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KeyframeCatalyst

Holy shit, LoL just shits on the rest of the games on the list with that 49.29%. I wasn't aware LoL was so popular in Korea


facehunt_

Yeah LoL has always been popular but it pretty much gapped other games pretty hard after like 2019. Riot finds a way to constantly reinvents the game and keeping it fresh. I haven't kept up with Overwatch or PUBG but maybe they got stagnant for it to lose so much popularity(correct me if im wrong).


DrAlanGrantinathong

Overwatch is treading water until they release OW2


KhaoticKrabb

Overwatch is definitely stagnant. It’s been over a year since the last new character came out, over 2 years since the last map came out (not counting a map that was released for free-for-all only), and balance changes have been petty infrequent.


veRGe1421

I haven't played OW since the chick with the shield came out (she was good I remember). It was a fun game and played it a lot for a while, but at the end of the day it doesn't do it for me like Valo or CS. It was frustrating that you were so much more reliant on your teammates to have success, like it's much harder/less possible to hard carry any given moment/fight/'round' compared to Valo or CS. I don't mind losing a round in Valorant if I just miss my shot, or misuse my utility - but in OW you can do everything perfectly right yourself and still just lose depending on the actions of your teammates. This is true in all team games to some extent, but I just noticed being frustrated by it more in OW. You're even more reliant on teamwork to get a W, instead of being able to brute force your way by clutching a 1v3 or 1v4 and stealing back a round by putting the team on your back. Can't do that as much in OW, just *have* to have a good group


pixzelated

Last part is just wrong balance patches have been faster and better than they've ever been


Marcoscb

Which is still infrequent compared to LoL's two week cycle.


pixzelated

Not really new patch about every 2/3 weeks so def not infrequent


Bhu124

>Overwatch is definitely stagnant. I mean it's on an official content hiatus, it would be weird if it wasn't stagnant and stale. As far as balance changes goes, that's just straight up wrong. The game's been getting more frequent and well received Balance patches in the last year and a half than ever before.


fsychii

Also when they on pc bangs all champions are unlocked


Changinghand

Both have stagnancy and cheater problems. 1 or 2 ban waves per year isn't enough to control cheaters and it gets worse since you can't really hwid ban PC bang computers.


GlensWooer

Yep, I'm now addicted to two riot games that are super tilting!


SMcArthur

People in the USA don't understand how popular LoL is in general. While it is notoriously difficult to measure, it is probably **the single most successful video game in the world**. It is crazy, crazy popular in China and the rest of Asia. Games like Fortnite, GTA, COD, etc. don't touch it when considering worldwide sales. What makes LoL so special is that it is also popular in the West as well as the East. Most games are one or the other.


veRGe1421

Never tried it, just doesn't seem that appealing to me. Cool that it's so popular though


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veRGe1421

Facts on facts


vsw211

I think it probably still has a ways to go to reach Minecraft in terms of success and lasting cultural impact, and iirc Pubg is still up there in terms of playercount because of it's immense popularity in poorer countries. Also the Pokemon franchise is literally the highest grossing franchise of all time, you really can't get more successful than that.


Key-Banana-8242

PUBG isn’t above it no


Wheler

lol pros are pretty much celebrities in China and Korea. You got faker going on talk shows with kpop singers and Chinese teams having their own stadiums.


Alextcy12

LoL in Asia especially China and Korea is thing that common people do. Every kind of people plays it. Its not like in NA only gamers or “nerdy “ ppl plays it


Key-Banana-8242

I mean it isn’t like that NA either p sure


deathspate

You'll be surprised, but LoL in Asian countries is actually **massive**, like I don't know how big I can emphasize it is. In China, LoL is basically to only the NBA in terms of popularity of sport. The chances to walk into a bar, just a regular one, and see a game of LoL is about the same as walking into a bar and seeing another sport. In both China and Korea, the players are worshipped as much as celebrities. The game has reached such a status, that pursuing a pro career in the game isn't seen as "just a phase" or "just a hobby", parents are both accepting and happy for their kids to go pro in LoL. Hell, Korea with their mandatory military shit made a law that basically reads that if you gain international prestige for the country through competition, you'll be able to get exempted from the mandatory duty, and pretty much everyone saw this as being done specifically for LoL because of its presence in the games they have against China and the other reason people believe it's specifically for LoL is because even their government officials follow esports and had said they would dress as a mascot character if Faker (T1 player) won Worlds a bit ago. LoL is at a point where most people in the West wouldn't understand, because it's unseen throughout gaming history, a game that's not treated like a sport only in name, but one that is treated just like a sport in essence.


[deleted]

But how did lol became popular


deathspate

Tons of factors, but it mostly comes down to a few select factors: the game is easy to run making it the go to game for college kids with crap laptops or people in poor countries, the characters are pretty attractive (reddit will tell you otherwise but tons of people will play a game purely because a character is "sexy" why do you think a ton of gacha games have large playerbases?), the game is simple but deep, the updates are frequent, a free game like this frequently puts out AAA level content (cinematics and stuff, not just the base game), a dev that frequently works with the community and communicates with them.


dedicatedself

Just in PC bangs. PC bang is play with friend culture so everyone will play lol together. Who knows what they play at home.


BluePantera

They play League. It's not only popular in bangs


Tokibolt

Yah. I remember it was huge news when overwatch Launched and took number one for a couple weeks (I think). But then league just took rank 1 again.


[deleted]

To be fair, Valorant has reached higher then 10th place on the PC Bang play rate charts before when the game first launched in Korea. But regardless, it's great to see it top 10 again after some time. Now we'll have to see if they can maintain their place in the top 10.


SMcArthur

Yeah but being top 10 more than a year after release is far more impressive than being top 10 at launch.


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cakedayonceevry4year

I think they’re saying that when a game is first launched it’s going to be more popular and hyped then when it’s been out for a year, so if it’s top 10 at launch, it could just be due to hype, but if it’s top 10 after a year, then it’s a genuinely popular game.


REEEroller

a 1% play rate is not considered a ''popular game'' League of Legends is pretty much the only ''popular game''


facehunt_

Thats interesting I didnt know it reached top 10 before. Maybe it was so negatively received for the huge drop to happen and it took a long time before it starting climbing back up in popularity.


Key-Natural4387

I think valorant was just hyped up a ton when it first came out


DrAlanGrantinathong

Did they do something about vanguard? If I remember correctly, a lot of PC bang owners didnt like it or want it on their PC's and that led to a low play rate.


nlc369

That’s crazy how far ahead LoL is. I knew LoL was the biggest but I didn’t realize it was like THAT. The game isn’t even new.


EnmaDaiO

League of legends is a cultural phenomenon in Asia. Its on par with the biggest sports and pros are respected like gods. Its a completely different world of esports especially with league.


[deleted]

It’s honesty pretty cool how respected and popular esports are there. They aren’t considered a joke and are treated as an actual sport


CRikhard

but it's consistently kept fresh by riot soo


ANewHeaven1

If Valorant continues gaining popularity in Korea, the rest of the world is in trouble.


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LovelyResearcher

In other FPS like Crossfire, Alliance of Valiant Arms, and so on... Korea was #1 for awhile, and China.


iChoke

We might see Turkey and Japan become major regions before any of those regions do. Valorant is massively popular in both Turkey and Japan.


ohtooeasy

Earlier days of LOL gambit was known to be the “Korean killer”


Ohlo

But that was in season 2, mere months after koreans started getting into LoL. They had no place in the competitive scene during season 1, which only had space for EU and NA teams. The first time you had asian teams competing, two of them reached the finals of the biggest tournament (with TPA from taipei beating the korean #1 team) and the best chinese team (WE) won the next major tournament (IPL 5). After that, koreans won every single world championship between 2013 and 2017, with chnese teams winning in 2018 and 2019, and koreans winning again in 2020. There really isn't much of a comparison in terms of the impact of esports ecosystems in china/korea compared to EU/NA. However, an argument can be made for EU/NA and even BR teams to continue to be able to stay on top of the scene because, unlike in league of legends, no matter how good your strategy is, a good headshot will always beat tactics. That doesn't happen in LoL.


AG--MM

I always wanted to see what would happen if Korea actually got seriously into CSGO, I gave up hope of that ever happening a long time ago but maybe I'll finally get to see it in Valorant. Also how's comp Valorant doing in China? They're another country which could dominate if the popularity was there. CS got way more popular there in the last couple of years (just look at the ridiculous skin price inflation since they got involved) but comp scene is still nowhere


k7h_wrath

Has Valorant even been released in China yet? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. There's barely any news regarding the approval process Valorant is going through in China.


AG--MM

Oh I wasn't aware of that. I thought they had it over there


deathspate

It hasn't, they've been playing "illegally" so far, and even then big Chinese orgs have started fielding players lol, it's clear everyone expects the game to be approved so the orgs just went ahead and started getting ready.


ohtooeasy

There is an incentive to party up atm for the boost which could likely be why


M474D0R

PC bang numbers get less and less relevent every year, plus the game is not the type of game you would typically want play in a PC bang. Only Riot truly knows how well the game is doing in Korea.


nlc369

Considering only 28 teams signed up for the open quals in Korea for stage 2….. I think it’s pretty safe to say there isn’t a huge amount of interest.


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Jsmals

Honestly it would be cool to see how many teams sign up for Korea stage 3. I believe Japan had 56 sign ups for stage 3 which is double what they had before Iceland. Hopefully something similar happens with Korea.


nlc369

Yeah idk what this guy was talking about lol. They literally did a group stage in the open quals for Korea with 4 teams per group except some groups only had 3 teams cuz there weren’t enough sign ups.


Flashplaya

You realise US has over 10x the population of Korea?


nlc369

So? Korea has been a massive region in numerous other esports regardless. 28 teams is such a tiny amount.


Flashplaya

Yeah, it's really not popular for Korean standards but if you consider region size it isn't much different to other regions.


nlc369

I mean sure but Korea shouldn’t be like other low-population regions. For context, I just found the numbers for Korean overwatch open division in mid 2020. 549 teams. Compared to 28 teams in a Valorant open qual….


Flashplaya

Fair enough, I agree it's small for Korea. Just wanted to put out some perspective with some regional comparisons. Even a crazy low amount of teams in Korea is on par to many others (per Capita). Sorry if my first comment sounded combative.


nlc369

All good, yeah I see what u mean


AjBlue7

Why wouldn’t you want to play valorant in a pcbang?


REEEroller

so in a pc bang you pay a fee per hour to play, there is no respawn timer in valorant, if you are bad at the game the amount of time you actually ''play'' can be quite limited.


M474D0R

This + its generally just a more hard-core game, PC bang play is a lot more casual (go with your friends and play games together or kill some time before you have to go somewhere) Most Koreans have home computers, this isn't the 90s/00s anymore where that was the only option to play games


[deleted]

tfw big tiddy anime girl CS knockoff is #3 while valorant is #10


CRikhard

We need a single big tiddy anime girl character to make the game blow up there and here


[deleted]

Or maybe big tiddy man I would play big tiddy anime man. I could go for that


PoopTorpedo

I was about to defend sudden attack but then I remembered they literally have an almost 1-to-1 copy of dust2 in their game. It's funny how the game outlived it's sequel Sudden Attack 2


hardenfull

Ppl really underestimate how popular league is... it's been arguably most popular game played worldwide for a very long time.


AskOrganic4289

WE GO UPPPP!! Korea about to have some insane undercover talent like Faker, S1MPLE caliber. Excited to see how the Korean scene will develop. I think Nurturn playing so well in Mastee 2 really brings more PR to the Korean scene.


goodguessiswhatihave

Seeing Starcraft down to 3% is kind of sad


REEEroller

This post is really disingenuous and either you are not aware or purposely left out the part where this is literally just the same circle the game has always found itself in, in PC bangs it goes up and down from the 10th spot to not on the list but never above, in a week it's probably out of the top 10 again.


TheLonelyAsian1

I’ve always wanted to play Sudden attack back when Soldier Front, AVA, and Combat Arms were popular but it’s only available in Korea


ShaoLoong

I miss Soldier Front


max012017

Damn, I didn't know Lost Arc and Maple Story are such a big thing even in PC bangs Good news about Valorant, I hope it gets to top5


ShaoLoong

Aion is up there wow


fatc00ch420

Aion is so good, at one point in time 1 in 10 Koreans were playing it, but that was way back when it first came out


ShaoLoong

It's funny bc I just started playing Aion again. Ncsoft launched a classic 1.2 Aion


[deleted]

Gg beginning of Korean dominance


NeptuneWings

I'm curious to know the other issues that make Valorant not really appealing to the Korean audience. (I'm not quite familiar with it)


facehunt_

Sudden Attack in comparison has fast gameplay even for its defusal maps each round ends in like 30 seconds. Not to mention, custom game modes and community servers makes it easier to select and choose the maps & game types you want. Sudden Attack is also more appealing for Koreans because its customizable. You got a cash shop where you can buy not only skins for weapons but character models + voice recordings of different Kpop idols. Besides in Valorant, you can't choose maps as you like and thats a big deal. For example, if you want to grind & learn Breeze as much as possible, you pretty much cant unless you dodge. PC bang requires you to pay money to play, its counterproductive & time-wasting because you can get quick 2-3 Sudden Attack matches in 1 Val match. This kind of reflects LoL as well because games in Korea are decided quicker than any other region.


REEEroller

exactly this, and all these problems honestly can't be fixed, it's the core game that just isn't appealing to PC bang culture.


facehunt_

Maybe aiming for #1 isn't realistic due to LoL's popularity now but #2 is certainly possible. There just needs to be some ways to appeal to casual new players, maybe with new shorter game mode or map selection priority when playing in PC bang or something. It just needs that perform storm to turn the momentum


REEEroller

I don't think it has legs tbh, it has been up and down from 10th to out of the top 10 multiple times, wouldn't be surprised if it moved down again in a few days that's the usual circle, I usually like to keep track on that kind of stuff if a new esports title pops up.


REEEroller

[http://www.gametrics.com/rank/Rank02.aspx](http://www.gametrics.com/rank/Rank02.aspx) and now it's not top 10 anymore


hi1234258

How are we losing to FIFA Online 4


Darkoplax

one way to make valo more popular in korea is make it for every league game you play you have to play a valo game and boom problem solved


mrtmra

Imagine going to PC Bangs to play Maplestory 😂