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.

@c0rd
i think HL make what CS and TF are today... not the other way around... but you are free to think other wise...

Hm, now that I notice, the Nameless One was beaten in the first round by Ryu Hayabusa.

Oh dear.

Wow I see much love for Gordon here. I for one bought HL1 for CS, but HL2 for HL and CS. I can see how he is popular. However I hardly see how he can compare to Mario... As someone said, Mario is hero 101, he saves the princess, can't do more heroic than this... unless you take link, saving the princess too, but with a sword and shield (and later a horse to make it more epic).

I can't really see Gordon comparing to these two as a hero... saves the galaxy? sure, but so do the others, Link travels between parallel worlds and time, mario goes into space (and in his RPGs he goes in time and in parallel worlds too). That's only a generational evolution, Gordon would never have even been thought of when Mario and Link started off.
Against snake? yeah they are in the same field, i'd say snake is more charismatic, but gordon's feats are more remarkable.
I really think people mistake "greatest hero" with "most cool hero", cause in that case you should always choose James Bond!


Popularity wise however, there is only one real contest.... who can sell anything to the most people? well only one of these can sell multiple sports franchises, board games..... Mario.
Heck I read once that he was more recognizable than mickey mouse... beat that!

Yeah, it's all just a popularity contest. The Nameless One shoud've gone close to the top.

I think in this case it's more who people vote against than who people vote for. And I'm not saying GF isn't a great character, I love valve games, but I'm sure a lot of people voted against Solid Snake, Link or Mario, and GF just benefited of it.

well think of it this way

Snake vs Gordan freeman. In reality thats is like

Sony fanboys vs Ninty, M$ and PC fanboys.

Mario vs Gordan

Ninty vs Sony, M$, PC

Zelda same as the mario situation

No way!

CoD4 has become massively popular, and I'd say it's because they tapped into the Counter-Strike demand. It's essentially the new Counter-Strike, which has far more appeal than HL does (compare Half-Life 2 sales with Modern Warfare 1 or 2).

Of course, while it was the Half-Life engine / popularity that intially made CS possible, there's no doubt Half-Life got tons of sales from Counter-Strike.

It's hard to tell if its sales are counted separately or not, but if it isn't, then CS alone sold at least 45% of all "Half-Life" copies. If not, it's harder to tell. I say at least, because we can't tell how many (normal) Half-Life copies were bought for CS. Personally, I bought two Blue Shift's for my Steam keys, because it was damn cheap, and it works for CS!

People are tired of the obvious. That's why Link didnt make it, and as for teh poll in general..."ridiculous" is pretty much the only word that sums it up.

Hah valve had a Steam Update telling people to vote for Gordon in the Link round.  No surprise Gordon is killing.

I saw the same thing in a contetst for a figurine thing for comics.

Invincible was getting crushed but then they put something out to get their fans to vote even if they'd never heard of the game and Invincible won.

The littlest bit of effort by companies will get a win... and that's EXACTLY playing into the poll makers hands since it gets more people.