League of Legends leads Dota 2 in Chinese netcafe statistics

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Yesterday Riot Games released impressive statistics around player activity for League of Legends, including 27 million daily players, 67 million players per month, and 7.5 million players concurrently during peak hours. A new report by Chinese gaming site 17173 of more than 50 percent of China's gaming cafe's shows just how popular the game is in the country.

Data collected over a span from July 2013 to November 2013 shows that Tencent's League of Legends is the most played game in cafe's in China, averaging 680,000 daily concurrent players, and nearly 81 million players over the course of four months. Dota 2 saw 50,000 daily concurrent players and 6.8 million players over the same time span.

Chinese-based developer NetEase's MOBA Heroes of the Three Kingdoms is currently between League of Legends and Dota 2 in the rankings. The data reveals that Heroes of Three Kingdoms is actually played for longer periods of time than League of Legends and Dota 2 with 138 minutes per playtime. Dota 2 exceeds here with 98 minutes of playtime per session, while League of Legends lags behind with under an hour of playtime.

League of Legends hit a peak concurrent count of 1.8 million for the September Carnival skin giveaway on September 19th. Other peaks include 1.67 million on the last day of summer, and 1.7 million on October 1st, a national holiday in China.

The 17173 report says that although Dota 2's head-start was slowed by Dota 2's open beta only beginning this past fall, the game has had a large increase in interest from esports activities and representation at events such as The International 3.

Source: 17173, Image Credit: League of Legends Esports