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Withered Rose Zeri jumps over a fallen tree with her lightning weapon in her hand in League of Legends
Image via Riot Games

Is LoL dead in 2024? How many people still play League

The haters are gonna hate this.

As one the biggest games in the world, League of Legends is constantly under the microscope when it comes to player counts, popularity, how strong its global esports scene is, and how “dead” it really is, with League lovers and haters alike always very invested in the answers.

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There can never be a totally clear answer on how “dead” any game is, with those who love rival titles eager to proclaim its demise and gamers who play daily defending it to the hilt⁠—but with League, things look pretty set in stone.

Is League dying?

A group of men and women wearing different types of armor against a star-themed background in League of Legends
There’s no doubting League is still one of the biggest games in the world. Image via Riot Games

No, League of Legends is absolutely not dying. League continues to go from strength to strength every season and 2023 is no different; the playerbase continues to get bigger and bigger year-on-year and though some fans do walk away, many hundreds of thousands are always joining to take their place.

There are always going to be veteran players saying that we should put the mouse and keyboard away and trade the grassy battlefields on Summoner’s Rift for real grass outside but they are in the minority.

Similarly, many long-term fans take breaks⁠—I recently came back from a League hiatus to grind for Emerald—but many eventually come back.

So, no, League is very much alive and thriving in 2024 right now.

League player counts: How many still play?

Today, more than 200 million players log into League and play casual and ranked matches every month. This is according to data released by Riot at the start of last year. There’s been a 10 percent lift since 2022, where around 180 million were logging in across any given 30-day stretch.

It’s been suggested by ActivePlayer.io, which estimates player counts based on API metrics, that 130,527,889 logged into League and played at least one game in July 2024. The same site estimates around 1,015,100 play every hour.

A statistics graph showing how many League of Legends players logged into the game between July 16 and August 16.
League’s 30-day metrics continue to look very, very healthy. Image via PlayerAuctions

In years past, Riot has said there were between 75 million (2018) and 100 million (2017) logging in and playing each month. When the game first went live in 2011 it quickly climbed to around 11.5 million monthly players before more than doubling to 32 million in 2012. This slumped a little, to 27 million, a year later before hitting nine digits in 2017 for the very first time.

Region-by-region breakdown

Riot doesn’t often share League player stats anymore, but its most recent numbers had regional player shares looking something like this:

  • China ⁠— 75,000,000
  • Europe West ⁠— 34,830,000
  • North America ⁠— 27,889,000
  • Korea ⁠— 19,822,000
  • Europe Nordic & East ⁠— 18,428,000
  • Brazil ⁠— 11,488,00
  • Turkey ⁠— 7,727,000
  • Latin America North ⁠— 6,798,000
  • Latin America South ⁠— 6,052,000
  • Russia ⁠— 4,888,000
  • Oceania ⁠— 2,746,000
  • Japan ⁠— 1,736,000

When the League devs share newer stats, we’ll update this article.

A group of five League of Legends champions including Nasus, Master Yi, Lux, Kaisa, and Thresh prepare for battle in front of a blue flame.
China and Europe boast the lion’s share of League players. Image via Riot Games

Esports event viewership

League esports is easily one of the most popular competitive gaming circuits on the planet, especially when it comes to the season-splitting Mid-Season Invitational and year-end World Championship.

In 2022, Worlds hit yet another high point when it came to viewership; more than five million tuned in at its height. This number only grew in 2023; over 6.4 million caught Faker and T1 surviving WBG to win their fourth Worlds in the history of SKT and T1.

Even more impressive, MSI 2024 broke the concurrent record for League viewership thanks to a format change-up and the presence of some of League‘s most popular players. We can quite confidently say League esports is still powering along, especially in Korea, China, and whenever the leagues come together for events.

Things aren’t going well everywhere though. In NA, the premier LCS competition has plummeted in viewership over the last three years, dropping from around 200,000 average viewers across the 2020 season to just over 109,000 across the 2023 Spring Split which wrapped in April. 2024’s numbers rose slightly but it is believed to be due to a change in scheduling more than a rising interest in the region.

This trend holds across the West, with Europe suffering a 53 percent viewership dip through 2023. While this number is significantly higher than seen in NA, it’s a worrying four-year streak of LEC viewership numbers falling even despite the introduction of co-streaming.

T1 bows to the audience at the 2022 League of Legends World Championship
League viewership remains strong across its international events. Photo by Colin Young-Wolff for Riot Games

“Gacha” controversy threatened player counts

Last year, the League fandom was up in arms about a new feature Riot brought to the cosmetics side of the game: Cosmic Capsules.

In essence (yes, I meant that), these new capsules that arrived in the 2023 Cosmic event look quite a lot like a “gacha” system. They’re the only way for us to get Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin⁠—a particularly biting sting for me as I used to collect every skin he gets⁠⁠—and that particular venture could cost as much as $200 USD.

The outcry did little to change daily player counts though, and the overall “gacha” backlash did very little to actually affect the huge League player counts, even after many are already threatened to quit (or just boycott buying skins).


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Image of Isaac McIntyre
Isaac McIntyre
Isaac McIntyre is the Aussie Editor at Dot Esports. He previously worked in sports journalism at Fairfax Media in Mudgee and Newcastle for six years before falling in love with esports—an ever-evolving world he's been covering since 2018. Since joining Dot, he's twice been nominated for Best Gaming Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism Awards and continues to sink unholy hours into losing games as a barely-Platinum AD carry. When the League servers go down he'll sneak in a few quick hands of the One Piece card game. Got a tip for us? Email: isaac@dotesports.com.
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Nicholas Taifalos
Weekend editor for Dot Esports. Nick, better known as Taffy, began his esports career in commentary, switching to journalism with a focus on Oceanic esports, particularly Counter-Strike and Dota. Email: nicholas@dotesports.com
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