Highest grossing media franchises

[batson]

So I came across this wikipedia article about the highest grossing media franchises, and I find the topic really faschinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises

I'm not really surprised that Pokémon is number 1. It makes sense considering that, unlike most super-fabs, the Pokémon fad just never really ended (unlike, say, Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles) it just sorta cooled down a bit. There are definitely a few surprises though. A pleasant one for me is how highly Peanuts (largely known outside the US as Charlie Brown and Snoopy) ranks. I love Peanuts, and although I knew it's been popular over the decades I am quite shocked that it managed to beat franchises such as the aforementioned Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles, as well as Spongebob and even Superman (Superman being shockingly low on the list). On another note, it pisses me off that Dora the Explorer, one of the dumbest cartoons of all time, is one placement above The Simpsons, the smartest cartoon of all time!

Take a look at the list and tell me what surprises you the most!

[Tornado]

Pages like this need to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Utah. They are well sourced at first glance to pass the Wikipedia standards, but if you actually follow the sources completely down the original rabbit hole that provided data you regularly see figures cited for their justification that are obviously and blatantly completely nonsense, or seemingly just purely imaginary. For example, take a look at the GTA series:

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est. $9.986 billion (as of 2019)

For starters, there's a three year gap of data that the chart doesn't seem to acknowledge is missing, but ignore that for now and focus on just the company since GTA V released.

It's further broken down as:

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2012–2018 – $6.023 billion

And

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April 2012 to March 2013 –

 $23.4 million[191]

September 2013 to April 2018 – $6 billion[192]

So you follow the first link, and it dumps you at the Take Two investors page. You look up the relevant fiscal year, and it says things like "Sales of Grand Theft Auto products generated approximately 11.3% of the Company’s net revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013." So you check for the net revenue total, and you find 1.214 billion dollars. 11.3% of that isn't 23 million dollars. It's 137 million dollars.

 

 

So where the hell did 23 million come from? It came from the report saying that the GTA franchise had garnered that much more revenue than it had the year prior, and someone on Wikipedia just cited that number as the total revenue.

 

 

 

 

So, okay. Not looking good so far. So let's check the other number's source. You see charts like this:

Which is technically accurate in the sense that they came out on PS2 first (by virtue of being the console that outsold all of its competitors combined by 3:1), but that's like noting that Resident Evil 4 was "originally exclusive" to the Gamecube. Everyone knew it was getting a port before the original version actually came out, and it eventually was ported to fucking every game-adjacent machine made since. The context is completely stripped by presenting it as if being on the PS2 and not coming to the XBox/PC until a few months later hurt its ability to... become the best selling game on the overwhelmingly best selling console of the generation

 

 

 

 

And you read statements like this:

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Since it’s launch in 2013, “GTA V” has sold 90 million units, putting its total haul for publisher Take-Two Interactive Inc. TTWO, +1.02% in the neighborhood of $6 billion

Let's assume that 90 million unit value is accurate from the website that seemingly thinks the tens of millions of copies GTA games sold on platforms other than PS2 don't count for some reason. That site is saying that Rockstar sold that $60 game for an average retail price of $66 a copy, and Microsoft and Sony and Valve didn't get any of it. And of course that's not true.

 

So where the hell did $6 billion come from? Who knows!

 

 

 

 

So in just two citations in one date range for one franchise, that Wikipedia page about highest revenue franchises misread one of their sources to the effect of under reporting revenue by 228 million dollars (since there doesn't seem to be a figure for 2011 on that page at all, and the 2012 figure listed is wrong) and citing a page that seemingly arrived at a revenue number by making it up.

[batson]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

Pages like this need to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Utah.

Well then, I guess at least I can hope that The Simpsons may have outgrossed Dora the Explorer after all.

[Volcan Pacaya]

The funny thing about Hello Kitty is that while it has things like TV shows and games and the like they're all based on a pre-existing brand that just sort of came into existence.

Pokemon/StarWars/MickyMouse/whatever merchandise are based on the series.

Hello Kitty series are based on the merchandise.

13 hours ago, batson said:

the Pokémon fad just never really ended

I know people staked their reputations on it being one 500 years ago when it launched but maybe it's not a fad?