Overwatch Beats Out League of Legends as Most Popular in Korean Internet Cafes

Overwatch is immensely popular. It's reached more than 10 million players, and its characters are so loved by fans that they've been modded into Street Fighter V and imagined as Pokemon trainers. Now, Overwatch has become the most popular game in Korean internet cafes (aka PC bangs), according to Korean tracking site Gametrics (via Polygon).

Overwatch currently holds the top spot with over 30 percent of users playing it in internet cafes, while League of Legends sits at second with 27.8 percent. League of Legends fell a few months short of being on top for four years, as it's been the most popular since August 2012.

It'll be interesting to see how long Overwatch can hold on to the lead. It's set to receive a Competitive Play mode this month. Korean players were the first to try it, and you can check out the mode's gold weapon rewards here. Game director Jeff Kaplan says that Competitive Play ranking will be based on your skill, not your progression--it was the other way around during Overwatch's beta.

Developer Blizzard has been popular in Korea for a long time, thanks in most part to its real-time strategy games, StarCraft and StarCraft II. Korea has had a big competitive StarCraft scene for a long time--big enough to attract illegal match fixing. In fact, this past April, there was a batch of StarCraft II match fixers arrested by Korean authorities.

Late night talk show host Conan O' Brien visited Korea and took some time to check out its internet cafes. He played StarCraft, though he didn't seem to understand it very well.