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League of Legends surpasses 11.5 million active players
It looks like League of Legends has really hit the big-time. In a press release today, Riot Games announced that its popular free-to-play MOBA title has surpassed 11.5 million active players. To put that into perspective for you MMO gaming folks, when Blizzard last announced its World of Warcraft figures, the game weighed in at about 10.3 million active players. To put the icing on the cake, Riot notes that League of Legends has about 1.3 million players at peak times each day, whereas the current game du jour, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, reports about 250,000 concurrent players at peak times on Steam. Needless to say, Riot Games is more than pleased with this turn of events. The studio's CEO, Brandon Beck, attributes the game's success to the players, saying that "the incredible passion and dedication of our players is positively inspiring. Our community's boundless enthusiasm is why they are central to every decision we make at Riot." So good work, League of Legends fans, and good luck to those of you looking to make a name in Season Two. [Update: Click on past the cut for an enormous infographic detailing more stats on this milestone.] [Source: Riot Games press release]
The Game Archaeologist and the Forbidden RuneScape: The highlights
The Game Archaeologist is a lazy adventurer-slash-professor who dons his trademark cap for a weekly expedition through some of the most famous MMOs of the past few decades. Each month he chooses a different title to examine its highlights, talk with its developers, and invite its fans to share their experiences. I don't know about you, but when I first heard of RuneScape a few years back, it was sold to me as "the poor person's World of Warcraft." In fact, I knew several teens who couldn't afford a monthly WoW subscription and had to "make do" with RuneScape as an alternative, and so I mentally filtered the title as being outside of my sphere of interest and moved on with my life. That was when I started to crochet. All adventurers should know how to crochet as a survival trait. In retrospect, I should've ignored the stigma and checked it out for myself, because while the above may be true for some, RuneScape deserved a lot better than to be blown off by a dismissive comment. No matter how some have pigeon-holed it as being less than worthy of proper MMO status, RuneScape is a behemoth of a game in both size, features and playerbase. In fact, as of right now, RuneScape holds the #2 spot for players, boasting a population well into the eight digits. So as of this month, we shall endeavor to put away any ignorant stances as we explore one of the most popular and longest-running MMOs of our time. Join me after the jump as I share RuneScape's greatest highlights -- and exactly why none of us should underestimate this game again.
World of Tanks reaches half million active players
Wargaming.net's World of Tanks is different from your usual MMO, and it's not just because your avatar is 25 tons of steel and a large gun barrel instead of the standard orc or elf. Unlike most game makers, the World of Tanks devs are quite open when it comes to their playerbase, freely divulging the number of registrations and active players in various regions around the world. For example, the ongoing US/European closed beta test features 150,000 active players (and 200,000 registrations), while the Russian version of the title boasts 350,000 actives and a half million registered players. Taking a page from CCP's book, Wargaming.net has also released peak concurrent user numbers, which amount to 43,000 in Russia and just over 10,000 in the West. "It's just the beginning of a global legend. We see this game running for at least ten years in the West and Asia with tons of new content coming out every month," says CEO Victor Kislyi. You can find out more about World of Tanks on the official website, and don't forget to sign up for the beta.
