League of Legends earns $600m in 2013, still comes in second in online revenue

By Ryan Fleming January 20, 2014

pc market grew in 2016 led by mobile and gaming league of legends — Image used with permission by copyright holder

League of Legends had a good year in 2013 – a very good year. Riot Games’ multiplayer online battle arena title earned an impressive $624 million in revenue, and yet it still came in a distant second to the South Korean online shooter CrossFire, which earned $957 million according to GI.biz.

Using info collected by SuperData, based on mictotransactions, three of the top five online games were from South Korea – CrossFire, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Maplestory. The other game in the top five is World of Tanks, which was first launched in Russia but is available worldwide.

There is a slight caveat to the list though. The numbers are all based entirely on microtransactions, and while World of Warcraft earned $213 million through this method alone, it also charges a monthly subscription fee which was not figured into the totals.

1. CrossFire – $957 million

2. League of Legends – $624 million

3. Dungeon Fighter Online – $426 million

4. World of Tanks – $372 million

5. MapleStory – $326 million

6. Lineage – $257 million

7. World of Warcraft – $213 million

8. Star Wars: The Old Republic – $139 million

9. Team Fortress 2 – $139 million

10. CounterStrike Online – $121 million

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…

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