As ivolt brought out, different characters can represent different consoles. If you see something from Halo, you're not going to think of the Wii, you're going to think of the XBOX or the 360. If you see Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy, boom, you're thinking of one of the Playstation consoles. Mario or Link bring Nintendo to mind, and so on. There's not one definitive character icon for video games.

Unless you are a conservative parent: Satan. >:]

To todays 'gamers' either link or gordon. But to all 'gamers' (oldies) pacman or mario..
(I vote mario [more in depth gameplay, etc]).

Mario is the most iconic videogame character evermade.

And his 100391834845234234234.48 Games :>

Were not talking about separate consoles, we are talking for all video games ever.
Like everyone has heard of mario or pacman.

not really, i was discussing this with a group of people 4 years younger than me on Steam and they dont even know who mario is, even with super mario galaxy and all that shit

The obvious answer is Gordon Freeman.

Mario. I remember Mario on one of those big grey brick gameboys. Good times.

What, no GLaDOS?
D:

With a question like this you gotta think about who is the most well known.

In that regard Mario and Pac-Man would be the big ones. Outside the gaming community, many people may not even know who Master Chief or Kratos are, though virtually everyone knows who Pac-Man and Mario are, both young and old. In my opinion that makes them the faces of videogames, and therefore the most iconic