How many copies did Gears of War sell? — 2024 statistics

Gears of War sales have surpassed 41 million units.

(Source: VG Chartz, PushSquare)

• Gears of War sold 5 million units.
• Gears of War 2 sold 5 million units.
• Gears of War 3 sold 3 million units.
• Gears of War Ultimate Edition sold 1 million units.
• Gears of War Judgment sold 1 million units.
• Gears of War 4 sales and Gears of War 5 sales are unavailable, but sources say Gears 5 sold better than Gears 4.
• Gears of War 5 was beaten in sales by Borderlands 3 in 2019.

How many copies did Gears of War sell? Official stats show the series has sold tens of millions, with Gears 1 and 2 leading in popularity. Despite variations in sales, its dedicated fanbase is expected to grow with future additions.

The original Gears of War cost $12 million to make.

(Source: Polygon)

• The game made over $100 million in revenue so it was quite profitable.
• With production costs increasing, Gears of War 3 ended up closing 4-5 times more than the original game.
• It came to a halt when Epic Games realized that Gears of War 4 would have cost over $100 million to make and stood to put the company out of business if it did not succeed.
• This caused Epic to forfeit the rights to the Gears of War series to Microsoft, which was more financially stable at the time.

Through the next two lines of stats, we can see the massive change in the required budget to produce a game, with the original Gears of War only costing $12 million. However, since Gears of War came out at pretty much the perfect time for a game like it, it is no wonder that it did so well in the first place.

Gears of War: Judgment cost $60 million to make.

(Source: GameSpot)

• The game ended up earning the company over $100 million.
• Shortly after this, the Gears of War IP was transferred to Microsoft.
• Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games has stated that it was dangerous ground to tread since the failure of the game would have resulted in the failure of the company.
• Part of the turbulence of this situation was blamed on the new console age with the release of the PS4 and Xbox One.

With the rising popularity of console gaming and a more turbulent situation in the gaming industry, where popular franchises can lose relevance overnight, this is the point where the Gears of War franchise’s legs started to get a bit wobbly. The company had massive increases in production costs, but 2014 was the year when the Gears of War IP was sold to Microsoft which continued the pricy development of Gears of War 4 and released it in 2016.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition players scored 41.2 million kills during the open beta.

(Source: Twitter)

• 1.6 million chainsaw kills were made.
• 5.9 million executions were performed.
• 1.7 million curb stomps were performed.
• There were 145,580 frag tag deaths.
• 1.1 million matches were played.
• Players spent 120 years playing the game.
• The beta was played in 66 different countries.
• 786,415 users played the beta.

Open betas are a great way for developers to get players into the game early so they can lay the hype foundation, but they are also a great way of collecting valuable data that shows them where the game performs well and where it is lacking. When you look at the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition beta, you will notice that players managed to accumulate some seriously impressive stats over that period, indicating that the gameplay is excellent and that it works well.

The Gears of War 4 esports scene has awarded $3.1 million in prize pools.

(Source: Esports Earnings)

• The game had 152 tournaments.
• The highest prize pool was awarded at the Gears Pro Circuit Boston 2019 at $300,000.
• The rest of the tournaments had prize pools ranging from $300,000 to $370.
• The most successful Gears of War 4 player is Billy “MentaL” who has earned $313,176 across 86 tournaments.
• He is ranked #729 in the world and #133 in The United States.

The gameplay of Gears of War allows it to be a very competitive game, and that is reflected in the total earnings that Gears of War 4 has distributed to professional players over the years with over $3.1 million in earnings. This series is extremely satisfying to watch because the gameplay is brutal and fast-paced, so it’s no surprise that they would do quite well on the esports scene.

Microsoft bought Gears of War in 2014 with 22 million sales and $1 billion revenue!

(Source: VGC)

• Jeff Grubb claimed that Gears 6 was in full development after two other coalition games were canceled.
• The next game should be fully next-gen, featuring Unreal Engine 5.
• The reason two other projects were canceled was in part due to the large-scale layoffs at Microsoft.

This was an announcement that the Gears of War community had been waiting for with bated breath for years. Microsoft has recently faced some issues with employment, deciding to lay off over 10,000 employees for various reasons. Because of this, the studio developing the Halo series took a hit but it will continue developing its next Halo game. The same thing happened with The Coalition which has stated that two games have been canceled while Gears 6 has become a top priority.

Gears of War 2 sold more than 2 million copies during its debut weekend.

(Source: Game Informer)

• Gears of War was the best-selling title of 2006.
• Gears of War 3 pushed the franchise past 1 billion sales, becoming the second Xbox franchise to accomplish that, after Halo.
• Gears of War fans played more than 2.3 billion hours of multiplayer by 2016.

In this line of stats, we can see that the Gears of War franchise has recorded some monumental moments in the gaming industry, breaking sales records for entire years and establishing itself as a 1 billion sale franchise. Other than that, we can also see that the fans of Gears of War amassed a tremendous number of hours in multiplayer mode in 2016. It is only natural to assume that the franchise has accumulated dozens of billions of hours in multiplayer since 2016.

To sum up

And that would be all we have to say about the Gears of War series and the grueling road it took to reach the top of the 3rd person shooter genre. This is one of those series that is a bit of a niche choice in the gaming industry because its gameplay dynamic is not for everyone. Nevertheless, Gears has accumulated a massive following over the years and continues to be a fan favorite and the fanbase cannot wait to see the newest game as well as the remasters. From the information we have presented here, you can see how successful a game series can become when released at the right time and when you nail your target demographics to create something that will last forever. We sincerely hope that you are happy with what we had to say and that you have learned something new!