Flappy Bird Tops 2014 Google Gaming Searches, Top 10 List Revealed

Google on Tuesday published its annual Year In Review post, highlighting key trends for the year, and it showed that the mobile sensation Flappy Bird was by far the most searched games term.

The search giant writes that at its peak in February, when the game rose to prominence only to be removed days later (it has since returned), Flappy Bird's search trend was more than double that of Destiny.

Bungie's latest shooter may have had the biggest budget of games released in 2014, but it was outperformed in terms of Google search trends by Flappy Bird and another small-scale title, known as 2048.

To put Flappy Bird's enormous popularity into context, Google's global search trend results show that Flappy Bird was number six overall search for 2014. It even outpaced ISIS, Frozen, and the Soichi Olympics. Robin Williams was the top overall search trend of 2014.

Google's Year In Review study also found that retro-themed games made a comeback in 2014, with games such as Shovel Knight and FTL: Faster Than Light showing strong search trends.

On a global scale, Google's top trending games of 2014 were:

1. Flappy Bird
2. 2048
3. FIFA 15
4. Destiny
5. Titanfall

In the United States, Google expanded its list to ten titles. These are:

1. Destiny
2. Titanfall
3. Watch Dogs
4. ArcheAge
5. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
6. Madden NFL 15
7. Mario Kart 8
8. Dragon Age: Inquisition
9. Battlefield Hardline
10. League of Angels

Video games also show up in the Google report today as part of the Consumer Electronics search category. Microsoft's Xbox One came in at number seven, while neither Sony's PlayStation 4 nor Nintendo's Wii U charted in the top ten. Check out Google's full Year In Review study here.