The most famous and instantly recognizable video game character of all time is Mario. That's not really up for debate. In fact, if you were to list the biggest ten, Nintendo would probably own most of them. What about non-Nintendo video game icons, though? People have been debating who should top the bill, and some of the answers and explanations they've been giving, as well as some massive omissions, might surprise you.
Phediuk got the discussion going on ResetEra by creating a poll and reeling off a few big options. Sonic, Pac-Man, Lara Croft, and Master Chief are all listed. At the time of typing this, Sonic has a healthy lead over second-placed Pac-Man. More evidence that the character who started life as a dot-eating disc still has a big following decades later after a Pac-Man World remake was announced this week.
It might surprise some of you reading this that in a clear third position behind those two video game behemoths is Minecraft Steve. The arguments as to why Steve deserves to rank so high, and should potentially be even higher, actually make a lot of sense. Kids today are far more likely to be playing Minecraft (the best-selling game of all time, by the way) than Sonic or Pac-Man. There's a reason the latest Sonic game was a collection of titles that launched 30 years ago.
What feels a little bizarre when it comes to this poll and the discussion born from it is those aforementioned omissions. Yes, the poll will have had a limited number of answers, but when “The red Angry Bird” has a spot and icons such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon do not, it makes the whole thing seem a little off. Not to mention Solid Snake, Kratos, Cloud, Doomguy, Street Fighter's Ryu, and even some of Sonic's sidekicks like Tails and Knuckles.
There's not even many mentions of huge video game characters in the replies to the poll, some of which arguably deserved to be listed ahead of the likes of Master Chief and Lara Croft, let alone the red Angry Bird. Nevertheless, the discussion is an interesting one. One that may well indicate a gradual changing of the guard in terms of gaming's biggest mascots. Perhaps by the end of the decade, so many people will have grown up on Minecraft that Pac-Man will have been largely forgotten.