League of Legends Topples World of Warcraft as Most Played PC Game

[Fanghawk]

League of Legends Topples World of Warcraft as Most Played PC Game

Riot Games' action RTS is played more than World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and Minecraft combined.

In the world of competitive gaming, a common benchmark of success is hours played, since that shows how much time the community is putting into a single product on the whole. For that reason, a report recently released by DFC Intelligence is turning heads in the industry by revealing that Riot Games' League of Legends has become the world's most played PC game. The popular Action RTS easily doubled even World of Warcraft's usage figures, clocking in at nearly 1.3 billion hours for the past six months alone.

"The fact that online games such League of Legends eclipsed more than a billion hours of online game time in a year is simply incredible and a testament to the fundamental shift currently sweeping through the games industry," said DFC Intelligence CEO David Cole. "By comparison, Bungie recently announced that the Halo franchise surpassed two billion hours of online play, but that's over a period of seven years."

These statistics apply only to North American and European Xfire members, but still reflect <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114283-League-of-Legends-Muscles-Past-World-of-Warcraft>the broader player statistics of both WoW and LoL over the past year. If you also take into account Korea, where LoL recently surpassed Starcraft II in popularity, it's clear that the title is quickly becoming a staple of the online gaming landscape.

Here's the full list of the Top Ten Games by hours played according to Xfire and DFC:

League of Legends: 1,292,502,456
World of Warcraft: 622,378,909
Minecraft: 371,635,651
Heroes of Newerth: 184,520,156
Diablo III: 172,907,605
Battlefield 3: 171,852,550
MapleStory: 165,503,651
StarCraft II: 163,980,293
World Of Tanks: 145,702,931
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: 126,754,082

To give you a better idea of how impressive this is, consider that if Diablo III had launched at the start of the report's timeframe, it would need to maintain its usage rate for the full six months just to come in third place behind World of Warcraft, despite having <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117399-Diablo-III-Sells-Like-Crazy>one of the biggest launches this year. And that's not even taking the common post-launch usage drop into account, although Cole notes that Diablo III "is still doing quite well and may surpass World of Warcraft in usage over the next year."

The report is part of a larger initiative to catalog game usage through the DFC GamePulse Matrix, a database which includes comprehensive statistics from providers like Xfire down to the second. It currently holds custom reports on over 1,500 games, although it's pretty clear that none of those titles are being played nearly as much as League of Legends right now.

Source: Forbes

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[Vkmies]

Anyone else suprised that CoD is so low on the list? Some game has to take its place and do what MW did in 2007. Then every game can copy that so people in 2018 will be super pissed at all the copies of OHbgpaer that are on the market all the time and how none of them innovate.

 

[Waaghpowa]

People still use Xfire? I haven't used that since like 2006. I know my WoW hours aren't clocked, and I had about over a years worth of play time.

 

[Pipotchi]

I don't actually know what Xfire is? Is it compulsory to play all these games? If not arent those figures a bit skewed?

 

[Scrustle]

What the... 1.3 bn. in 6 months?! That wouldn't really mean much to me but when you see that it's double of the entire life time of WoW... that's mind boggling. How do people even find enough time to play that much?

 

[Veloxe]

I don't actually know what Xfire is? Is it compulsory to play all these games? If not arent those figures a bit skewed?

I'm a little out of date since I haven't used X-Fire in years but basically put back then it was like an MSN/AIM for gamers that would keep track of your hours played across all the games you played. To my knowledge it's not required to be played with any of those games and a bunch of them (specifically the blizzard titles) come with built in IM type systems. So there might be less people using X-fire playing them since it would be rather redundant if all your friends were also playing said games.

It's by no means conclusive data about how much they are played compared to each over but still, that's a hell of a lot of time in only 6 months.

 

[kajinking]

Hate to be off topic but I must admit that Battlefield 3 being higher that MW3 made me feel good.

 

[Fappy]

F2P is OP. That's what I took from this.

 

[lacktheknack]

F2P is OP. That's what I took from this.

Then again, Maple Story, THE definitive F2P MMORPG of five years ago has only tied with Starcraft II (which required $50 to get).

 

[draythefingerless]

"These statistics apply only to North American and European Xfire members"

Aaaaaand theres your problem. you are counting a minority of players. Do you honestly believe that LoL, as famous as it is, has played more hours than WoW? WoW is a game played over periods of DAYS. LoL is a "get in play a few rounds get out" game.

I dunno, i dont trust these numbers very much.

 

[Treblaine]

A worthy game to be top of the PC pile, not an Activision funding money and time hole.

 

[Treblaine]

"These statistics apply only to North American and European Xfire members"

Aaaaaand theres your problem. you are counting a minority of players. Do you honestly believe that LoL, as famous as it is, has played more hours than WoW? WoW is a game played over periods of DAYS. LoL is a "get in play a few rounds get out" game.

I dunno, i dont trust these numbers very much.

Awww shucks. LoL was such a worthy game I knew it was too good to be true.

I guess I will be forever doomed to be hipster in my tastes

 

[Fappy]

F2P is OP. That's what I took from this.

Then again, Maple Story, THE definitive F2P MMORPG of five years ago has only tied with Starcraft II (which required $50 to get).

That's probably because Maple Story sucks!


Just kidding, I have never played it.

I think LoL's advantage is the fact that it is not an MMO and is easy to jump in and out of. No commitment necessary.

 

[gigastar]

I find it kind of ironic that the WoW-killer has finally come along and its not even an MMOPRG.

Kind of highlights a glaring flaw in what people have been trying to do until now, and will keep trying to do in future.

Oh wait, it doesnt count Asain regions. Therefore i count it as valid as the forecast of extended sunshine in Britan.

 

[draythefingerless]

"These statistics apply only to North American and European Xfire members"

Aaaaaand theres your problem. you are counting a minority of players. Do you honestly believe that LoL, as famous as it is, has played more hours than WoW? WoW is a game played over periods of DAYS. LoL is a "get in play a few rounds get out" game.

I dunno, i dont trust these numbers very much.

Awww shucks. LoL was such a worthy game I knew it was too good to be true.

I guess I will be forever doomed to be hipster in my tastes

well theres still more people playing LoL than WoW. so no, no hipster points for you .

 

[Ickorus]

That's 147,448 years to us regular people.

 

[SecondPrize]

There are enough people who still use xfire to get a representative sample. The big question is are xfire users representative of pc gamers in general. I was still taken aback a bit to see Forbes using just xfire though.