League of Legends generated $1.5 billion revenue in 2019

League of Legends also gathered more players than Fortnite.
Image via Riot Games

League of Legends took in another massive revenue haul in 2019, bringing in $1.5 billion in total.

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That represents roughly $300 million less than the number one game of 2019, Fortnite, according to SuperData study. The global games market reportedly generated $120.1 billion in 2019.

League generated the second-highest amount of revenue among free-to-play PC games behind Fortnite, out of a total of $20.6 billion generated by free-to-play games on the platform.

But mobile games are ahead of League with Dungeon Fighter Online and Honour of Kings ($1.6 billion each generated in 2019) and the mobile games market earned three times more revenue than free-to-play PC games, a trend that is prospected to increase in 2020.

Related: CS:GO hits highest player peak since 2017

League of Legends players are more than twice less likely to spend money in the game than Fortnite players, the study finds.

It also shows that the majority of revenue earned for mobile and free-to-play PC games comes from Asia and prospected a four-percent growth for the global games market in 2020, with $124.8 billion that would be generated.

League of Legends earned $100 million more in 2019 than last year SuperData reported $1.4 billion revenue in 2018 for the MOBA game, but still less than in 2017 ($2.1 billion) and 2016 ($1.7 billion).

Related: The 2019 League of Legends Worlds finals peaked at 44 million viewers

Riot continued investing in its competitive scene in 2019 by creating several national and collegiate leagues all over the world and launching the first LCS season as a franchised league. Despite the stabilization of its World Championship viewership (21.8 million average viewers in 2019 compared to 19.6 in 2018 and 44 million peak viewers for each year), 2020 will likely be more watched thanks to several venues in China and the finals hosted at Shanghai’s 55,000-seater stadium.

Though League of Legends revenue has more or less plateaued since its release a decade ago, Riot itself may earn more in 2020 and in the coming years thanks to the release of other games such as Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift, Riot Forge-published games, and numerous other projects.


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Author
Eva Martinello
Eva is a Staff Writer from Paris. Her part-time job is charging into walls with Reinhardt. She has been covering League of Legends esports and other titles for six years. She still believes in a Moscow Five comeback. She also fell into the MMO pit and covers FFXIV and Genshin.