The top 10 selling video games of 2015 (so far) Familiar names and surprise entries lead the pack among game sales this year.

While it’s much too early to make any final assessments, Warner Bros.

Interactive Entertainment is having one heck of a year so far. The

video game arm of the Hollywood studio is attached to three of the

year’s best selling video games—including the current industry leader.

This year’s list of best selling games, based on six months worth of

sales figures compiled by The NPD Group, is full of

surprises. Lego (another Warner Bros. property), which had two

games in the mid-year standings last year, is nowhere to be seen. But

two titles that were already solid performers last year at this time—

Grand Theft Auto V andMinecraft—are showing no signs of

weakening, an incredible run in an industry where interest in a game

typically falls off after a month or two.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, is the game topping the mid-year

list. Mortal Kombat has been around for some 25 years —and while

there is still a strong fan base for the game, it wasn’t expected to be the

best-selling title in the first half of the year. But by upping the gore in

the game’s fatalities, Mortal Kombat X had the best launch in the

history of the franchise—and that created buzz that kept sales strong.

Also somewhat surprising is the high rank of Batman: Arkham City,

which was only released last month, but still managed to claim the

number six spot. The sales come despite the suspension of sales of the

PC version of the game, which was riddled with bugs.

Rankings for this mid-year list were taken from sales figures from

January through the end of June, the most recent reporting period for

The NPD Group. (Due to agreements with publishers, NPD does not

publicly release hard sales numbers. The data also does not include

hard figures for digital sales directly from game platforms like the

Xbox One and PlayStation 4.)

The best selling games of the first half of 2015 are as follows:

1. Mortal Kombat X (Publisher: Warner Bros.)

2. Grand Theft Auto V (Publisher: Take-Two Interactive Software)

3. Battlefield Hardline (Publisher: Electronic Arts)

4. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Publisher: Activision)

5. Minecraft (Publisher: Microsoft)

6. Batman: Arkham Knight (Publisher: Warner Bros.)

7. Dying Light (Publisher: Warner Bros.)

8. NBA 2K15 (Publisher: Take-Two Interactive Software)

9. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Publisher: CD Projekt Red)

10. Super Smash Bros. (Publisher: Nintendo)

So what’s missing? Not a lot, actually. There haven’t been a lot of

surprise failures so far this year. Sony’s The Order:

1886 underperformed and was a critical dud, but since it was a single

platform game, it was unlikely to make this list either way.

Nintendo’s Splatoon sold more than 1 million copies in less than a

month, but (again) was a single platform game—and a new IP—

meaning the odds it could crack the top 10 were slim.

That run of good luck by publishers is likely to change during the

holiday season, though. With so many big games scheduled to come

out this year, some are bound to get caught in the blast zone.

Among the releases due this holiday are Halo 5: Guardians, Call of

Duty: Black Ops III, Fallout 4, Star Wars: Battlefront, Assassin’s Creed

Syndicate, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Rise of the Tomb Raider,

Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4. That’s a lot of AAA titles (games

which have the largest development and promotional budgets), and

given the evolving buying habits of gamers, it’s virtually impossible

that they’ll all meet sales expectations.

Five years ago, it might have been different. Gamers bought more

titles per year, devouring them and moving on to something else. But

as publishers have added more and more downloadable content (DLC)

offerings, they’ve been able to keep players hooked for longer periods

and increase their profit growth.

Ultimately, though, that has impacted the total number of games sold

per year.