Written by John Scalzo  on February 15, 2008

Special: They print money

Tweet

Comments

Previously on Game Developer Survivor...
The remaining twelve developers pitted their Game Rankings' resume against other as Keiji Inafune was knocked out with mega authority, Ed Boon was decapitated and Goichi Suda is not our hero anymore.

Episode 3 "The VGChartz Test" - This week, we are examining each remaining developer's worldwide sales numbers from VGChartz.com. We took the last two games that each developer had released and totaled them up. Where applicable we had to do a little estimating, as some of the games weren't listed. In the end, four will go home and the top five developers in the VGChartz Test will move on. So here they are, from the biggest sellers to the cult favorites:

Will Wright
Say what you will about Will Wright and the proliferation of The Sims into everything, but the man knows how to sell a video game. His two most recent releases, The Sims (16.08 million) and The Sims 2 (5.21 million) total out at more than 21 million copies sold. This total is more than three times any other developer on this list and makes Wright the true king of sting when it comes to sales. With the recent announcement of Spore's release date and the firestorm it's caused among gamers, it's more than likely Wright will stay at the top of this list for a long time.

Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto is not one to normally work on more than one project at a time. But both of his most recent titles came out in the last few months. Super Mario Galaxy dropped in November and more than 5.75 million copies have rung up as sold. But Miyamoto's other recent release is a bit more of an enigma. Wii Fit, the exercising game he created for the Wii was just released in Japan and has already sold over 1.35 million copies. Without even taking into account the eventual American and European releases, Wii Fit gives Miyamoto a total of 7.1 million and an easy second place.



David Jaffe
Ever since David Jaffe was anointed the newest rock star developer after God of War came out, he's been a bit schizophrenic. The constantly warring angel and devil on David Jaffe's shoulder have pushed his opinions further out on the Internet for all to read, but they have also pushed Jaffe further and further away from the spotlight. His actual two most recent games, Calling All Cars and Twisted Metal: Head On - Extra Twisted Edition don't have sales numbers on VGChartz. Calling All Cars is a downloadable game and thus not listed on the site and Twisted Metal: Head On - Extra Twisted Edition was just released a few days ago. So instead, we'll go with God of War (3.16 million) and God of War II (1.93 million) for a total of 5.09 million and a fourth place slot.

Gabe Newell
After looking at the sales of Half-Life 2, it's clear that Gabe Newell is a "the glass is half full" kinda guy. And he has every reason to be as the PC version of Half-Life 2 (4.13 million) and the Xbox 360 version of Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (0.66 million) give him sales numbers of 4.79 million and a spot in the final five.

Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima sneaks in as the last developer to make the next round as the combination of the two Metal Gear Solid 3 releases, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater(3.96 million) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (0.47 million) give him a total of 4.43 million.

The Tribe has spoken...
These four developers missed the cutoff point and will be spending the rest of the competition on the sidelines.

Ken Levine
The Irrational man has lived the BioShock life for his last two titles as the game was released to great sales and great acclaim on both the Xbox 360 and the PC. The Xbox 360 version totaled out at 1.54 million copies sold while the PC version doesn't have numbers on VGChartz. But it would have had to have sold twice that on the PC to Levine into the next round, so we're going to have to eliminate him.

Shinji Mikami
As much as I respect the guy who put a character named "Mikami's Head" into God Hand (0.07 million) after swearing he'd cut off his own head if Resident Evil 4 (1.66 million) was ever released for the PS2, it doesn't help much with his sales total. Counting both games together, Mikami only comes up 1.73 million. Which means he will not be a resident of the next round.

Fumito Ueda
While Fumito Ueda has quite the cult following among the forum fanboys and the critical community, the only two games has put out, Ico (0.7 million) and Shadow of the Colossus (0.73 million) only total 1.43 million in sales. Sadly, this puts him at the bottom of the official list.

John Carmack
John Carmack is a bit of an unknown quantity in this event. His two most recent games are Doom 3 and Quake III Arena, neither of which are listed in VGChartz. But with a little quick estimating, we can figure out that Doom 3 finished second to Half-Life 2 in overall sales of PC games in 2004. So it is unlikely that Carmack's total would be able to sneak past Hideo Kojima's 4.43 million to stave off elimination. We're sad to see him go, but it looks like we have to eliminate John Carmack making our final five official.

Next time on Game Developer Survivor...
We're giving the power to you to decide who moves on to the final round. A poll in the left sidebar lists the remaining developers. Vote early and vote often for your favorite. Be sure to check out the Gaming Target Forums as well to let us know why you picked who you did. Tune in next week to find out which developers move on and which get the boot.