PERSPECTIVE
Alternate Reality
Notes from videogaming’s borders
ADRIAN HON
Run down the list of last year’s top ten bestselling books in the UK and you’ll find ten books that were originally written in English. It’s the same for movies – though in fairness Parasite, from South Korea, just about squeaked into 2020’s top ten. Brits just don’t seem to be excited by fiction from other countries – but the trend is very different for games.
Out of the top ten games sold last year, franchise stalwarts such as FIFA and Call Of Duty made up most of the list, but if you included digital sales (which Nintendo doesn’t report, annoyingly), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons almost certainly would’ve made it in, with Super Mario 3D World and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond also in the running.