Recently Riot Games released some
rather stunning figures
about their F2P battleground game, League
of Legends

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style="font-style: italic;">The art has come a long way too,
with some of the older art being phased out entirely.



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- 1.4
million players log in daily

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-
Several million (!) games are played daily, with
an average game length of about 30 minutes each.

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There
are more than 15 million accounts

For a game that was flat out mocked
in beta by the MOBA/DOTA
community of the time, that’s downright amazing.  
So how did the zero become a hero? 
Well, maybe one of these reasons will give
you the urge to give it a try!

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style="">Free to play, but not boring after a week.

One
of the most frustrating parts
of most F2P games these days is that they simply don’t have the variety
of
content that keeps you playing.  You
get
into these games, enjoy them, but then you feel like you’ve seen and
done it
all.  Every style="">League of Legends game plays out
differently though—even doing
seemingly monotonous things such as fighting neutral AI monsters can
get crazy
in seconds with an enemy’s interference.

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style="">Continually improved upon on a regular
basis.

With
a patch coming out about every
10 days, and a new character for the game every 2-3 weeks, the game
just keeps
getting more complex.  Imbalances
and
flavors of the month are corrected quickly, and keep the game from
getting stale
due to overpowered nonsense.  Since
every
added character adds a new level of balance and complexity, the
dedication to
balance is of the utmost importance and pretty impressive for a F2P
game.

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style="">The cash shop is optional.

Absolutely
nothing gameplay related
can be bought exclusively with cold hard cash. 
Everything necessary to kick ass on the battlefield can be
earned in a
reasonable period of time aside from some of the more expensive
characters.  That’s
not to say there aren’t shortcuts and
cool cash only stuff available, but it’s all purely cosmetic or just
there for
convenience.

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style="">The competition keeps flailing about.

You
could say that this isn’t an
actual reason the game is awesome, but it definitely is a reason the
population
has surged.  Upcoming
competition such as
Valve’s Defense of the Ancients 2
and
Petroglyph’s Rise of Immortals are
both taking too long and just… not capturing people’s attention. style="">   The genre is hot
and the new kids on the
block are going to have to compete with a WoW-class titan at this rate.

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style="">The game makes sense.

The
biggest barrier to entry in
this game is the learning curve.  When
you don’t know what other heroes do, you’re at a disadvantage. style="">  In other games, you’re not
only at a disadvantage;
you are a liability to yourself and your team if you don’t understand
other
unintuitive concepts in addition. 
League of Legends super
simplifies
things, and makes it easier and more forgiving for new players. style="">  This process sacrifices
some depth, but the
depth that is missing due to these silly mechanics such as denying
(killing
your own units to prevent experience gain by your opponent) is only
relevant in
the higher leagues of play.

The end result is a perfect storm of
good decisions to make
people want to recruit their friends. 
I
myself have even done this, and told the very same people that the
other games
in the genre are too much for them at this point. 
So refer a friend, and give it a go. 
The numbers don’t lie, so I’m sure you’ll
find that Riot Games is doing something right!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our League of Legends Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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