The Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) and Circana have revealed the top 20 best-selling games in Canada for 2023.
Notably, Warner Bros. Games’ Hogwarts Legacy was the top-seller for the entire year, despite controversy surrounding the Harry Potter property. Hogwarts Legacy was also the number one game on the U.S.’ 2023 best-sellers list, which was also compiled by Circana.
See below for the full Canadian list:
- Hogwarts Legacy (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/Nintendo Switch/PC)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo Switch)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- NHL 24 (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5)
- Diablo IV (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo Switch)
- EA Sports FC 24 (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/Nintendo Switch/PC)
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (PS5/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Starfield (Xbox Series X and S, PC)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Resident Evil 4 (PS4/PS5/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Mortal Kombat 1 (PS5/Series X and S/Nintendo Switch/PC)
- Final Fantasy XVI (PS5)
- Elden Ring (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo Switch)
- Madden NFL 24 (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/PC)
- FIFA 23 (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X and S/Nintendo Switch, PC)
- God of War: Ragnarök (PS4/PS5)
It should be noted that Circana’s data doesn’t paint a full picture, as Nintendo only reports physical sales for its games. What’s more, companies like Larian (Baldur’s Gate 3) and Epic Games (Alan Wake 2) don’t divulge data, so it’s unclear how acclaimed games such as those might have charted.
For context, here’s the U.S. top 20, as shared by Circana’s Mat Piscatella:
2023 Year Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from DLP members, Excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/LR6Za5YQ24
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) January 18, 2024
In any event, it still gives a lot of interesting insight into Canadian gaming habits. For Jayson Hilchie, ESAC president and CEO, the biggest takeaway, naturally, is the Canadian-made games that have made the list, given that his organization represents the national games industry and lobbies on behalf of it on the government level.
“It’s really interesting to see. Obviously, I’m always looking at things through a Canadian lens, and I’m seeing NHL 24, EA Sports FC 24, FIFA 23, Assassin’s Creed Mirage — those four in the top 20,” he says. “Hopefully, next year, we have a bigger release slate from Canada, but ultimately, 20 percent of the games [coming from Canada] — I’ll take it.”
He’s referring to the fact that NHL 24, EA Sports FC 24 and FIFA 23 were all developed by EA Vancouver, while one of the main support teams on Ubisoft Bordeaux’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage was Ubisoft Montreal. And unsurprisingly, NHL 24 placed high on Canada’s list (we sure do love our hockey), even as it didn’t even crack the top 20 in the U.S. (EA’s Madden NFL, instead, was the U.S.’ best-selling sports game, placing third overall.)
Image credit: Activision
On the subject of Canadian-made games on the list, it should also be noted that Quebec City-based Beenox — which sadly just experienced some layoffs from parent company Microsoft — assisted in the development of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, while Maryland-based Bethesda Game Studios, the makers of Starfield, also have a Montreal-based support team.
Another notable Canadian trend is Nintendo games ranked higher here than they did in the U.S. When ESAC and Circana first started sharing this data last year, Hilchie observed the strong interest on social media from Nintendo fans who saw games like Fire Emblem Engage and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe chart higher in Canada than in the U.S. That continued throughout the year, and now, we can see that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was Canada’s overall second best-seller of 2023 (versus fifth in the U.S.), even charting higher than Call of Duty.
While Hilchie says that the initial boom in social media impressions from the likes of Nintendo fans is “levelling out,” he notes that it’s still early days with this sort of data. After all, Circana (formerly NPD) only just started sharing the Canadian monthly best-sellers publicly through ESAC last year, compared to the many years it’s done so in the U.S.
Image credit: Nintendo
For that reason, there are still other ways they could expand this data, like including more than the top 10 every month, but conversations would have to be had with Circana. In the meantime, he says that the partnership has been “phenomenal,” not only for both parties but for the public as well.
“One thing that would be interesting for us to do is to be able to get Australian sales data, U.S. data, which we can access, European data, and find out how Canadian games are doing across the world,” he says of potential areas of growth for the data. “That’s not a problem for us to do. But it’s always also really interesting to see how homemade games are faring in their own country, right? But it’s certainly something that I’d be interested in getting: how are Canadian-made games faring across the world in sales charts?”
For now, ESAC is preparing additional data outside of best-selling games. Following the organization’s participation in a global study last year about the social and mental benefits of playing games, Hilchie says the next report will be focused on the “transformative” impact games have on Canadian society in other sectors, like business and education.
“These innovations wouldn’t be possible without the mainstream entertainment products, so how do we get that out there in a way that people can really kind of rationalize and see the relationship between the two?”
The study is expected to be released sometime in March.
For on the Canadian video gaming industry, check out the second part of our interview with Hilchie looking ahead to 2024 and beyond.
Image credit: EA
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