Views by top-level category
Including grand total of all topic views on your forum since the very beginning.
/* Outer SELECT to hide the artificial sort order column, and sort by it. */
SELECT "Category", "Views"
FROM (
/* Views per top-level category. */
SELECT
topcat AS "Category",
SUM(views) AS "Views",
0 AS sortorder /* Artificial sorting column, here to sort to the beginning. */
FROM (
/* Topic views in sub-level categories. */
SELECT
topcat.name AS topcat, SUM(topics.views) AS views
FROM topics
INNER JOIN categories subcat ON topics.category_id = subcat.id
INNER JOIN categories topcat ON subcat.parent_category_id = topcat.id
GROUP BY topcat.name
UNION
/* Topic views in top-level categories (excluding sub-level cats). */
SELECT
topcat.name AS topcat, SUM(topics.views) AS views
FROM topics
INNER JOIN categories topcat ON topics.category_id = topcat.id
WHERE topcat.parent_category_id IS NULL
GROUP BY topcat.name
) AS views_by_cat
GROUP BY topcat
UNION
/* Adding a TOTAL row at the end. */
SELECT
'GRAND TOTAL' AS "Category",
SUM(topics.views) AS "Views",
1 AS sortorder /* Artificial sorting column, here to sort to the end. */
FROM
topics
GROUP BY "Category"
/* Sort the output by either category or views. Enable one of these: */
/* ORDER BY topcat, subcat */
ORDER BY "Views" DESC
) AS views_by_cat_with_total
ORDER BY sortorder, "Category"