BAFTA Poll Declares Lara Croft The Most Iconic Video Game Character

She's my favorite on that list, but Mario is surely more iconic than Lara Croft worldwide.

I think Pikachu is the most known video game character, but that lil shockmouse is more associated with Pokemon multimedia than with actual gaming.
I would guess that more people globally are familiar with Pac Man and Mario than Lara. And i think one of the one of the criteria for icon status should be a certain amount of visibility outside of your immediate sphere.
I would not have picked Lara. Mrs. Pac Man would have been a better choice even.
(Note- i might of gone too far on that last sentence)

I'd put her in a solid third place behind Mario and Sonic.

I think it's telling how young the focus group was that they polled. No modern characters should be on that list (looking at Baulders Gate 3). Any character on this list should be at least a decade old and been in more than one game (looking at Arthur Morgan).

The list would be vastly different if they polled a swath of ages.

As far as iconic goes I would imagine most people voting were around in the 90 because even after the most recent three games from the past decade I don't think she was ever seen in that light. I would also say Pikachu is way to low on the list because the moment most people think of Pokemon he is the first one that comes to mind. Mario and Sonic probably 1 and 2 and possibly Master Chief after that. If we are talking British created gaming icons the sure she is number 1.

@Uncharted2007 well I would imagine as far as age goes the fact that Lara Croft was voted so highly is that many that voted for her were probably around at the peak of Tomb Raiders popularity since I wouldn't say despite the newer games being good her being seen as an iconic character wasn't the same as in the late 90s.

It's Mario. We all know it, even if, for whatever reason(s), we won't allow ourselves to just come out and say/admit it and be honest about it.

Bigger than Mario and Sonic??? Strange times indeed.

Let's face it, most of that list is absolute nonsense and I'd say its very difficult not to put Mario top, regardless of what platform you normally play.

Personally and not necessarily in order, some of the most iconic game characters would be

Mario
Sonic
Pac-Man
Donkey Kong
Sub-Zero
Chun Li
Ryu
Lara Croft
Crash Bandicoot
Link
Luigi
Master Chief
Doom Guy
Nathan Drake
Megaman
Leon S Kennedy
Cloud
Pikachu

yeah i'd say three quarters of BAFTA's list, including the winner, aren't household names, which you'd think would be the bare minimum in calling a character iconic let alone most iconic. pokemon is the highest grossing multimedia franchise of all time so i feel like that title has to go to pikachu by default, although mario and pacman are also synonymous with gaming. steve minecraft will probably join that pantheon if he isn't there already. sonic, link, master chief, and maybe cloud and snake could make the cutoff, but for the rest of the list i doubt most people would even be familiar with if you did a random poll on the streets.

or maybe i'm wrong and we're all just old and out of touch!

Mario, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and Sonic all should come before Lara Croft.

She might be in the running for most well known disproportionate female character, but Barbie is a strong competitor as is a lot of Japanese game characters.

Baldur's Gate 3 may be a brilliant game, but the notion that it has not one but TWO characters deemed more "iconic" than pretty much any major character from the Super Mario franchise is preposterous.

I'd argue that any run-of-the-mill Goomba is more globally recognizable than Astarion.

I, for one, could not tell "Shadowheart" apart from a random fantasy character. I do know what Lara Croft looks like.

lol no. Mario, Pac-man, Pikachu, Sonic, Donkey Kong, and then the rest of the top 10 will be Mario related characters. The polling population is definitely skewing things here.

I believe they may have only polled BAFTA member and you have to pay to be a member £150 a year......

I mean she's iconic, but if you think she's more iconic than Mario I'd think you're nuts.

@Dramlin There is a good reason why I never really care about these gaming poll ranking results on gaming sites and services. They always seem to be massively skewed by whoever their main audience happens to be, which is often dominated by a collective niche that doesn't really represent the majority of consumers.

Never heard of Bafta but that's objectively not the case

Agree with Lara - she was absolutely everywhere, and hasn't really let up with games or movies. But she could easily be interchangeable with Mario, Sonic or Pikachu. The rest of the list though? There's some bizarre choices in there. Sackboy???

What about the bat in Pong?

She's the most iconic video game character with boobs, sure. But overall? No. As others have said, Mario, Sonic, Pikachu, Link, maybe even Cloud Strife would out-rank her.

I'll take she'd make the top 10, but the most popular? Nah.

Mario, Sonic, Pac-Man, Pikachu and I'd even say Steve (what a generic name) would outrank Lara Croft.

British organisation selects a British character designed by a British studio as the most iconic? Seems legit.

For females? Sure why not. But everyone and their grandmother knows Mario will always be number one by leaps and bounds.

I remember hearing some junk that Mario is even more known than Jesus Christ... no idea how true that saying was.