Snake (1998 video game) in the context of "Nokia 6110"

A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile device. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability.The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.

In 1997, Nokia launched Snake. Snake, which was pre-installed in most mobile devices manufactured by Nokia for a couple of years, has since become one of the most played games, at one point found on more than 350 million devices worldwide. Mobile devices became more computationally advanced allowing for downloading of games, though these were initially limited to phone carriers' own stores. Mobile gaming grew greatly with the development of app stores in 2008, such as the iOS App Store from Apple. As the first mobile content marketplace operated directly by a mobile-platform holder, the App Store significantly changed the consumer behaviour and quickly broadened the market for mobile games, as almost every smartphone owner started to download mobile apps.

This is a list of the best-selling video games worldwide, ranked up to 50th place by reported software unit sales. The game considered to be the best-selling video game to date is contested among reliable sources. Sources are split as to whether the title should belong to Tetris, a 1988 multi-platform puzzle video game created by Alexey Pajitnov, or to Minecraft, a 2011 multi-platform sandbox game created by Markus Persson and developed by Mojang Studios. Sources such as Forbes, Encyclopædia Britannica, and IGN consider Tetris to be the best-selling video game by combining the sales of all of its different versions, totaling 520 million as of 2025. Other sources, however, such as the BBC, Guinness World Records, and GamesRadar, consider the best-selling video game to be Minecraft, which has sold 350 million copies as of 2025, rejecting the aggregation of each Tetris release. The closest competitor to either is Grand Theft Auto V, which has sold over 220 million copies. The best-selling single-platform game is Wii Sports, with nearly 83 million sales for the Wii console.

The 1998 game Snake is estimated to have shipped on over 400 million devices, but is not listed as it was pre-installed and freely accessible on Nokia mobile phones. Another sales issue involves The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which game director Todd Howard claims has sold over 60 million copies, is deemed contentious due to Howard's history of making exaggerated statements about his games for promotional purposes.