League of Legends Season 2 World Championships Sets eSports Viewing Record eSports Central

A couple weeks ago, Riot Games released an infographic that showed how many people actually play League of Legends: 32 million monthly active players. Today they released numbers that proved what that level of a playerbase can do for a viewing audience.

In a post on the League of Legends website by Dustin 'RedBeard' Beck, Riot Games' VP of eSports, he gives exact numbers on how many people actually tuned in:

Personally, I believe the championships would get over a million concurrent viewers just because of all the international competition in one tournament. However, the numbers that we have seen are staggering and has raised the bar for all other eSports.

What is the difference between Riot and other developers that has led to this moment of record breaking numbers? They have built the perfect storm of a game to make this happen. Think about traditional sport and what you need to play. Football needs a ball, an open field, and something to mark out of bounds territories. With baseball you need a glove, a ball, and a bat. Sport is supposed to be easily accessible and Riot has made the most easily accessible game in the history of Gaming. There are other free games, but they don't make the type of money Riot makes on this "free" game.





So with all that said, the game with the all-encompassing fan base of casual players, hardcore players, and all the ones in between released numbers that have crushed all other numbers to date.

Another thing about League of Legends as an eSport is that, you probably won't see League of Legends 2 any time in the near future. Why? Players have a lot of time and money invested into the game, moving to League of Legends 2 would tick people off. This is a good thing because last time I checked there is no American Football 2. Every time a eSport gets into sequels of games, the eSport gets fractured in the community, it is a big problem. I take solace in the fact that we won't see that in League of Legends. In fact, League of Legends can only get better because as long as people are playing and supporting the game by buying skins and champions, Riot can continue to pump more and more resources into development (come on replay system!).

Moral of the story is that a successful eSport is much more than the hardcore base. The 8.2 million views during the World Championship proves that.

Banner Image from artubr on Flickr

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