League of Legends overtakes WoW as most-played PC game

July 11th, 2012

There's a new sheriff in town. 

Three years after its release, League of Legends has overtaken the longstanding World of Warcraft as the most-played PC game in the world, according to a new report.

What's incredible is the speed in which the upstart game has taken over, not to mention its radical free-to-play business model. All told, League of Legends players logged nearly 1.3 billion hours of gameplay over the last year. More than WoW. More than Minecraft. More than Heroes of Newerth. 

"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 David Cole of DFC Intelligence, which released the study.

"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," he added.

I remember when a League of Legends PR rep contacted me in 2009 to announce the game. I liked the game, but was skeptical of its then new free-to-play model, which I thought would limit the game's reach. 

I was wrong, apparently. 

The top 10 most played games were as follows:

  1. League of Legends
  2. World of Warcraft
  3. Minecraft
  4. Heroes of Newerth
  5. Diablo III
  6. Battlefield 3
  7. Maple Story
  8. Starcraft II
  9. World of Tanks
  10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Anything surprise you?

Read more: PC gaming headlines

Comments

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I'm suprised tf2 isn't on the list, and that heroes of newerth is so high up, but then again i'm pretty sure HoN is more popular in europe then the U.S.

1
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
platypussamurai
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haha finally someone dethroned wow.. thats actually kinda cool wow has gotten to "pussified" for the little kiddies n what not

Either get behind our troops or get in front of them.

2
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
GeneticSpore
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I'm just happy to finally see WoW play second fiddle to any other game in any category. It's been sitting, untouchable, on it's throne for far too long.

AWA Game Night admin and derailer of Steam chat room conversations.

3
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
SithHunter
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Its good to see a game finally surpass wow in the standings :D. progress.

4
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
kelly0o0
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I can't belive this!

Have no Fear, Maphias is Here!

5
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Maphias
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was about time :))

Invite me to friend list! :)

6
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
HaoSs
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Good F2P against extremely expensive MMO. F2P wins in my book.

7
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
SpiralHoriZon
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Simply said. LOL is fun, WOW is not

KAMI

8
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
kamiswami
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Wow sweet. Isn't HoN just like LoL? xD

AKA JulysFire ~ M17XR4 | Intel Core i7 3610M | 32GB RAM | AMD Radeon HD 7970M | Win 7/Ubuntu | 1TB R

9
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
blackflame0729
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I can believe it! WoW was fun for a bit but paying monthly when a F2P game comes out as well done as LoL was the end of WoW for me. I also find that I like the competitiveness in LoL more because it was more fast paced and balanced.

10
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Trmptonfire
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I saw it coming, but I don't really see it lasting. The game is lacking so much, and it just gets boring so fast. Everyone ends up being harassed and all just totals for a very bad experience.

Somehow I am however surprised that Team Fortress 2 is not on the list.

kamiswami said: Simply said. LOL is fun, WOW is not


At one point it actually was fun.

Not long from now LoL will be the same since it's quite literally failing just as hard.

Anything worth having is worth working hard for.

11
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Sever1ty
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kamiswami said: Simply said. LOL is fun, WOW is not


this one.

12
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Enginseer
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this is old news

13
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
cjunky2
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Interesting that they're using hours played as the measure, instead of user base. I have a feeling that significantly changes the ordering of the list.

MrKiWi

14
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
MrKiWi
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battlefield 3 *-*

[url=http://bf3stats.com/stats_pc/Cel_Macedo][img]http://g.bf3stats.com/pc/Viperes03/Cel_Macedo.png[

15
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
edkbssa
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I think WoW is and will be the greatest game ever made. Wow is the Michael Jordan of video games.

M17x R4 i7 7970 www.facebook.com/sizzackz

16
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
dave427
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kelly0o0 said: Its good to see a game finally surpass wow in the standings :D. progress.
League of Legends didn't so much surpass as World of Warcraft fell behind.

17
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Aerocytes
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Your telling me that Diablo 3 beat maple story? (not to say that it wasnt able to, but look at how long maplestory has been out, and how many users it has....), world of tanks beat CoD:MW3? im not a CoD fan but that doesnt seem right... and maplestory beat Starcraft 2? i think im going to have to call shenanigans.... personally i dont get how both WoW and LoL made it this far, and for that matter heroes of newerth and world of tanks either... i think all 4 of those games suck but thats just me, however i dont believe for a second that diablo 3 beat maplestory, not yet anyway, maybe in a few more months but not now... simply because its player base is so huge and that it has been around for so long... i know that i have personally put in well over 200 hours alone, and i have friends (3 to be specific) that have more than 5 accounts that all have max amount of characters that are all well over level 150.... you know how many hours that is!!!

GET OVER HERE (>')>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=>

18
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
ub3rchief
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69/99, 30 ARP to go
holy crap. wow's decade reign is finally over lol

19
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
eclipsedmoon86
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yeah, i'm surprised about maple story..

insert lame comment here.

20
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Tehcookies
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ya now this is great all my hours on LOL are being seen lol

21
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
livinghell1357
Level 3
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LoL did this long time ago. It was always at the top while WoW was 2nd

22
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
MrPerryTP
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Wow amazing almost double the hours of WoW, I cant believe I do not play LoL anymore. Aha im playing HON right now at #4.

23
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
aliencat
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I can believe this when I quit wow about 5 months ago the server I was on was already dying.

24
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
TheBizzle1
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Mw3 in front of CoD4? Don't think so.

I still don't get why LoL has such popularity and basically it's a simple, mostly turning into a mindless game these days.

Through all the differences it is still perfection.

25
Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012    Quote This Post
Memfisto
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