With summer vacation in full swing and the mercury showing no signs of relenting anytime soon, many Carolinians are sure to choose their favorite video game as a way to beat the heat indoors this summer as they count down to the online and mobile launch of NC sports betting.
In the Tar Heel State, video games like Minecraft, Pokémon and Grand Theft Auto are the go-to favorites of gamers of all ages, with the greatest search interest of any console or computer concept.
BetCarolina.com, your home for North Carolina sports betting promos and sportsbook reviews, utilized Google Trends to determine the most searched video game franchises by each state in the U.S. by utilizing 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 27th, 2022, to June 27th, 2023), we were able to find results to get the top 5 video game franchises in North Carolina.
Other games in data: Tetris, Super Mario, FIFA and Final Fantasy
It seems that residents of North Carolina can’t get enough of Mojang Studios’ 2011 block-based game, with Minecraft scoring the top search interest statewide, at 53.
The rest of the top five featured the Japanese mainstay Pokémon, which had a search interest score of 43, followed by Rockstar Game’s Grand Theft Auto franchise (22 search interest), Super Mario (17 search interest) and Call of Duty (14 search interest).
It seems that animated video games beat out their simulation style competitors in North Carolina, with three of the state’s top five games being the former style (in Minecraft, Pokémon and Super Mario) versus the latter (Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty).
Of the top five games in North Carolina, Super Mario has the longest shelf life, with Nintendo releasing the original version of the game in 1985, though there have been many iterations of it over the years.
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 that’ll be released at some point in the future. Call of Duty dates back to 2003, with iterations released each year since, with the exception of 2004.
Still, none of those games hold the type of sway that Minecraft does in North Carolina, with the block-based game holding down the No. 1 spot in the Tar Heel State, according to Google Trends data.
Author
Christopher Boan is a lead writer at BetCarolina.com specializing in covering state issues. He has covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
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