Lara Croft voted most iconic character ever

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Being an excellent game, I disagree:

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-68721939

The complete list:

https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/pres ... ll-results

[HEXdidnt]

Was discussing this yesterday with other members of my local computer club. That list is insanely wrong.

Lara Croft is certainly deserving of a place on a list of iconic videogame characters, but how is she above Pac-Man, Mario, and Sonic? How are Donkey Kong and Miner Willy not on the list at all? Why are deliberately generic characters like Agent 47, Master Chief and frickin' Steve from Minecraft even on the list?

I'd even put Dirk the Daring on a list of iconic characters because Dragon's Lair was such a huge milestone in arcade gaming.

It's not a list of iconic characters, it's a list of characters millennials and GenZ-ers with short attention spans can actually remember.

Fan Favourite ≠ Iconic... especially the two 'Fan Favourite' characters from a game that only came out last year. Nor does prevalence of Rule 34 material of a character make them iconic.

[PeteProdge]

Well, at least we have #2 and #6 who have appeared officially on the ZX Spectrum.

[akeley]

Was discussing this yesterday with other members of my local computer club. That list is insanely wrong.

Lara Croft is certainly deserving of a place on a list of iconic videogame characters, but how is she above Pac-Man, Mario, and Sonic? How are Donkey Kong and Miner Willy not on the list at all? Why are deliberately generic characters like Agent 47, Master Chief and frickin' Steve from Minecraft even on the list?

I'd even put Dirk the Daring on a list of iconic characters because Dragon's Lair was such a huge milestone in arcade gaming.

It's not a list of iconic characters, it's a list of characters millennials and GenZ-ers with short attention spans can actually remember.

Fan Favourite ≠ Iconic... especially the two 'Fan Favourite' characters from a game that only came out last year. Nor does prevalence of Rule 34 material of a character make them iconic.

I agree that this list has no right to use the word "ever", with this kind of methodology, which is asking some terminally online youngsters. Hence Lara's, ahem, "girl power" has outweighted (pun intended) Mario/Link/ et al. And the inclusion of BG3 characters is indeed a farce since they've been around ~5 minutes.

I don't agree about Master Chief/Hitman though - like them not, they are indeed iconic, at least the former definitely could be squeezed in the Top 10, the latter maybe in top 50.

As for Miner Willy, well, the reality is I'm not sure he's really that well known outside our little pond. Though definitely could be fit in Top 100 if written by some proper opinion makers.

[XTM]

How are Donkey Kong and Miner Willy not on the list at all?

That article said the poll was engaged with by over 4,000 players from all over the world. Well, Miner Willy certainly wasn't known all over the world and especially isn't to an audience most likely spanning multiple generations where you have to expect a lot of people younger than us old geezers. It would be interesting to know what age range these 4,000 players were in.

Also, this paragraph below is quite telling. It makes it sound like anything from before the last two decades doesn't seem to be that relevant - probably because most of the peeps who took part in the poll were still in their diapers

The games and franchises which created the top 20 most popular characters have collected 44 Bafta Games Awards between them over the past two decades, according to the Academy.

Finally, it's noteworthy how this list is skewed heavily towards characters that originated on video game consoles rather than home computers/PCs.

If it's any "consolation", that bloody egg surely never had a chance to begin with to appear on the list.

[SteveSmith]

I think, like a lot of these "what were the best", a lot of it is cognitive bias. If you played a particular game or read a particular mag or hang around particular websites, it's very easy to assume everyone else in the world thinks the same thing. Having literally only played 4 of the games in the list, I personally have never heard of half of them, so when I see phrases like "Shadowheart charmed her way into the hearts of players worldwide", I think "Did she? On what metric?" And 4,000 is a very low base.

[Ralf]

I'll tell you something - when it comes to computer games, we all live in bubbles.

If you are a Spectrum fan then you may believe that Miner Willy or Sabreman is an incredibly important, iconic character that everyone must know.
It's not true. If you grew in USA or Japan, you would probably never hear of them. And if you are under 40 or so then you probably never heard about them as well

The same thing is about consoles. For some people a character appearing in a 1997 game on Playstation may seem very important while other guys, like me, have never played any single game on Playstation.

So these lists shouldn't be taken very seriously. It's a matter of whom you ask and it you ask some random people then you are going to get some random results.

[Sol_HSA]

Was discussing this yesterday with other members of my local computer club. That list is insanely wrong.

Whenever escapist magazine (uh, dozen reorgs ago) had "best xyz" threads on their forums it was difficult to find *anything* that's over 5 years old being nominated. Most stuff was under one year old.

Edit:
why is sackboy on the list?
More to the point, WHY IS SHADOWHEART ON THE LIST? Re-do the poll two years from now and nobody will know who that is.

[uglifruit]

Weird list. I'm also not sure Miner Willy would make the top twenty...

But Donkey Kong and the Space Invader baddy? Or don't they count as "characters".

Bowser, Luigi and the Ghosts from Pac Mac seem FAR more iconic than a lot of the game characters listed.

Where are Ken and Ryu? Chun Li, Cammy? Shell, or - more iconically - Glados from Portal? Guybrush Threepwood? Kirby? Samus (Metroid)? Toejam? Earl? Megaman? BioShock's Big Daddy? Dr Robotnik? Knuckles? Yoshi? Minecraft's Creeper (rather than Steve)? The Angry Bird? The flappy bird? The Among Us character (s)? Bomberman?

And Red Dead 2's protagonist, over any the GTA antiheroes, or even Red Dead 1's John? Odd.

[Lee Bee]

What are BAFTA smoking? Do they even know what the word "iconic" means?

"Iconic" characters are those which have entered the public conscience and have become synonymous with videgames. Those who can be recognised and named by members of the broader public across all generations, all over the world.

Yet here I am, a life-long videogames fan, owner of PC and multiple consoles, and I've only heard of 8 of the 20 names on this list! Even the number 3 entry (Hitman) is unfamiliar to me.

You'd expect the list to come mainly from the 20th century because the longer a character has been around, the more well-established and widely-recognised it can be. I don't think it's possible for a character less than 20 years old to be "iconic", since half the population will not have heard of them.

My list (top of my head) would likely include … Mario, Luigi, Wario, Pac-Man and the ghosts, Sonic, Tails and Pikachu.

Maybe Frogger, a Space Invader or Dog from Duck Hunt? Possibly Link, Samus, Megaman, or Kirby. Street Fighter characters such as Chun-Li or Final Fantasy characters such as Cloud Strife. Maybe even Mortal Kombat characters?

I wouldn't have been at all surprised if Snake from Metal Gear Solid was on the list, or even Guybrush Threepwood from Monkey Island. I could even accept Microsoft Office's Clippit somehow being on the list because of his infamy!

And—yes—I can absolutely accept Lara Croft being high up on the list. (She could even be listed twice for her two major contributions to the gaming world?) But the idea of Mario not being hands-down the top of the list is absurd, possibly a political move by the snobbish MSM (resentful of last year's agenda-bucking movie)?

I strongly disagree that Spectrum characters should be on the list. As much as we love the machine, the world at large has never heard of the "Zee Ex Spectrum".

I also disagree with the idea that any list is "subjective" and personal. No. You absolutely can compile a list of the most globally iconic videogame characters. And it does not look like this!

[Joefish]

I kind of agree with a lot of that list, from a gaming point of view. Apart from the BG3 crap. And maybe Hitman is a bit fanboy. Then again, why post about this result now; did I miss a post about the poll when it happened?

It's one thing to say it's slanted towards more recent games, and a younger demographic, but then so is the number of people playing them. There are far more people actually playing these modern games than there ever were in the 80s.

But none of those other characters have had the same coverage outside gaming the way Lara Croft has; I'm pretty sure Mario or Sonic haven't appeared behind U2 on tour, or on the cover of THE FACE. https://press.uk.square-enix.com/Guinne ... Covers-For

Although Mario is hugely recognised worldwide too, in or outside gaming. Then again, so is Pac-Man. And a generic pixellated Space Invaders alien is often literally the icon for videogames. So I'd also agree that the results of this - at least from third place and down - would have been very different were it a wider public poll rather than something that has clearly been skewed by gamers.

[Lee Bee]

But none of those other characters have had the same coverage outside gaming the way Lara Croft has; I'm pretty sure Mario or Sonic haven't appeared behind U2 on tour, or on the cover of THE FACE. https://press.uk.square-enix.com/Guinne ... Covers-For

Lara was, no doubt, a sensation when she first appeared on the scene, with the U2 tour and numerous magazine covers. But that was all circa 1997 and mostly in the West. Has she had such enduring global popularity as Mario? I'd say not. I don't think the name "Lara Croft" carries anywhere near as much recognition and relevance as "Mario" these days and personally it's a name I associate with the 90s.

Unlike Mario, Lara doesn't have a consistent brand image. She looks totally different in the modern games to how she did in the 90s. I don't even know what kind of people would be "Lara Croft" fans these days, since she's lost the sex appeal which drew in the "student" crowd.

They do release new Tomb Raider games ever few years, but it always feels more like an attempt to revive a once-popular franchise, riding off the brand recognition. Meanwhile, the Mario franchise has a legitimate, ongoing legacy of outstanding and highly successful games loved all around the world by gamers young and old.

They've made a couple of (failed) Tomb Raider movies, as recently as 2018, but these live-action films are really just based on a videogame, serving to further dilute all consistency of whom the character actually is and what she looks like.

Meanwhile, the unmistakable videogame cartoon image of Mario continues to be ubiquitous all around the world, appealing to new generations of young people.

[Timmy]

I guess that a lot of them do belong in the list, but at some point the list become very meh.

I don't think games from the last 5 years should be in the list though, that's just not long enough to be iconic.

I can imagine Lara deserve the top spot on the list, but there were other contenders that were just as equal.

Probably because:

- Nintendo and its characters has lost a lot of shine since the last few few years.
- The real big icons like pacman, space invader, tetris block, people already not associating them as pure gaming icon any more, as they are even more mainstream, while Lara never got past being a gaming only icon.
- As for stuff like Miner Willy or Horace, well, AFTA being an organisation promoting only world wide important icons means that they aren't here. If Lara was still only British she probably won't get a mention either.

I'm just surprised it was asked on worldwide audiences. Also surprised I wasn't asked while having played over 10K of video games.
Perhaps these AFTA organisations were just not very good.

[akeley]

- Nintendo and its characters has lost a lot of shine since the last few few years.

I wouldn't say that. Switch is on its way to be the best selling console of all time and Nintendo's main games are still bestsellers, with the likes of Breath of The Wild getting 10/10s all round to boot.

[Mpk]

I guess people just don't know about Seraphima.

[Daveysloan]

I'd say the most iconic videogame character isn't even one you actually control, in my mind it's this fella...



If people wanted one image as a shorthand for videogames, I reckon that's the one that could be used & instantly recognised, even among the youth of today.

[Vampyre]

I wouldn't say that. Switch is on its way to be the best selling console of all time and Nintendo's main games are still bestsellers, with the likes of Breath of The Wild getting 10/10s all round to boot.

I thought that was a bit of an odd thing to say too. I don't think it will catch up to the PS2 sales (160m) currently standing at around 140m but I wouldn't be shocked if it did. And Switch has literally played host to three of the greatest games of all time in Mario Odyssey, BoTW and ToTK. If anything Nintendo's shine has risen considerably since the release of the Switch, after the debacle of the Wii-U.

[Lee Bee]

If people wanted one image as a shorthand for videogames, I reckon that's the one that could be used & instantly recognised

The true winners of "most iconic videogame sprite" are Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man:



Look carefully and you'll even spot the couple hiding right there in "winner" photo:

[Timmy]

I wouldn't say that. Switch is on its way to be the best selling console of all time and Nintendo's main games are still bestsellers, with the likes of Breath of The Wild getting 10/10s all round to boot.

If's fine if you wouldn't say it. Then again you probably couldn't remember how gigantic the Nintendo franchises were years ago. For example, pikachu isn't the main character of the anime any more. Mario and Link were seriously huge before the switch.

I'm not saying that Nintendo isn't still great, it's just not as gigantic as it was before.

You do seem to fit the demographics of the people who were asked, as there were many character on this list from the last 5 years.

[clebin]

Pi-man cruelly overlooked, again.

[Mpk]

[quote=Timmy post_id=140415 time=1712324046you probably couldn't remember how gigantic the Nintendo franchises were years ago.
[/quote]

The Mario movie grossed $1.36 Billion last year, second only to Barbie. They're as big as ever they were.

The target audience for Nintendo is, like, 10-year-olds. It isn't so visible if you're not actively being promoted to.

[Lee Bee]

I'm not saying that Nintendo isn't still great, it's just not as gigantic as it was before.

After the highs of the 2000s, Nintendo did have a bit of a quiet spell in the early 2010s with the unsuccessful Wii U, however, that seems like a long time ago now. Over the past 8 years they've gone from strength to strength. The Switch, and the marketing behind it, have basically conquered the world. I'd say Ninty are at the top of their game and have never had such market penetration.

[akeley]

Then again you probably couldn't remember how gigantic the Nintendo franchises were years ago. [...]

You do seem to fit the demographics of the people who were asked, as there were many character on this list from the last 5 years.

These are some amusing assumptions. Do you really think there are many people under 40 on this forum?

[sn3j]

[HEXdidnt]

I'm a little nonplussed by folks who don't think Miner Willy should be on a BAFTA list of iconic videogame characters...

It's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, after all.

Granted, most videogames are coming out of development sweatshops in the US or Japan these days, but that doesn't make Miner Willy/Manic Miner any less iconic in an 'of all time' sense. If Lara Croft - a more recent British character in a UK-made game, who had a massive marketing budget behind her - gets to be on the list, there's a place for our humble spelunker.