As part of its year in review, Tumblr's creators put together an extensive list of the top posts and blogs in a variety of categories, from dating, bands and viral hits to feminism, sports and video games. Rounding out the top spot in the gaming category is Pokémon, followed by The Legend of Zelda and Animal Crossing.
According to the site, results are decided by analyzing "millions of blogs, billions of posts and zillions of notes according to a number of factors — total volume of posts and tags (original and reblogged), web traffic, follower growth over time, and more." The list includes some surprising results, such as indie horror hit Five Nights at Freddy's, mobile game Flappy Bird and handheld murder mystery series Danganronpa. Big franchises and games include Dragon Age, Mass Effect, League of Legends, The Last of Us and Mario Kart.
Anime and manga are sorted into another category. When it came to how franchises that include a TV or anime show were counted, different factors were taken into account, a Tumblr spokesperson told Polygon via email. The Walking Dead, for example, specifically included the word "game," while variations on the word Pokémon were counted.
"We rolled up the two games that came out this year, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, into the Pokémon tag since they are basically the same game with a different monster at the end," the spokesperson said. "The tag doesn't have any of the old games rolled into it, just variations on the word Pokémon."
Persona 4 dominated conversations over Persona 3 and Persona 5, which were given their own individual tallies, and thus was listed as a breakout. But for a series like Danganronpa, the spokesperson continued, there is no way to separate the game from the anime because of shared names.
"Super Danganronpa 2 is both the name of an iOS game and seven different manga titles, but since the convo/content was mostly about the game, we bucketed it there," the spokesperson said.
Inquiries about exact numbers for each category were not answered. You can view the full list, as well as Tumblr's other top items of the year, on the site's 2014 Year in Review section.