League of Legends is thriving; here are the numbers to prove it [UPDATED]

Janna_Splash_1

Just in case you didn't know by now: League of Legends is a great game. In two short years, LoL's grown to be the leader of the free-to-play pack, and we can't get enough of it. But we've often wondered: just how MANY people like LoL as much as we do? It turns out that quite a few do. In fact, far more than a few. As LoL's first season is wrapped up, Riot released it's official batch of user statistics for their popular MOBA. Let's see how LoL stacks up against the competition, shall we?

  • Every day, over 1.4 million players log on to play League of Legends

  • There are over 15 million registered accounts

  • Between NA and EU servers, peak concurrency has reached 500,000 players

  • Players spend an aggregate total of 3.7 million hours in-game every day

  • The official League of Legends site gets 6 million hits a day

  • League of Legends YouTube videos have nearly 100 million views

  • Over 1,690,000 viewers tuned into the online broadcast of the League of Legends Season One Championship, with concurrent viewership peaking at over 210,000

Now, I don't know about you, but where I come from, 1.4 million is a lot of people. With the game already prospering in North America and Europe (despite its server issues), and with Riot's plans to release LoL in Asia, the playerbase can only grow from here. Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck chalks the game's success to the ever-enthusiastic community. "We're most proud of the numbers that show just how many players are truly engrossed in the League of Legends experience," says Beck. "[The community's] loving League of Legends even when they're not playing it—hundreds of thousands of people tuned in for our Season One Qualifiers, for instance. We're very grateful to the League of Legends fans that have made us one of the most popular PC games today."

But what do these numbers really mean? A lot of companies hold their stats close, so it's tough to get any reliable numbers, but Heroes of Newerth confirmed with us this morning that their peak concurrency is near 50,000 players. EVE's peak concurrenct users hit 60,000 a little over a year ago, and back in January, World of Tanks celebrated breaking the peak concurrent user record on a single server with almost 75,000 users online blowing each other up in tanks. [UPDATE: Our previous comparison with TF2 and HoN used inconsistent types of statistics. The current stat comparisons should be more accurate.]

My fellow LoL players, let's celebrate our favorite MOBA's success with a hearty round of Ranked, Normal, and/or Custom games—whatever floats your boat, just as long as you're having a good time (don't forget to check out Wukong!). And if you still haven't dipped into the League of Legends pool, there's no better time than the present to give it a shot. Be sure to join the "PC Gamer" channel when you log in—you never know when we'll be playing next.

Latest in MOBA
League of Legends promo image - huge dude in a huge suit of armor holding a huge axe
Riot walks back unpopular League of Legends changes: Hextech Chests are coming back, and the Blue Essence cost for new champions will be cut in half
A triptych of views from Deadlock's improved map, showing a suspension bridge backlit by a setting sun, a triumphal arch with buildings in the background, and a leafy park overlooked by distant skyscrapers.
Deadlock gets a massive map overhaul that shrinks its map from four lanes to three: 'This has a large range of accompanying map-wide changes'
Three monsters holding clubs in Dota 2.
As a lapsed 4,500 hour veteran of Dota 2, the big new Wandering Waters update has lured me back—but despite the changes, the game still feels stuck in its ways
Sahn-Uzal Mordekaiser revealed in silhouette against a white moon and a blood-red sky.
League of Legends is getting a hotly anticipated skin for its lich necromancer Mordekaiser, but fans' joy has been 'obliterated' because it's 'stuck in a $200 fomo gacha store'
Smite 2 art
Hi-Rez will only be giving 'minor updates' to Smite and Paladins now it's laying off around 70 employees, but don't worry, Smite 2 is the 'primary focus of the newly streamlined operations'
LoL summoner art
It's high time League of Legends got full voice chat
Latest in News
Marvel Rivals Human Torch
Marvel Rivals is carrying on the tradition of chaotic patches after buffing two of the most annoying heroes, but I main one of them, so I'm not complaining
 photo shows a factory tool that places lids on data center system-on-chips at an Intel fab in Chandler, Arizona, in December 2023. In February 2024, Intel Corporation launched Intel Foundry as the world’s first systems foundry for the AI era, delivering leadership in technology, resiliency and sustainability.
So, wait, now TSMC is supposedly pitching a joint venture with Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom to run Intel's ailing chip fabs?
Monster Hunter Wilds Artian weapon crafting - Gemma holding hot metal
Gemma's English VA is right with us on Monster Hunter Wild's confusing menus, which makes me feel a little better for having to Google symbols all the time
Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9070 XT on a red and orange background
Some Sapphire RX 9070/9070 XT graphics cards have hard-to-spot foam inside that must be removed or it 'may result in a decrease in cooling capacity or product failure'
Promotional image of the HP Envy Inspire inkjet printer
Haunted printers turning on by themselves and printing nonsense has to be one of my favorite Windows 11 bugs ever
The UHPILCL water cooled gaming laptop
This water-cooled gaming laptop packs a full-size desktop RTX 5090 and even fits in a backpack, but I sure wouldn't want it in mine