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

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Interviews

Consolidating brands efficiently to achieve high growth

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Tom Walton, Director at technology consultancy, Burendo, shares how operators can achieve sustainable profitability with learnings from other sectors

Operators who are merging and acquiring other businesses, launching new products or even integrating third-party technologies, can find themselves navigating complex internal processes. It is a complex large-scale challenge. Where M&As are commonplace, brand consolidation can be critical when securing sustainable profitability while planning for higher returns in the future. Within the emerging LatAm and US markets, acquisition remains a key focus. A common issue, regardless of geography, is the challenges presented by outdated or fragmented platforms and systems, a major obstacle in the growth trajectory.

In many cases, fundamental changes in how the organisation functions: its people, processes and technology holds the key to better value, higher profits, operational efficiency and reduced risk. By addressing these complexities with proven experience, technology consultants can support operators to be successful in their strategic initiatives.

Agility in competitive markets

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To remain competitive in an ever-changing market, operators must move fast and with agility to refine their offering. A constant eye on retention, acquisition and regulatory changes is paramount to avoid financial impact. Despite this risk, research conducted by Accenture in 2022 found that 95% of B2B and B2C C-level executives believe their customers are changing faster than they can change their business, indicating most operators risk falling behind. This poses the question of how this can be supported.

The value of technology consultancies is in enabling businesses to extract greater value from existing resources through a confident understanding of what good looks like. Bringing external ideas gathered through experience, exemplary resources from process to people, can demonstrate what good looks like. More importantly, it shortens the timeline to achieving real goals in the organisation. Being under resourced or lacking the skills needed across these challenges makes it difficult to gain an overarching perspective particularly within a siloed approach.

At Burendo, we leverage more than 40 years of cross-sector experience. We are not only working with some of the biggest operators in betting and gaming, but partner with other highly regulated industries including finance and healthcare. We have helped operators across many initiatives helping them to realise cost savings or increased revenue in a matter of weeks. We pride ourselves in ensuring we leave a lasting positive impact on the culture, enabling our partners to be empowered to carry on our work.

The retention battle

Many operators are too busy with day-to-day tasks or overwhelmed with where to start when it comes to transformation and building a cutting-edge user experience. An example of the gap between capacity and demand is the rising popularity of in-play betting. During live sports, the speed in which players can find and place their bet is critical. Here, streamlined processes that allow for quick innovation will correlate with customer satisfaction, resulting in higher retention rates.

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A fresh perspective for lasting change

A successful approach to optimisation requires taking the challenge and viewing it from an experienced and innovative angle. Our partners truly benefit from best practice and valuable lessons derived from other sectors. Through experience we have found that these challenges are not exclusive to betting & gaming and so the ability to apply these learnings drive success.

Managing complex systems and large volumes of data is a common obstacle. By applying these cross-sector principles through working with technology consultants, operators can gain valuable insight into re-engineering platforms and the skills needed, to meet both current and future demands.

Building exceptional, scalable and adaptable architectures ensures that businesses can continue to grow and evolve as the industry changes. This forward-thinking approach positions operators ahead of the curve, meaning they are poised for success in the years to come and have the agility to address any challenges or opportunities that arise.

Creating lasting change requires more than just solving immediate problems. Our goal for our clients is to maintain high levels of efficiency long after an initial transformation is complete. By empowering teams to implement and sustain improvements, operators can maintain continuous growth and unlock growth worth tens of millions of pounds, far outweighing their cost of delivery.

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The focus must now shift to building stronger, more Agile organisations that can adapt to changing market conditions. Sustainable efficiency enables operators to optimise time-to-market, improve platform performance, and manage resources more effectively, creating a foundation for long-term growth.

About Burendo   

Founded in 2018 and with offices in Leeds and London, Burendo is an award-winning, consultancy delivering stand-out products and services through technology. We partner with organisations to accelerate organisational value delivery and transform customer experiences.

We are pragmatic thinkers and doers who understand the operational world of organisations and customer demands. We work as a partner to give our clients the latest ideas, tools and techniques to deliver effective results that build long-term value.

For more information, you can visit the Burendo website: www.burendo.com

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If you have any questions, please contact Kate Smith, Senior Digital Marketing Executive by email: [email protected]

The post Consolidating brands efficiently to achieve high growth appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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Brazil

EGT Digital is a licensed software provider for Brazil

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EGT Digital is proud to announce that it has obtained a licence that allows it to provide its software products in Brazil. The Bulgarian provider was certified by the regulator Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) and can now offer local operators its rich portfolio of gaming solutions, containing over 120 in-house developed casino titles and the 4 top-performing jackpots Bell Link, High Cash, Clover Chance, and Single Progressive Jackpot.

Tsvetomira Drumeva, Head of Sales at EGT Digital, shared her excitement regarding the authorization: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to present our gaming content to the Brazilian market. Our slots are available to domestic players, ready to captivate them with their numerous fascinating features and provide an unforgettable experience, fully tailored to their tastes and preferences.”

The post EGT Digital is a licensed software provider for Brazil appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.

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Arizona Department of Gaming Releases October Sports Betting Figures

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Bettors in Arizona wagered approximately $791 million on sports in October of 2024, according to a new report by the Arizona Department of Gaming. This represents an approximate 22% increase when compared to October of 2023.

The state collected approximately $2.35 million in privilege fees in the month.

The post Arizona Department of Gaming Releases October Sports Betting Figures appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.

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