League of Legends creator Riot Games has become the first Twitch channel to reach one billion views. Twitch is a popular video game streaming platform that many casual players and esports competitions use.
The company hit the milestone during a match between OpTic Gaming and FlyQuest on Sunday, June 24, which kicked off day two of week two in the 2018 North American LCS Summer Split.
The channel only broadcasts games from the NA and European regions, as well as matches from international competitions like the Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship. It has previously also broadcast games from Korea’s LCK, which is now being broadcast by OnGameNet. Korean games may return to the Riot Games channel with Riot Korea’s decision to broadcast the LCK itself and the announcement of League Park, a new studio in Seoul.
The oldest available video on the channel is from Sept. 8, 2012, while the most popular is part two of the Season Two World Championship Finals between the Taipei Assassins and Azubu Frost. That video has 657,130 views at the time of writing.
The achievement is a major one for the company that has faced heavy criticism in recent years. Frequent posts on the League forums and Reddit have called into question the game’s long-term survivability, so being the first channel to reach one billion views on Twitch is an indication that those posts may be off base.
Riot Games will continue to broadcast LCS games for the foreseeable future, as well as the upcoming World Championship beginning later this year.
