A new study claims to reveal the most popular video game character in America. The study was based on Google search data over the past five years across the United States, and some of the top ten picks may not be what the average gamer expects.
Over the years, fans have debated who is the best character ever. Sometimes people argue over which character could beat up another while others have more prolonged debates about writing and motivation. For example,Pokemonfans oftendebate who is the best of the Legendary Pokemonwhile others argue if Joel fromThe Last of Usis a better character than Kratos fromGod of War. Now one organization seems to think they know which character is the most popular.
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Recently a study was conducted by casino experts CasinoBonusCA who ranked the most popular video game characters in the United States based on monthly average Google searches over the past five years. The most popular video game character was Sonic from theSonic The Hedgehogfranchise. According to the casino experts, the character had roughly 1.1 million Google searches every month. This was likely due in part to the release of theSonic The Hedgehogfilm in 2020 starring Jim Carrey.Sonic the Hedgehog 2would open at Number 1at the box office and its success solidified Paramount’s plans for a cinematic universe based around the games.
The second most popular character is Pac-Man with the character averaging 758,300 hits in the US, with the most coming from Florida. Pikachu from thePokemonfranchise comes in at number three with 635,000 hits per month. These numbers skyrocketed in 2019 thanks to the Ryan Reynolds film,Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. Oddly enough, anotherstudy showed that Pikachu was not one of the top ten Pokemon.
At number four is Kirby, averaging roughly 432,000 monthly search hits.Kirby and the Forgotten Landwould go on to beat the franchise sales record, having moved over 5.27 million copies worldwide. Kratos from theGod of Warseries ranked at five with 209,010 searches a month which was likely due to the release ofGod of War(2018) and its sequel,God of War: Ragnarok.
Super Mariocharacters Yoshi, Princess Peach, and Bowser took the sixth, seventh, and tenth spots. Yoshi had 190,880 monthly hits, Peach got around 174,990 searches, and Bowser with 136,439. All three characters have been a part of theSuper Mariofranchise for decades and their rankings likely had something to do with the upcoming film. The latestSuper Mario Bros. Movie trailer was released in November and gave fans a better idea as to what to expect. Oddly enough, Mario himself didn’t make the top ten but was placed at 11 with 136,200 monthly hits.
Chun Li from theStreet Fighterfranchise and Lara Croft from theTomb Raiderseries came in at 8th and 9th. The former received 158,750 searches and the latter racked up 138,940 hits a month.Street Fighter 6is currently expected to hit shelves in 2023 whileTomb Raider’s next installment will be published by Amazon. It is worth noting, however, that these Google hits may not actively reflect how popular a character is. It is very possible that many of these hits, especially in the case of Pikachu and Sonic, came from someone looking up movie show times or where to buy a particular game. Whether such searches actively reflect the characters' popularity, however, remains for the individual to decide.
