League of Legends the world's 'most played video game'
Video games come and go, but Riot Games considers League of Legends the current king of them all -- for now.
New statistics from the creator of League of Legends (and a variety of industry sources) indicate that the free multiplayer PC real-time strategy game had an average of 3 million concurrent online users in July, besting the entire combined total peak player count for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox 360 (1.4 million) and people playing the top 100 games on Steam (650,000).
Riot Games, developer of League, also noted in an infographic that the game usually sees an average of 12 million players a day, with about 32 million active players logging in every month. Just for reference, when World of Warcraft sat at the top, it had about 12 million subscribers total.
League of Legends hit the scene nearly three years ago, and in some ways completely flew under the radar for most casual observers of the gaming industry. However, in that short time frame, League quickly acquired a huge following (70 million registrations) that stays addicted to the evolution of the game, which derives from predecessors Warcraft III and Defense of the Ancients.
Further drum tapping occurs as Riot points out that League averages at least 1 billion average play hours a month with help from more than 145 countries, a figure held since the third quarter of last year. In comparison, the total cumulative hours pumped into Halo since 2004 sits at a little over 2 billion.
In League, players can choose from more than 100 characters to control and can play alongside other people (or alone with bots) in head-to-head matches against another team.
Each character wields four basic attacks (ranging from physical to magic), and can choose from a variety of items and equipment to enhance the character's abilities. When the battle begins, each team works together to defeat the opposing side's turrets, minions, and players in an attempt to destroy the enemy base (referred to as a nexus).
League fans might enjoy Riot's admission that Teemo dies 6.5 million times a day, which figures out to about 75 deaths for the little guy every second.