aren’t familiar with the pesky Half Life foe.

For more Half Life, check out our recent findings on where the inspiration to Gordon Freeman came from.

Battlefield 3 is based on the familiar rock/paper/scissors gameplay, coupled with huge open maps with all sorts of vehicles added to the mix. This gives endless possibilities to do almost everything in Battlefield 3, like the amazing plane stunt you’ll see above. It’s a true “Battlefield moment”, and highly unlike to happen in any other multiplayer game.

That’s right, everyone. The wait is nearly over. BioWare has announced today that its highly anticipated sequel sequel, Mass Effect 3, has finally gone gold.

Casey Hudson revealed on Twitter, “After an awesome effort by our team, I’m proud to announce Mass Effect is officially gold.” Hudson also went on to tease fans by saying, “Many surprises await you–this week and beyond.”

The demo officially releases tomorrow for Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. Mass Effect 3 hits stores this March.

As apart of a Q&A feature today from Rockstar Games’ official website titled Asked & Answered, the company says a sequel to L.A. Noire is a “possibility.”

The company says, although busy with Max Payne 3 and Grand Theft Auto V at the moment, “don’t count out the possibility of a new game in the L.A. Noire franchise in the future.” They continued:

We’re all very pleased with how that game turned out and are considering what the future may hold for L.A. Noire as a series. We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won’t get to them eventually – see Max and Red Dead for evidence of that – we have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing.

While there isn’t any DLC planned for the near future of the game, we’re sure there will be a return of the series, as Rockstar stated themselves, the company definitely gets to their games eventually, as seen with Red Dead and Max Payne.

The above is an Easter Egg in The Witcher 2, depicting a certain protagonist from Assassin’s Creed in a not so comfortable situation after doing what he does best: jumping into carts filled with hay. You can find it in video format here.

Oh, Zynga, will thy never learn. The company which has been blatant in its ripping off other developers’ game mechanics has now been found to steal stock photos from iStockphoto. Specifically, the Zynga Poker game features a vector artwork of a football stadium, with the watermark still there. Our reader Anand did some digging and found the artwork on iStockphoto, from artist Todd Harrison.

This could be a simple glitch where Zynga forgot to remove the watermark before the stuff went live, but even then, publishing a photo without paying the creator is considered theft. Given Zynga’s reputation these days, we wouldn’t be surprised if they just didn’t care.

Thanks for the tip, Anand!

By now, you should know that it’s possible to create virtually anything in Minecraft, no scratch that, it’s possible to create everything in Minecraft. Including re-creating Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The project is called “Hyrulecraft”, and its goal is to recreate the entire world of Zelda: Ocarina of Time inside of Minecraft, complete with NPCs, dungeons, etc. Fore more details on Hyrulecraft and how to play it, check out this run down by GenGame.

There are petitions these days trying to get developer From Software to port Dark Souls to the PC. The petitions have garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, but it’s still unlikely we’ll ever see Dark Souls on PC. Why? Because PC is a platform with 90% piracy rate.

The majority of PC gamers will never pay for their games, no matter how many Steam sales Valve has, no matter how much the game are marked down, no matter how easy and convenient and DRM-free it is: it’ll never be better than free. Last year, a whopping 4 million PC gamers pirated Crysis 2. When time comes for Crysis 3, which platform do you think developer Crytek will focus on? PC or consoles? Even Portal 2, which is made by Valve, a company with a God-like status among gamers, was pirated more than 3 million times on the PC.

“If you didn’t pay for it, you stole it. Doesn’t matter if its a physical copy, or a digital copy — the developer won’t get paid for their work.”Developers like Valve can afford to put out great and expensive PC titles: they have an established fan base who are going to buy the game no matter what. But when it comes to small developers, and especially first time developers, it’s a very different story, as Bohemia Interactive showed last year with the release of ArmA 2: for every 3 people who bought the game, 100 pirated it. The head of Bohemia said the statistic was “really worrying for us as a mid-sized, independent, PC-oriented developer”.

Politically correct PC gamers insist that services like Steam and lower prices are the solution to game piracy, but Steam has been around for a few years now, as have other digital distribution systems. Has PC gaming piracy gone down? Not at all. Granted, publishers share some of the blame: restrictive DRM solutions have certainly driven away some legitimate gamers. But before you start praising “non-DRM” solutions, know that there are no true “non-DRM” services. Steam is a DRM service. If you don’t believe that, try and give one of you Steam games to a friend. Try and sell the game that you bought and rightfully own — oh, you can’t. That’s because you don’t own the games in your Steam library, technically you pay for a “subscription” to them.

With those kinds of numbers, why should From Software make Dark Souls for the PC platform? If 9 out of 10 gamers will pirate the game, that’s not a good business proposition. And when multiplatform titles do get a PC release, it’s usually in the form of a bad console port. That’s where the hypocrisy lies: elitist PC gamers complain about bad ports and developers not caring enough about the PC platform. But then they pirate the game anyway. At least 9 out 10 times. The tired old excuse that “online piracy isn’t theft, because it’s just a copy” is bullshit. If you didn’t pay for it, you stole it. Doesn’t matter if its a physical copy, or a digital copy — the developer won’t get paid for their work.

“If I was a developer, would I spend my resources developing for a platform with 10% piracy rate, or 90% piracy rate?”For the record, I don’t own a console. I’m a PC gamer. And all but one (Battlefield 3) of my 40+ games were bought on Steam. But unlike many other legitimate PC gamers, I don’t complain when a developer decides not to release a PC version. Or when they decide to spend most of their resources on the console versions. Nor I don’t complain about bad PC ports that are released years later. I understand their reasons. If I was a developer, would I spend my resources developing for a platform with 10% piracy rate, or 90% piracy rate?

Face it, we PC gamers don’t deserve any more exclusive titles. We don’t deserve proper PC versions or ports. We don’t deserve a truly non-DRM system. By pirating 9 out of 10 games, we have’t earned the right to any of those things.

Sincerely,
A PC gamer.

The recently released first person puzzle game QUBE, which draws inspiration from the likes of Portal, has been somewhat successful, according to the developers. CUBE had a budget of $90,000, pennies compared to AAA titles, but it managed to recoup its costs after just 4 days of being available on Steam. The game retails for $15, and is somewhat of a short affair, with little story and somewhat repetitive gameplay (yes, we’ve played the game). The game has sold 12,000 copies as of a few days ago, but we imagine those numbers are quite higher now.

Either way, we’re glad to see indie titles succeed in an industry that’s increasingly getting hooked on sequels, remakes and adaptations. The developer is currently looking to port the game to iOS and consoles.