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Fan Index Reveals: The MOST Popular Gaming Character of ALL TIME

Published

5 years ago

February 4, 2021

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The most popular gaming character is Mario, receiving a whopping 451 points from the fan index
In second place is Sonic the Hedgehog with 394 points, receiving a staggering 59,700,700 Google searches in the last year
Legend of Zelda’s Link lands third place with 377 points, holding the largest number of Reddit mentions
The least popular gaming character is Jack from BioShock with just 48 points!

We’ve spent a lot of time at home, getting to know our favourite video games more than ever before, falling even more in love with a whole range of gaming characters. However, there is plenty of debate about which characters are the nations’ favourite!

With this in mind, experts at Stashbird.com wanted to discover the most popular gaming characters of all time from the best-selling video game franchises*. To thoroughly investigate, Stashbird.com created a gaming fans’ index by analysing the following factors:

Sales of the franchise
Average worldwide searches over the past year
Number of hashtags on Instagram
Number of Reddit mentions
Gamers’ popularity score (survey)

The top 10 most popular characters

Stashbird.com can reveal that in first place, and crowned the most popular gaming character, is Mario with a massive 451 fan index points!

Mario ranked first for franchise sales with a staggering 653,000,000 worldwide copies of Mario games sold, bagging him an easy 100 points. The fun-loving character also ranked sixth for average worldwide searches with 4,606,547 (86 points) in the past year alone! Despite these results, Mario only ranked 10th for popularity, with 45% of gamers choosing him as their ultimate favourite.

Not far behind in second place is Sonic the Hedgehog with 394 points. The extraterrestrial hedgehog ranked second for worldwide searches (59,700,000), giving him 97 points! He was voted the favourite by only 21% of gamers surveyed, however bagged himself 91 points for his 94,300 Reddit mentions.

Link from The Legend of Zelda places third, accumulating 377 points! It is no surprise as the star of the Nintendo series to have ranked top for Reddit mentions (3,920,000) and popularity score (74%), receiving 100 points for both! Interestingly, he ranked lower down for search volumes, with 1,196,200 average searches over the past year.

At number four is Donkey Kong with 354 points, scoring high with 3,930,000 yearly average searches (83 points), 570,000 Instagram hashtags (77 points) and 26,400 Reddit mentions (80 points).

To complete the 10 most popular gaming characters, the results are as follows:
5. Master Chief (Halo) 323 points, Crash (Crash Bandicoot) 323 points, Sora (Kingdom Hearts) 323 points
6. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy) 314 points
7. Pac-Man (Pac-Man) 308 points
8. Kirby (Kirby) 306 points
9. Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher) 294 points

Closing the top 10 is Ezio Auditore Da Firenze, star of four of the Assassin’s Creed games, with 291 points!

Just making the bottom 10 is Joel Miller, ranking 25th out of a possible 34 places, from the Last of Us. This is not surprising as the franchise only scored 14 points for its 24 million sales. He also scored low on Reddit searches, receiving just 29 points for his 1,670 mentions.

John Marston from Red Dead Redemption and Simon Belmont from Castlevania were both among the least popular with 94 and 74 points, respectively.

Bioshock’s Jack rounds off the bottom 10 list with measly 48 points – a staggering 403 points less than first place contender Mario.

Methodology
1. *Stashbird.com analysed the list of best-selling video game franchises that have sold at least 20 million copies and pulled the most popular/recognised character from each to compile the list of 36 most popular gaming characters of all time.
2. The team then created an index looking at several factors, including sales of the franchise, search volumes using SemRush, the number of Instagram hashtags per character and the number of mentions on Reddit.
3. Finally, to complete the index Stashbird.com surveyed 4,567 gamers worldwide to ask them to vote for their favourite from the list to give each character a popularity score.
4. Games where there is no playable main character were excluded from the list.
5. Stashbird normalised the data by using the PERCENTRANK.INC function in Excel. This function returns the rank of a value in a data set as a percentage of the data set between 0 and 1. These values were then multiplied by 100 to make the range between 0 and 100. The maximum score a character could receive was 500.This enabled the team to rank the 36 characters from most to least popular based on their total points. The data was collected on 29/02/2021 and is correct as of then.

GGPoker

GGPoker adds Action Voice packs featuring Doyle Brunson and other pros

Published

8 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Wladimir P.

ggpoker-adds-action-voice-packs-featuring-doyle-brunson-and-other-pros

New software option replaces standard table announcements across cash games, tournaments and formats including All-In or Fold and Spin & Gold.

GGPoker on July 9, 2026 announced Action Voice, a new software feature that lets players replace standard table announcements with voice packs recorded by poker personalities, including Doyle Brunson.

The initial lineup named by the operator includes ten-time WSOP bracelet winner Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Kevin Martin, with additional voices “to be confirmed in the near future.”

Action Voice is available now across GGPoker’s product offering, including cash games, tournaments and formats such as All-In or Fold and Spin & Gold. Players can select voice packs in the desktop client via ‘My Page’ and then ‘My Action Voice’.

“Doyle Brunson may not be at the tables in the way that he used to, but his voice still can be,” said Sarne Lightman, Managing Director of GGPoker. “Action Voice is our way of keeping the legends who built this game part of the everyday experience – right alongside the players carrying it forward today, like Daniel and Michael. It’s a unique and fun new element to our software, and we can’t wait to reveal the rest of the lineup soon.”

GGPoker said more Action Voice packs will be announced in the coming weeks as it rolls out the full roster.

The post GGPoker adds Action Voice packs featuring Doyle Brunson and other pros appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

Action Voice

The Godfather Of Poker Returns To The Table: Doyle Brunson’s Voice Comes To GGPoker

Published

8 hours ago

July 9, 2026

GamingAmericas.com

the-godfather-of-poker-returns-to-the-table:-doyle-brunson’s-voice-comes-to-ggpoker

GGPoker introduces Action Voice, letting players hear poker icons – including Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and more – call their action at the tables

GGPoker, the World’s Biggest Poker Room, today unveiled Action Voice, a unique feature that gives players the option to replace GGPoker’s standard table announcements with those voiced by some of poker’s most iconic figures. For the first time, players can bet, raise, call, and fold to the voice of ten-time WSOP bracelet winner and back-to-back Main Event champion Doyle Brunson – alongside a growing roster of legends including Daniel Negreanu, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Kevin Martin, and additional names to be confirmed in the near future.

Action Voice is now available to all GGPoker players, who can select their preferred voice pack in the GGPoker software and hear it call their action while playing their favorite GGPoker games, including cash games, tournaments, and exclusive formats such as All-In or Fold and Spin & Gold.

“Doyle Brunson may not be at the tables in the way that he used to, but his voice still can be,” said Sarne Lightman, Managing Director of GGPoker. “Action Voice is our way of keeping the legends who built this game part of the everyday experience – right alongside the players carrying it forward today, like Daniel and Michael. It’s a unique and fun new element to our software, and we can’t wait to reveal the rest of the lineup soon.”

To select a new voice from within the desktop software, click on ‘My Page’, then ‘My Action Voice’. Choose your preferred voice by selecting the avatar, click ‘Apply’ and you are ready to hit the tables!

Additional voices will be revealed in the coming weeks as GGPoker rolls out the full Action Voice roster.

The post The Godfather Of Poker Returns To The Table: Doyle Brunson’s Voice Comes To GGPoker appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

Haaland

International bettors back Haaland’s Norway to beat England in World Cup Quarter Final Clash

Published

15 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Wladimir P.

international-bettors-back-haaland’s-norway-to-beat-england-in-world-cup-quarter-final-clash

Kaizen Gaming shares Betano users’ predictions on teams heading to the World Cup semi-finals

As the World Cup moves into the last eight stage, Kaizen Gaming unveils exclusive proprietary data from its Betano platform, which reveals Argentina, Norway, Spain and France as the most backed teams by users globally to progress into the semi-finals.

Predicting the teams to qualify to the semi-finals (selections from the “To Qualify” market):

Norway backed by 75% of users to qualify over England
Argentina favoured by 80% of users to win over Switzerland
Spain narrowly predicted to come out on top over Belgium with 55% of users’ bets
France has been selected by 67% of users to pass through Morocco

With regards to two of the biggest surprises of the tournament this far, Brazil’s defeat to Norway and Germany’s elimination by Paraguay, it seems that for Betano users the shock wasn’t that big. In fact, 42% of users had seen Paraguay’s qualification coming, and 45% had predicted Norway getting through Brazil to reach the quarterfinals.

*The data shared has been extracted on the morning of July 8, 2026 from across 18 markets, excluding the UK. The international data sources may vary according to betting option availability per market.

The post International bettors back Haaland’s Norway to beat England in World Cup Quarter Final Clash appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.