'Mario Kart 8 Deluxe' beat YouPorn in the race for traffic

People were so busy playing they forgot to look at porn.
 By 
Cassie Murdoch
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

When a new Switch game comes out, you’ve gotta drop everything and play it -- and apparently that even means dropping your porn habit.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was released for the Switch on April 28th, and in the days following its appearance, YouPorn saw a significant drop in traffic among users they identified as gamers. But don’t worry -- folks eventually made their way back to seeking out a more adult form of entertainment and when they did their searches were… interesting.

According to YouPorn, as the game’s worldwide release began on Thursday they saw a 41 percent dip among traffic from users identified as gamers. By Friday, when the game was out everywhere, gamer traffic was down by a whopping 52 percent. By the end of the weekend, it was only down 30 percent.

This is substantially higher than the decline seen in early March when the Switch itself debuted, alongside Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Traffic from gamers was only down 17 percent at its lowest point that weekend. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch is already the fastest selling of all the Mario Karts, so perhaps it’s not surprising that so many people were so absorbed.

Interestingly, when they did finally return to seeking out porn, they still had Mario on the brain. Nintendo-related searches surged 47 percent following the game’s release. Men were 213 percent more likely to look for it than women, and it was also most popular among people in the 18-24 year old range.

So what exactly were people looking for? Nothing too mindblowingly creative, really. "Rosalina nude pics" was high on the list, as were "Princess Peach Cartoon," "Princess Peach & Daisy," and "Bowser & Peach." Of course, "Mario & Luigi" are in the mix and the classic "Zelda Cosplay."

It's truly the best of both worlds. After all, why pick between porn and Mario Kart when you can have them both?

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Cassie Murdoch

Cassie Murdoch is Mashable's Culture Editor.. Before coming here, Cassie was Senior Culture Writer at Vocativ. She previously wrote for Jezebel and The Hairpin. Cassie spends most of her time thinking about and consuming cheese in all its glorious forms.

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