Is League of Legends a dying game?
By Richelle Lau
With the gaming/eSports industry growing every year and other popular games such as Overwatch and Fortnite making it into the scene, the question concerning League’s relative popularity and play rate is becoming more and more frequently asked.
Has the game lost its flare? How many players are actively playing and enjoying the game? Heck, even FanSided excluded League of Legends from 2018’s top video game fandoms. So with all these discussions, is League of Legends really a dying game?
Absolutely not. And stats don’t lie.
The game is developing and adapting to match its growing player base and its eSports presence is soaring through the charts. League’s active player base has only grown in the last years, with over 120 million players worldwide. Comparatively, Overwatch has 40 million and Fortnite has 80.
Arguably the most popular and successful game in eSports, League’s 2018 World Championship brought in record-breaking numbers – with over 205 million peak concurrent viewers. These viewership numbers surpass even the NBA finals and no other gaming tournament can even compete.
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Perhaps the cries of “dying game” are because League of Legends is a decade-old game with a relatively well-liked reputation, but League has been around long enough to earn returning players and viewers and many new ones as well. Riot’s budget for the game is also increasing, with the money to use augmented reality technologies at their biggest LoL tournaments. This year, their K/DA performance sported dancing animated champions on stage, making headlines worldwide, even across news organizations unfamiliar to the eSports genre such as NBC news.
League has even delved into content creation outside of the Riot team, having formed the League Partner Program this year to support streamers and content creators who love the game. On YouTube, League-related content brings in 236M views, nine times that of Fortnite’s 25M. With incentives such as free skins to keep these big streamers and their audience interested in League, the game is far from irrelevancy and is pioneering other games to do the same for their content creators.
League of Legends is certainly not a dying game. In fact, it is paving the way for the gaming industry and eSports to break out of its niche audience and into mainstream media. With its efforts in both the competitive scene and involving their content creators, League of Legend’s stats are through the roof compared to all the other games.
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What do you think of League’s game state right now? Is it really dying as many of the gaming community claim it to be? Comment down below and share your opinion with us!