Now that the summer is firmly upon us and the mercury is ebbing upwards, there’s no better way for many Arizonans to bide their time then by throwing on one of their favorite video games.
In the Grand Canyon State, age-old games like Minecraft, Pokémon and LEGO, as well as newer gaming series like Grand Theft Auto are among the favorites based on Google searches.
BetArizona.com took a break from covering Arizona sports betting issues and utilized Google Trends to determine the most searched video game franchises by each state using Statista’s data on the Top 10 most sold video game franchises in 2022. After completing the trends over the past 12 months (from June 27, 2022, to June 27, 2023), we were able to determine the top 5 video game franchises in Arizona.
Arizona’s Favorite Video Games
Minecraft Tops List of Favorite Video Games
The video game that scored the highest, search interest wise, was Minecraft, which finished with an overall score of 49 in Arizona — beating out Pokémon (40) and LEGO (27) statewide.
The Japanese cartoon game finished as the runner-up among Arizonans, while LEGO beat out Grand Theft Auto (21) and Super Mario (17) for the No. 3 spot. The interest of video games in the state rivals that of Arizona sports betting apps.
Other video games that scored just outside the top 5 were Tetris, Call of Duty, FIFA and Final Fantasy — illustrating how wide a range in video game genres residents prefer.
Still, no video game had the statewide appeal of the block-based product of Mojang Studios.
Of the top 5 games, Super Mario has the longest shelf life, with Nintendo releasing the original version in 1985, though there have been many iterations over the years.
Minecraft dates back to 2011, while LEGO has released dozens of computer and video games since the company’s debut (Lego Fun to Build) on the Sega Pico console in 1995.
Grand Theft Auto has been around since Rockstar Games introduced the first version in 1997, with six spinoff games released between 1999 and 2013, and another in development.
Author
Christopher Boan is the lead writer at BetArizona.com after covering sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
