It may be free-to-play, but League of Legends made over $1.6 billion in revenue last year—making it the world’s highest-grossing digital game.
The numbers come from a digital games report by market research firm SuperData Research, which uses digital point-of-sale data from the publishers, developers, and payment service providers, alongside qualitative consumer insight, to put together its year-end report.
League makes all its money in-game, with champions, skins, and portraits available to purchase in the store with either Influence Points earned from playing games, or Riot Points purchased with real money.
In January 2014, developer Riot Games said that more than 27 million people played League every day, and its continuing popularity means this number has probably since risen.
League dominated its competition in the multiplayer online battle arena genre, earning Riot Games and its majority stakeholder Tencent around seven times more money than Valve earned from Dota 2, which brought in $238 million in 2015.
Valve also raked in $221 million from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Activision Blizzard earned $814 million from World of Warcraft despite its declining subscriber numbers, $355 million from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and $224 million from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.
