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c0rd on 12 October 2009
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Carl2291 said:
c0rd said:

Someone brought up Half-Life sales, but I honestly wonder how legitimate that can be. I bet there's a large number of those people who don't care about Gordon at all. For one, Gordon is a character you never see or hear in the game, so he doesn't exactly leave a large impression on most gamers (hence, the "who is Gordon?"). It's not a slight to the character or game, that's just how it is. Secondly:

Counter-Strike.


Using this poll as being representative that Gordon is more popular than other characters (or his popularity at all) wouldn't make any sense, especially considering the Steam advertising behind a ton of recent votes. By that logic, apparently Bub and Bob must be popular characters since they beat Master Chief?

The poll has no credibility for measuring such a thing.


Btw, while Snake was close, Link was about 50-50 with Gordon as well. On the last day Steam rolled him over (Snake managed to avoid such a fate, lucky him).

Valve themself released the sales figures.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/12/04/valve-releases-half-life-sales-figures/1

And at the red part. The same could be said of any other character.

The poll is not about who is most popular. The poll is about the greatest hero. But judging by Mario being in the final... It seems to now be Popular Character vs Gaming Hero.

Thankfully, the hero is winning.

I really don't think the same could be said about every character. Generally Zelda fans love Link, Mario fans love Mario, MGS fans love Snake. From my experience, Half-life fans aren't as crazy about Gordon. Again, I'm not saying he's a bad character (I don't like him, but that's irrelevant), the fact is that he never makes a noise, and you never even see him in-game. He doesn't exactly leave a big impression on people.

Many of these arguments can be fit into other games, like... Myst. Millions of people bought the game, and it was the best selling computer game for a long time. However, did anyone care about the character played in it? While the example is more extreme than Gordon Freeman, it shows that when so little is shown (or known) for the main hero, the less people will know or care about him.


Just because Mario is a popular character is in the finals, you say people are voting just because he's popular. However, all those thousands of votes going to Gordon are due to him being the "Gaming Hero?" That's ridiculous. Most people obviously just vote on who their favorite character / game is. Many people just love Mario (or his games), which is why he's popular in polls like this.

I was only talking about popularity because you claimed the poll shows how Gordon is popular. By that logic, Bub and Bob are popular for beating Master Chief. It shouldn't need to be said, but the truth is... Bub and Bob are not popular characters. This poll cannot be used as proof of anything.

Also, I know how much Half-life has sold. I was just saying that it comes with another game. Counter-Strike is pretty damn popular. Many copies of Half-life were bought just to play it.