How Many People Play League of Legends?

How many people play League of Legends from across the globe?

Would you believe us if we told you the number of active League of Legends gamers playing right now is 2 million?

After more than 10 years, Riot Games has shown players from all over the world just how fantastic and amazing this MOBA game is.

Before we tell you how many people play League of Legends, let’s talk about what League of Legends is about first and take a short stroll down memory lane.

What is League of Legends?

League of Legends is an online team-based strategy game where two teams will face off to secure victory.

Each team consists of 5 champions and speaking of champions, you’ll have 140 champions to choose from.

That’s not all.

Each champion possesses unique passive abilities, skills, and roles that make for an epic 5 vs. 5 gameplay.

A single game could last between 30 minutes to an hour! All this depends on skill level, map control, and how fast each team can destroy the heart of their opponent’s base, the Nexus.

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League of Legends players have to use strategy and make careful decisions as they navigate through the game map.

Take note that the entire map consists of 5 lanes: top, bot, mid, jungle, and support.

To give you a brief overview:

Top – The toughest players and solo fighters command the top lane. They have to face the enemy team’s strongest champions.

Bot – Bot ‘laners’ or players need to be protected during the early parts of the game so they can deal explosive damage and support late game.

Jungle – These types of players live for the hunt of the kill, and while they don’t usually encounter champions as often, their job is to slay the monsters and beasts that lurk within the jungle.

Mid – Mid players carry the highest burst damage and are flexible enough to play solo or as a team.

Support – From the name support, these types of players support other ‘laners’ or players (typically bot players) mainly to protect their teammates and help secure kills throughout the game.

After passing through these lanes, it all comes down to destroying the Nexus and achieving victory as a team.

When League of Legends was first released back in 2009, it easily rose in number and drew massive popularity over the world, especially North America and Europe.

These continents were recorded to have the highest player count in terms of hours clocked in for game time.

Also, League of Legends tournaments attracts a vast number of League of Legends players from all over the world known as League Championship Series.

Los Angeles or Berlin is usually where the competitions are held, where it consists of 10 professional teams from each continent.

League of Legends Player Count

Since the release of League of Legends in 2009, over a million concurrent players have played League of Legends daily.

Riot Games didn’t release the League of Legends player count not until 2011. Let’s take a deeper dive into the League of Legends player count and its evolution over the past decade.

League of Legends Player Count – 2011

In 2011, just two years after the initial launch of League of Legends, Riot Games recorded a total of 32.5 million registrations for that year alone.

If you think this is an astounding number, Riot Games also released a few other player stats such as:

• 11.5 million monthly player count
• 4.2 million daily players
• 1.3 million players who play at the same time
• Increase in Riot Games growth by 300 employees
• 200 billion minions killed
• 2.1 trillion gold earned
• 15 billion champions killed
• 10.5 million hours played every day

While the number of player registrations is impressive on its own, seeing as to how many people played League of Legends daily and concurrently is even more impressive.

League of Legends Player Count – 2012

The following year, Riot Games revealed an even higher number of league players about double the numbers as the previous year!

Here are the stats for 2012:

• 70 million League of Legends registrations
• 12 million daily players
• 32 million monthly players
• 3 million League of Legends players playing at the same time

It was also revealed that for 2012 alone, the total hours played by gamers all over the world reached 1 billion monthly! 

League of Legends Player Count – 2014

Two years moving forward, the numbers and stats were still as impressive as ever, bringing the total amount to 67 million monthly players!

Along with the 67 million players, there were also 27 million players daily and 8 million gamers playing at the same time!

League of Legends Player Count – 2017

We feel 2017 was the peak or highest player count for League of Legends, amounting to a total of 100 million players!

Tha’s about 9x the growth since 2011 – 11.5 million monthly (2011) to 100 million monthly (2017).

Fun fact: Only 15 countries out of the 200+ countries have a population over 100 million, meaning if League of Legends were an actual country, it would be one of the most populated areas by then.

League of Legends Player Count – 2018

2018 was the year we saw the game numbers drop by about 25 million. Still, 75 million players is a huge amount and clearly a dominant pick among other online games.

League of Legends Player Count – 2020

Just when you thought the game numbers would drop, the player count in 2020 rose from 75 million to 115 million! With so many people playing League of Legends daily, it’s hard to imagine seeing this online game drop in numbers anytime soon.

Just so you know, there’s at least one game started every second! This shows us that League of Legends is one of the most played games in the world!

And just when you thought that was all there was to it, a tournament would have a pool money of $75 million and roughly $6 million as the cash prize!

Even after a decade, League of Legends as an online game still stands strong even against its competitors.

Speaking of which…

League of Legends Vs. Dota 2

Dota 2 has similar mechanics to League of Legends, only that Dota 2 has its own set of champions and a few unique traits.

Dota 2 has about 11 million monthly players and 1 million daily players from the game stats alone. That’s only one-tenth the size of League of Legends!

League of Legends Vs. CS: GO

CS: GO is a First-Person Shooter (FPS) game and one of the world’s largest! Compared to League of Legends though, CS: GO has 26 million monthly players, roughly one-fifth of the League’s players!

Final Thoughts

With 115 million people playing League of Legends from over 145 different countries, it shouldn’t come as a shock to how many people enjoy playing League of Legends even after a decade!

The daily and concurrent players alone are also impressive scores after so many years since its initial launch!

If you want to learn how to play League of Legends, it’s as simple as downloading the game online for FREE.

We hope we could answer any questions you had about the player count for League of Legends! If you have any more questions you’d like to ask, let us know in the comments section below!