Scribblenauts lifetime sales revealed

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 11 February, 2011

Words escape us.

Cute word-based puzzle game series Scribblenauts has sold 2.5 million copies to date.

That's the combined might of DS games Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts.

During the DICE 2011 summit at Las Vegas developer 5th Cell revealed its other franchise, Drawn to Life, has shifted 3.5 million units (thanks Joystiq).

Eurogamer awarded Scribblenauts 7/10 in September 2009. John Walker found it "hard to believe anyone could play for more than six or seven levels before just typing in random things to see if they're there and whether they can beat Cthulhu in a fight".

2010 sequel Super Scribblenauts went one better, scoring 8/10. Christian Donlan reckoned "whether or not you think Super Scribblenauts is a genuine classic depends on how much you like making dinosaurs attack each other, ultimately – but either way, it's unquestionably the game that Scribblenauts should have been the first time around".

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • levitate #1 1 year ago

    They totally deserve it. Brilliant game!

  • levitate #2 1 year ago

    BlueDragon: Cheers! I knew this was my lucky day. :)

  • Gojiratron #3 1 year ago

    Holy angry purple winged firebreathing radioactive walruses ftw! :D

  • schnide #4 1 year ago

    When you two have finished your love-in, perhaps someone could explain to me how the original Scribblenauts got a 7/10 on this site. It's like Dead Space all over again. Er, a while ago.

  • kinky_mong #5 1 year ago

    @Schnide: Because the control system was pretty awful and a lot of puzzles could be solved simply by typing "Jetpack".

    Super Scribblenauts fixed these issues by allowing you to control Maxwell with the D-pad, so you would no longer spend ages carefully balancing items only for the clumsy oaf to run into them when you accidentally taped the wrong part of the screen.

  • Whitster #6 1 year ago

    Good, good for them.

    Some of the best games of the last few years to my mind.

  • schnide #7 1 year ago

    @kinky

    The control system wasn't perfect, but to me it was a minor flaw in an otherwise true gem of a game. A lot of the puzzles could be solved using a jetpack but not all of them, and even more so if you want to truly beat the game by repeating them using unique items each time (I forget what the rating system is now, but I know I haven't beaten it and that's because there are a lot of puzzles you can't solve with Jetpack/Wings/Pegasus).

  • Piccadillio #8 1 year ago

    Great that Scribblenauts has sold 2.5 million units, but to lag behind the far inferior Drawn to Life by a million units is difficult to believe!

  • tomjoadsghost #9 1 year ago

    If more developers could produce games as engaging as my kids find the title screens of the scribblenauts games i'd be a very happy man.

    actually if the developers of the scribblenauts games could produce games as engaging as my kids find the title screens of the scribblenauts games i'd be pretty impressed.

    anyway I'm glad i bought both, and that for a change in one of these articles, I'm glad that plenty of other people did too.

    @piccadillio:- i haven't played drawn to life but it is available in more iterations on more systems so the numbers shouldn't be taken as like for like - IIRC there's even a spongebob drawn to life game which probably didn't hurt numbers.
    Edited by tomjoadsghost at 11/02/11 @ 11:05

  • frunk #10 1 year ago

    Piracy killed the DS... it is just so easy. Same way as it will kill the PS3!

    Oh... 2.5 million copies... oops...