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Forums - Gaming - Who do you think is the most recognizable video game character?

 

Who's more recognizable?

Mario 553 82.78%
 
Luigi 2 0.30%
 
Pac-Man 65 9.73%
 
Sonic 9 1.35%
 
Crash 5 0.75%
 
Spyro 1 0.15%
 
Snake 11 1.65%
 
Other 22 3.29%
 
Total:668
RenCutypoison on 06 August 2013
danasider said:
RenCutypoison said:
Pacman is not recognizable by children.

I would go with Pikachu, even if most people know him from the anime.

Mario is mostly recognize by gamers, many non gamers can't recognize it as well as pikachu.


How do you figure Mario is mostly recognized by gamers?

The following is  my conjecture, but I respectfully disagree.  Even if people don't play his games, his image is engrained in popular culture.  He's synonymous with video gaming, but outsiders know his theme song, sound effects and image (used in everything from movies to songs to ring tones and just about any form of popular media).  A lot of non-gamers think of his face when they think of video games in general so even if they don't play games, they are quite aware of him.  It's like claiming just because you don't watch the NBA, you don't know who Michael Jordan is.  Grandmothers, busnessman, children...all demographics know Mario just like they do Michael Jordan.

Pikachu is arguably second though for the reasons you said.  In my honest opinion of course, but painmaster212 posted links to google trends and Mario not only beats Pac-Man and Pikachu handily, he beats out Pokemon altogether.  And Google has like 90% of websearch traffic so these numbers reflect worldwide trends, not just America's or gamers.

Hum, I think older audience don't recognize mario, and for the theme song it's mostly because every 30 years old and less has played a mario game when they were childs.

A 60 years old will recognize pikachu because his grandsons have pikachu plush, to me.

But it's hardly quantifiable. But to me, as there are more pokemon goodies, still pikachu.

Even if you're probably right.



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Multimedialover on 06 August 2013

Hold on:

I hate polls that have stupid choices. Like Snake. Reallllllyyyyy???????????????

MGS 1 = 6.03m
MGS2 = 6.05m
MGS3 = 4.23m
MGS4 = 5.79m

Sales of main series Snake games.

Contrary left out of OP is Masterchief. Who clearly deserves that list more than Snake.

Halo Reach = 9.44m
Halo 1 = 8.60m
Halo 2 = 8.49m
Halo 3 = 11.78m
Halo 4 = 8.41m



Viper1 on 06 August 2013

According to a May 2008 poll by the Davie-Brown Index (DBI), Pac-Man is the best-known of all videogame characters, recognized by 94% of American consumers. Mario comes a close second with 93%,


http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/7000/most-recognizable-videogame-character


I'm willing to bet that since 5 years have passed that Mario has surpassed Pac-Man to top the list. Since 2008, Mario has been in more than a dozen games that have together sold well over 100 million units. Pac-Man has been in almost as many games but has sell barely 1 million units.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

Vetteman94 on 06 August 2013
TheBlackNaruto said:
Vetteman94 said:
 

I have been asking myself the same question for each of your replies to me. 

Even now Mario isnt as relevant as he used to be, I would argue that currently Pikachu is more recognized specifically for the under 13 crowd .  Maybe 10 years ago it was Mario.  

And they way they did the poll was they showed gamings most iconic characters.  And you had to select the ones you recoginized.  Pretty simple poll.  Don't see how there could be much in the way of bias.  But if thats how you want to discredit it.  


I have seen your replies and I can see where you are coming from and THIS is the ONLY post that I seem to have a issue with.

Only because you say Pac-man is the most recognizable character.

But in this post you say that you feel that Pikachu is more recognized than even Mario due to Mario not being as relevant as Pikachu is now. Yet Pacman really hasn't been "relevant" in like over 20 or 30 years. I guess I am confused because you say Mario is not as relevant as he was 10 years ago and has been surpassed by Pikachu so that makes Pikachu more recognizable. Yet Pacman is who has not been relevant in over 20 years is more recognizable than both. It is like you are contradicting yourself here.

Other than that good points!

That is true that Pac Man hasnt been very relevant for years, but its not like he hasnt dissappeared either,  he still has games that come out on a regular basis. And he still has many pop culture references like other video games, books, movies. etc., I believe he even appeared in the movie Wreck It Ralph,  Hell Pacman even got a Google Home Page dedication to it, there were even companies that complained there was drops in productivity due to this.  Just taking into account the number of people who use Google on a daily basis they would have seen him.  

Because of that and because I believe Pokemon is turning into the defacto game for kids under 13, thats why I think its still Pacman. And I thought the Poll essentailly proved that. I know its anecdotal,  but both my neices (10 and 8) have a Wii and a DS, neither of them have a Mario game, because all they want to play is Wii Sports and Pokemon. I just feel its a similar trend as the reason they play it is because their friends play it.  Which is the reason my generation played Mario, because our friends played it.    But we knew who Pacman was because he was a staple at every Arcade in the world and still is.  They still hold World Championships for Pac Man on a regular basis. 




danasider on 06 August 2013
RenCutypoison said:

Hum, I think older audience don't recognize mario, and for the theme song it's mostly because every 30 years old and less has played a mario game when they were childs.

A 60 years old will recognize pikachu because his grandsons have pikachu plush, to me.

But it's hardly quantifiable. But to me, as there are more pokemon goodies, still pikachu.

Even if you're probably right.

Yeah, I can see your reasoning about brand infiltration due to exposure through grandchildren.  I think the same can be said about Mario though, even if not at the same level this day and age.  Years before grandparents were buying Pokemon for their grandchildren, they were doing the same with Mario and continue doing so to this day.

My parents are 56 and 54.  Both know about Mario.  My mom knows about Pikachu, but my dad doesn't.  My grandmother is 85 and she knows about Mario but not pikachu.  Her first language isn't even English, she's hispanic and she knows Mario because she bought Super Mario 64 with N64 for my cousin (the favorite, haha) who played it at her house all the time.  My grandfather from Puerto Rico knows about Mario but not about Pikachu even though my cousins over there have played games with both characters.  This is just a personal example so it doesn't quantify anything, but it goes to show that your idea for Pikachu and Pokemon in general can apply to Mario as well.

And another way to think about it is Mario is over 30 years old (his image as jumpman anyway) and has had a longer time to become engrained in popular media.  He hasn't died off like other brands who blew up and then faded.  He is continually a leader in gaming in terms of sales, popularity and sheer amount of appearances.  Even if he doesn't have the same amount of merchandizing like Pokemon, he's still all over the place and has been for so long that gamer or not, you can't miss him.

I think the same thing applies to Pikachu, but at a slightly lower level.  Even though Pokemon is larger in terms of merchandizing (movies, card games, etc), they have less games come out per year (which means more grandmothers will likely buy or see a Mario game in a store over a Pokemon game) and they seem to be aimed at a smaller audience.  Yes, full grown adults still play the games since 1996, but full grown adults have and still play Mario games since the 80s.  The Pokemon tv show, the movies and the other stuff are pretty much all aimed at children...and a specific market at that, because not every kid likes anime or card games even if they enjoy the games.  The Pokemon games combined with the side stuff, however popular and successfull, doesn't seem to be as big business as Mario.  At least to me.



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MDMAlliance on 06 August 2013
Viper1 said:
According to a May 2008 poll by the Davie-Brown Index (DBI), Pac-Man is the best-known of all videogame characters, recognized by 94% of American consumers. Mario comes a close second with 93%,


http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/7000/most-recognizable-videogame-character


I'm willing to bet that since 5 years have passed that Mario has surpassed Pac-Man to top the list. Since 2008, Mario has been in more than a dozen games that have together sold well over 100 million units. Pac-Man has been in almost as many games but has sell barely 1 million units.


Also, as I mentioned earlier, there are many factors for this statistic.  Just now I checked up on DBI, and I'm not sure how well established they are considering how little you find when looking them up.  Either way, no matter how professional your polls or statistics are, there's always a margin of error.  Having a difference of 1% between Pacman and Mario is definitely enough to make it possible that Mario could have been the winner.  It isn't 100% determined, and more of a 50/50 either way when the percentage difference is so small.

Another thing is that guinness doesn't link anything about the poll, so we don't know their sample size or how they conducted the poll.  Another issue is that they used the word "American Consumers" which gives away both that they are only Americans and that "Consumers" constricts who exactly is counted.  Consumers could simply be those who follow DBI polls or people who play video games.  

Then there's the statistical biases that could be present.  Where did they do the polling?  Which medium did they use?  How did they word their questions?  Did they randomly select the people?  Did the people go to them?  Many questions, no answers.  The guy who was arguing with me earlier just doesn't want to admit that there are all these problems and thus, there is no clarity for Pac-man being the winner.  If anything, there's more proof that Mario is.



RenCutypoison on 06 August 2013
Multimedialover said:
Hold on:

I hate polls that have stupid choices. Like Snake. Reallllllyyyyy???????????????

MGS 1 = 6.03m
MGS2 = 6.05m
MGS3 = 4.23m
MGS4 = 5.79m

Sales of main series Snake games.

Contrary left out of OP is Masterchief. Who clearly deserves that list more than Snake.

Halo Reach = 9.44m
Halo 1 = 8.60m
Halo 2 = 8.49m
Halo 3 = 11.78m
Halo 4 = 8.41m


MasterChief is still too young 



RenCutypoison on 06 August 2013
danasider said:
RenCutypoison said:

Hum, I think older audience don't recognize mario, and for the theme song it's mostly because every 30 years old and less has played a mario game when they were childs.

A 60 years old will recognize pikachu because his grandsons have pikachu plush, to me.

But it's hardly quantifiable. But to me, as there are more pokemon goodies, still pikachu.

Even if you're probably right.

Yeah, I can see your reasoning about brand infiltration due to exposure through grandchildren.  I think the same can be said about Mario though, even if not at the same level this day and age.  Years before grandparents were buying Pokemon for their grandchildren, they were doing the same with Mario and continue doing so to this day.

My parents are 56 and 54.  Both know about Mario.  My mom knows about Pikachu, but my dad doesn't.  My grandmother is 85 and she knows about Mario but not pikachu.  Her first language isn't even English, she's hispanic and she knows Mario because she bought Super Mario 64 with N64 for my cousin (the favorite, haha) who played it at her house all the time.  My grandfather from Puerto Rico knows about Mario but not about Pikachu even though my cousins over there have played games with both characters.  This is just a personal example so it doesn't quantify anything, but it goes to show that your idea for Pikachu and Pokemon in general can apply to Mario as well.

And another way to think about it is Mario is over 30 years old (his image as jumpman anyway) and has had a longer time to become engrained in popular media.  He hasn't died off like other brands who blew up and then faded.  He is continually a leader in gaming in terms of sales, popularity and sheer amount of appearances.  Even if he doesn't have the same amount of merchandizing like Pokemon, he's still all over the place and has been for so long that gamer or not, you can't miss him.

I think the same thing applies to Pikachu, but at a slightly lower level.  Even though Pokemon is larger in terms of merchandizing (movies, card games, etc), they have less games come out per year (which means more grandmothers will likely buy or see a Mario game in a store over a Pokemon game) and they seem to be aimed at a smaller audience.  Yes, full grown adults still play the games since 1996, but full grown adults have and still play Mario games since the 80s.  The Pokemon tv show, the movies and the other stuff are pretty much all aimed at children...and a specific market at that, because not every kid likes anime or card games even if they enjoy the games.  The Pokemon games combined with the side stuff, however popular and successfull, doesn't seem to be as big business as Mario.  At least to me.


You're probably right. But we will have this conversation again in twenty years =p



Viper1 on 06 August 2013
MDMAlliance said:
Viper1 said:
According to a May 2008 poll by the Davie-Brown Index (DBI), Pac-Man is the best-known of all videogame characters, recognized by 94% of American consumers. Mario comes a close second with 93%,


http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/7000/most-recognizable-videogame-character


I'm willing to bet that since 5 years have passed that Mario has surpassed Pac-Man to top the list. Since 2008, Mario has been in more than a dozen games that have together sold well over 100 million units. Pac-Man has been in almost as many games but has sell barely 1 million units.


Also, as I mentioned earlier, there are many factors for this statistic.  Just now I checked up on DBI, and I'm not sure how well established they are considering how little you find when looking them up.  Either way, no matter how professional your polls or statistics are, there's always a margin of error.  Having a difference of 1% between Pacman and Mario is definitely enough to make it possible that Mario could have been the winner.  It isn't 100% determined, and more of a 50/50 either way when the percentage difference is so small.

Another thing is that guinness doesn't link anything about the poll, so we don't know their sample size or how they conducted the poll.  Another issue is that they used the word "American Consumers" which gives away both that they are only Americans and that "Consumers" constricts who exactly is counted.  Consumers could simply be those who follow DBI polls or people who play video games.  

Then there's the statistical biases that could be present.  Where did they do the polling?  Which medium did they use?  How did they word their questions?  Did they randomly select the people?  Did the people go to them?  Many questions, no answers.  The guy who was arguing with me earlier just doesn't want to admit that there are all these problems and thus, there is no clarity for Pac-man being the winner.  If anything, there's more proof that Mario is.

No doubt all that must be taken into consideration but as we don't know have the data itself nor can we do our own unbiased poll with a large, global sample size, we have to use what is available.  But as noted by you with the MOE and with my own addendum in my post, Mario has with almost little doubt supplanted Pac-Man at this point.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

danasider on 06 August 2013
Viper1 said:
According to a May 2008 poll by the Davie-Brown Index (DBI), Pac-Man is the best-known of all videogame characters, recognized by 94% of American consumers. Mario comes a close second with 93%,


http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/7000/most-recognizable-videogame-character


I'm willing to bet that since 5 years have passed that Mario has surpassed Pac-Man to top the list. Since 2008, Mario has been in more than a dozen games that have together sold well over 100 million units. Pac-Man has been in almost as many games but has sell barely 1 million units.


Hmm, good source in terms of relevance to the topic, but how does something become a world record according to a poll that was conducted in one country?  This link makes it seem like Pac-Man is the word's most recognizable video game character because it doesn't state "USA's most recognizable video game character."  Maybe the book cites other polls, but the website shows no signs of it.

I'd agree with your assumption about Mario surpassing Pac-Man, but I wonder if even back in 2008 Mario would be proven more popular had the poll been conducted in more than one country.