For almost four full years, League of Legends has been the most-played game in Korea’s PC bangs, a sort of internet cafe-slash-gaming room where people pay a flat hourly fee to play online games. But that reign has come to an end, according to a recent Gametrics report (via Polygon), which said that the new king of the hill is—surprise!—Overwatch.
The report says that just over 30 percent of players opted for Overwatch in its most recent measuring, compared to just under 28 percent for League of Legends. It’s a huge turnaround, given the popularity of LoL in Korea, although both games remain miles ahead of the third-place finisher, Sudden Attack, which managed just an 8.3 percent share.
The big question, then, is less likely to be how much Overwatch can build out the lead (because LoL obviously isn’t going away anytime soon), but how long it can hold it. Will people stick around for the first-person shooting, or will the novelty wear off, and the old standby resume its dominance? One thing weighing in Blizzard’s favor is that Overwatch’s Competitive Mode still hasn’t been rolled out, so the really good stuff—if you’re into competitive gaming, anyway—is yet to come.
