By Richard Cobbett on July 13th, 2012 at 6:00 pm.
From Forbes and Xfire come some truly jaw-dropping stats about how much time people currently spend on games. Over the last year, Minecraft clocked up 371,635,651 hours, while World of Warcraft scored a life-sapping 622,378,909. Both however pale to the game at the top of the chart, League of Legends. 1,292,502,456 hours, in just the US and EU. Coincidentally, that’s also the amount of time you have to play before people stop calling you a noob.
These aren’t hard stats of course, but extrapolations from Xfire’s data – 21 million members and their gaming from July 1st 2011 to June 30th 2012. It would be fascinating to know how they tally with the real-world numbers, but it’s rare we ever get a glimpse of those unless a company has something specific to announce. The really interesting numbers though I suspect wouldn’t come from big gamer-games like Diablo 3 and Call of Duty, but the likes of Solitaire and Bejewelled over on Facebook land. The word ‘gamer’ has never been more universally appropriate, even if many would never wear the badge. Someone’s buying those Match-3 games, after all.
Check out the full stats here. To complain about the absence of Heroes of Newerth, DOTA 2, or some other MOBA/ARTS from the list, click here and await further instructions.
13/07/2012 at 18:05 pakoito says:
inb4 Ad Populum “this is the best moba”
13/07/2012 at 18:08 EPICTHEFAIL says:
Inb4 “-FACE” meme spam.
13/07/2012 at 18:09 jon_hill987 says:
in before Deus Ex meme spam.
13/07/2012 at 18:25 stahlwerk says:
What a meme.
13/07/2012 at 18:53 Phantoon says:
What a face.
13/07/2012 at 18:57 jon_hill987 says:
A Bomb.
13/07/2012 at 20:01 darkath says:
The best moba never asked for this memeFACE
14/07/2012 at 02:36 oansdffa says:
The only Tower Defence game that really clicked with me.
I went through a pretty long lol phase but this seems like a bit of stretch.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitilus/al-skyjacker
14/07/2012 at 02:55 stahlwerk says:
^^^a spam^^^
14/07/2012 at 07:54 jrodman says:
But he’s trying!
13/07/2012 at 18:53 DiamondDog says:
Nothing is certain except death, taxes and pakoito moaning on a League of Legends article.
13/07/2012 at 18:08 jon_hill987 says:
They will have their work cut out if they want to keep ahead of DOTA 2, that is topping the Steam Stats and isn’t even out yet…
13/07/2012 at 18:18 bananaphone says:
You can buy access to the DOTA 2 beta… your argument is invalid.
13/07/2012 at 18:32 MonkeyShines says:
You can buy it for like $40 when the game is supposed to be free to play. Please don’t tell me Dota 2 has as many players as it will get in the future.
13/07/2012 at 18:36 pastatdude says:
You beat me to it. Though I was going to say, “Most people will wait for the free-to-play game to be available and use their money for the Steam Sale instead, so your argument is invalid.”
14/07/2012 at 07:55 jrodman says:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3964&d=1264779393
14/07/2012 at 17:29 ImAUnicorn says:
It was top of the steam stats before you could buy an invite, YOUR argument is invalid.
13/07/2012 at 18:53 VeliV says:
But then again you require steam to play Dota. This stats probably comes from just a fraction of LoLs userbase.
Will be interesting to see how this all turns out.
18/07/2012 at 20:03 Sarganym says:
I’m personally just not that interested in playing a re-skin of something I sank ungodly hours into as a high schooler. I wish Valve the best though.
13/07/2012 at 19:47 Aemony says:
It will be interesting to see how it turns out, but I really doubt that Dota2 will ever threaten League of Legends in regards to sheer numbers of players playing. One of the major differences between the two is just how easy it is to pick up and play, an element in which LoL has an advantage over Dota2.
Thought RIOT could learn from Valve in a lot of areas. While the gameplay and progression system is fine, the Adobe AIR launcher/client and the game engine still makes me sad whenever I sneak a peak on Dota2. Not to mention that I’d kill for an open region matchmaking system like Dota2 have.
Pure technicality, Dota2 easily beats LoL hands down. But gameplay-wise and how mainstream friendly it is? That’s a win for LoL.
13/07/2012 at 20:46 cyrenic says:
I agree with you on all those points. Just a guess, but I think LoL will lose more players to Guild Wars 2 than DotA2.
13/07/2012 at 21:22 Vorphalack says:
There isn’t really any barrier to entry for lower skilled players in DotA 2. If the matchmaking works properly then new players (or bad players) will get matched against each other. You don’t need to know every minute detail of DotA to get a good game. The major difference is that DotA has a much higher skill ceiling than any of the other clones, which wont impact the majority directly. It does make for some good tournaments though, and that might end up stealing quite a lot of players from LoL. Especially considering the superb replay and live game viewer DotA already has.
13/07/2012 at 21:45 cyrenic says:
But the skill floor in DotA2 is higher as well. Gold loss on death, for example.
LoL’s popularity is starting to produce huge numbers of viewers in the competitive scene, and it’s still growing in momentum. DotA2 might be the better competitive game, so it’ll be interesting to see if it can break LoL’s momentum.
13/07/2012 at 22:22 Vorphalack says:
Things like gold loss apply to both teams though. New players might notice more snowballing in games, but in theory they should be on the winning snowball 50% of the time. I think for tournaments they will co-exist for quite a while. Like I said earlier, LoL does have some catching up to do with its replay viewer and integrating tournament streams into the game browser. Some competition will do it good.
13/07/2012 at 23:25 thestage says:
more people play league of legends than have ever installed steam
13/07/2012 at 23:30 Vorphalack says:
The Steam wiki estimates the number of active accounts in January 2012 at over 40 million. So, erm, no.
13/07/2012 at 18:11 BlackeyeVuk says:
Dayum nigga , luk all them sumz science and sh1t. Numbers like from a mule.. mule.c-i-o-u-s molecaral … whatever atom code hack numberz from da fizaxxs stuff foshoo.
Dem haxx0rz. Leetah mutherfooker top on the list.
Thatz mah game.
——-
Ps. Never played it. (̊ − ̊ ) HO!
13/07/2012 at 18:47 stahlwerk says:
That –emoticon? how would you even do that?
13/07/2012 at 22:05 BlackeyeVuk says:
Erm… just google Japanese text emoticons.
http://www.japaneseemoticons.net/all-japanese-emoticons/
Like this for example. You can copy/paste to combine for your liking.
Gemmeh highfive for happy face! (¬_¬)ﾉ
( ^_^)ﾉ
13/07/2012 at 22:08 BlackeyeVuk says:
Oooohhh this one is cool also…
Bitach please … (ﾉ´ｰ`)ﾉ chill. Im smarter- like emoticon. :”D
EDIT: … Now this is just plain silly top ʘ‿ʘ
14/07/2012 at 00:27 ColOfNature says:
°͜°
14/07/2012 at 12:11 RegisteredUser says:
Now I’m reminded of monsterboobed youtube wonder Hannah Minx.
(◎_◎)
Brb, need to call a certain exgf..
13/07/2012 at 18:12 serioussgtstu says:
I don’t play any moba games for the same reason I never go to the bookies; I have no idea how either of them work. These two factors combined mean that my ignorance saves me ridiculous amounts of both time and money. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
13/07/2012 at 20:04 DrGonzo says:
Saves you a lot of time and abuse. Dota is completely free to play however!
13/07/2012 at 18:13 Puffycheeks288 says:
This does not surprise me considering a normal game of summoner’s rift can take as long as 1 and 1/2 hours to complete.
13/07/2012 at 18:16 Ringwraith says:
Also, time is clocked even when you’re not in a game, simply have the client up will track hours, and since it has in-built chat and friends lists, a lot of people just leave it running there.
13/07/2012 at 21:02 dsi1 says:
LOL
That reminds me of WoT claiming they’re the largest single sharded MMO when all they have is a lobby system.
13/07/2012 at 18:19 InternetBatman says:
Also, how many people run x-fire to play minecraft? Some do certainly, but you don’t really need a social service for a single-player game that benefits from a sense of isolation.
13/07/2012 at 18:51 VeliV says:
I’d guess most people who has xfire installed.
13/07/2012 at 22:29 fish99 says:
The point he was making is that’s probably a minority of minecraft players. Heck, I’ve played a ton of minecraft but have never heard of xfire before.
13/07/2012 at 18:19 bananaphone says:
Not sure what moba you’re playing, or the level of downy retardation possessed by your teammates, but I’ve never had a game go for 90 minutes. I’ve played the game for 2 years.
13/07/2012 at 18:22 Ringwraith says:
Had a match go on for 78 minutes yesterday.
Often a long match is a sign of a good one, seeing as the teams have to be pretty damn evenly-matched for that to happen.
13/07/2012 at 18:30 Pony Canyon says:
That’s never been my experience. Long matches are almost always caused by players too inexperienced to notice that they have an advantage and that they can leverage it.
Good, close games played by competent players last around 40-50 minutes and no more. Any mistake made past the 30-minute mark usually ends in a match outcome.
13/07/2012 at 19:38 Ringwraith says:
Yeah, but when both sides are being very careful about not making mistakes, or when team fights are rather even trade-offs, you tend to get a fairly drawn-out game.
Neither side had the advantage really, and when one side did, they used as it as much as possible, but sometimes it couldn’t be used to much effect.
13/07/2012 at 20:05 DrGonzo says:
Yes, the more skilled the teams involved the quicker it will come to an end. There is no way that two experienced teams would end up at 78 minutes. People must have been missing the opportunity to push. I mean even Dota 2 would be pushing it at 78 minutes.
13/07/2012 at 18:26 Brun says:
Extremely long matches are an indication that the two teams are both evenly matched and not making many mistakes. Once you cross the 25-30 minute mark even the slightest mistake can be unrecoverable.
13/07/2012 at 18:57 InternetBatman says:
I buy the evenly matched, but not the not making mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve found that very long matches are normally the result of players being evenly matched and unwilling to push. I am a very, very defensive player, but eventually it comes time to win or lose.
13/07/2012 at 19:39 Ringwraith says:
It’s less ‘one slight mistake’ and more one major one, and it has to be seized upon by the other team (which sometimes doesn’t happen) otherwise you get away with it.
13/07/2012 at 20:09 DrGonzo says:
No, one slight mistake and it’s over passed an hour. By the 50 minute mark their team will take out one of you towers in around 3 seconds. If they tower dive and get wiped they would still take out the tower easily. The team composition must have been all off, no carry’s etc.
But by nature of the game, there is no way two experienced teams would end up that way. It’s part of the reason I keep going back to LoL in spite of Dota 2.
Two cowardly teams however, maybe.
13/07/2012 at 18:53 InternetBatman says:
I had one game of 3v3 go on for 114 minutes. One of my teammates was too scared to push, so we just turtled, and turtled, and turtled. Then we lost.
13/07/2012 at 19:15 mazzoli says:
I’m quite enjoying picturing a person covered in soft feathers with a vacant expression on their face playing League of Legends.
Downy retardation indeed.
13/07/2012 at 18:18 InternetBatman says:
I went through a pretty long lol phase but this seems like a bit of stretch.
13/07/2012 at 18:19 devook says:
This just in, Steam is the most-played game of all time.
13/07/2012 at 18:30 Grygus says:
Internet Explorer crushes Steam.
13/07/2012 at 18:31 Demacish says:
Something tells me that the windows systems crush Steam pretty hard
13/07/2012 at 18:33 mr.ioes says:
Right after Facebook.
13/07/2012 at 18:32 Sidion says:
I thought at first; “Ah, that’s not THAT bad.”
Then I opened up calculator.
This is equal to 53,854,269 days…
Or
147,545+ years….
WTF
13/07/2012 at 21:25 Salix says:
Its not actually that bad, that total divided by 21 million members is roughly 60 hours over the year if my calculations are right.
14/07/2012 at 00:29 AngoraFish says:
Just think of all the third world countries that could be dragged out of poverty with that amount of collective community effort…
14/07/2012 at 08:06 jrodman says:
Gank world hunger!
13/07/2012 at 18:35 LTK says:
Might I just point out that the alt-text puns were legen – wait for it… – dary?
13/07/2012 at 18:36 Richard Cobbett says:
And yet someone, somewhere complained that it should have been a more general term. And had it been about a pre-release version of a member of the genre, I’d happily have supplied “MOBA Beta Blues.”
While assuming they didn’t know their ARTS from their elbow. LOL.
13/07/2012 at 18:56 Phantoon says:
Hamtastic.
13/07/2012 at 19:44 Safewood says:
Why does nobody ever use the “and I hope your not lactose intollerant …” part?
13/07/2012 at 18:36 Chakawi says:
These stats look quite incorrect to me. I really doubt the validity of the data.
13/07/2012 at 18:39 Memphis-Ahn says:
It’s also longer than the combined lifetimes of LoL players!
13/07/2012 at 18:41 BurningPet says:
We want revenue stats! please, make us all be jealous in Riot games.
13/07/2012 at 18:45 CommanderZx2 says:
These “stats” are garbage, most of the LoL numbers comes from people just leaving it going afk or sitting around in lobbies.
Also TF2 and Dota 2 contantly have triple the number of players of MoW 3 on steam stats daily, but they aren’t even listed? Xfire is completely worthless for this, as it doesn’t count all games and it doesn’t differenciate between someone actually playing or just having it running.
13/07/2012 at 20:12 DrGonzo says:
I didn’t think you could go afk in lobbies anymore? They introduced the auto kick after a few short minutes.
Fact is, the game is crazy popular. Easily the most popular multiplayer game about. But these stats are probably quite wrong. It’s only including Xfire, so the stats must be much much higher than that. I know me and my group of players don’t use Xfire at all and between us we have tens of thousands of games under our belts.
14/07/2012 at 12:09 Carighan Maconar says:
I don’t really feel as if it’s massively popular compared to some other games (mentioning D3, WoW or TF2 here).
Because, for all it’s supposedly so popular, none of the people I know IRL (and they’re ~all gamers), none of the roughly 25 people I actively chat to a lot in WoW, none of the people I play D3 with, none of my Pen&Paper people and no one at my work (and they’re roughly all gamers, too) plays LoL actively.
The very same people play dozens of games over a month, and keep coming back to TF2 or WoW, all the time.
Maybe it’s just mutually exclusive, sure, can only play one of WoW, TF2 and LoL because of how much time they eat up.
But, they all tried it. And they broke either on how insanely newbie-unfriendly it is (that was my experience, too), or on the Pando Media Booster for the newer players (which caused me to delete the installer when I was interested in re-trying it a few weeks ago).
LoL feels veeeery uninviting.
And from everyone I know and game with, this is the agreed upon take on it. The malware, the feature-set, the community, all turns people away. And hence, everyone just plays other stuff. All the time.
I’d wager to say that since in 2012 XFire is in itself a niche software, these numbers are heavily biased. Could it be that LoL or XFire promoted one another years ago? Can it be LoL people organize through XFire?
In any case, these numbers are tiny, especially if LoL players keep their client active for socialization, then the actual “played LoL” could be anything from 10% to 90% of the value, more or less.
13/07/2012 at 21:30 Brun says:
People still use Xfire? What is this, 2004?
14/07/2012 at 17:55 Radex says:
Of course they do. Most are CoD players, though. They have been around since the first one. It’s a great way to join a clan and find wars/scrims.
14/07/2012 at 04:21 NightShift says:
I honestly don’t care about LoL anymore, with Planetside 2 just coming soom(tm) and Smite is a blast of fun, I couldn’t care less. So why am I posting this?
Also, League of Legendface?
14/07/2012 at 17:44 Radex says:
Most LoL players just have the launcher open all the time and not actually playing the game.
15/07/2012 at 09:18 aepervius says:
That statistic is inteerresting but cannot be extrapolated to the general population. XFIRE user are only a subset of *self selected* gamer. It could be that they are representative of the general population…. Or it could be that they are not, and that xfire user incicentaly like LoL a lot. Without a better check you don’t know and can’t extrapolate.