Monday August 10, 2009
The Guinness Book of World Records has acknowledged Konami Digital Entertainment’s Yu-Gi-Oh! as having sold over 22 billion cards worldwide. With an exact total of 22,587,728,173 cards sold as of April 2009, Guinness recognizes Yu-Gi-Oh! as the best-selling TCG of all time.

“We are amazed and humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response that Duelists from every corner of the world have had toward the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game,” said Konami Digital Entertainment Chairman and CEO Kazumi Kitaue. The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG first appeared in Japan in 1999 and the United States in 2002.

This isn’t the first time Guinness has mined trading card games for establishing new records. Three players of Decipher’s The Lord of the Rings TCG set a record for longest TCG playing marathon by playing for 128 hours straight in 2002-03.