At League of Legends , interest usually declines at the end of the year. When the LoL Worlds are played, the year in Riot Games’ MOBA usually comes to a close. 2021 is different: The Netflix series Arcane boosts interest in LoL worldwide. Currently, global interest in LoL is at its highest level in 2 years, even surpassing Fortnite. Especially the mysterious character Vander seems to attract huge interest worldwide.
This is how interest in LoL usually develops:
- Usually, LoL peaks in October of a year, as it did in 2019 and 2020: With the beginning of the LoL Worlds, the huge event in League of Legends, interest rises, remains relatively high during the duration of the championship, and then falls steeply.
- This is not only because the Worlds themselves are such a large event, but Riot Games uses the championship as a kind of “fair” to present important announcements and changes. The legendary video “K/DA – Pop/Stars” was released on YouTube on November 3, 2018.
- In 2021, global interest in LoL is developing somewhat differently.
What is different in 2021? This year, there was a slight spike in interest at the start of the Worlds. But while the Worlds were ongoing, global interest in LoL flattened out.
Strangely, there was another increase from October 31 to November 6, and it has been growing again every week since then. This week, LoL reached the highest global interest since October 2019, so in 2 years.
A similarly large spike occurred only in November 2017. LoL is currently experiencing an extremely strong resurgence in popularity.
Netflix series extends the hype around LoL beyond the LoL Worlds
What is the reason? This time, LoL did not use the final of the Worlds as a conclusion to a campaign, but as a springboard for the Netflix series Arcane, whose first episode was shown in the same stream as the final of the LoL Worlds.
If we look at what people have been searching for in the last 30 days regarding LoL, we see that there is great interest in 3 characters from the Netflix series Arcane. Some of the characters in Arcane have particularly captivated the fans:
- People are searching for Vander – a character that does not exist in LoL. There is speculation whether this could be a hidden LoL champ.
- People are searching for Viktor – who undergoes an exciting transformation in Arcane.
- The third character that is frequently searched for is “Powder” – as it becomes clear throughout the series which LoL champ is behind the character.
Where is the interest in LoL highest in the last 30 days? In South Korea, the homeland of LoL: There, interest in LoL is about 3 times as high as in China and about 9 times more than in Germany.
In South Korea, LoL is a mix of a national sport and a national treasure. A politician has even proposed to treat Faker like a national ambassador and grant him special rights.
What is interesting in Germany: Here in Germany, we have a special case with LoL. People are, of course, searching for Arcane, Viktor, Vi, and Jinx – but in the last 7 days, people in Germany particularly searched for “Eintracht Spandau,” the project of influencer HandOfBlood.
Additionally, the second French league, LFL, and especially the club Kcorp are now suddenly interesting. A key LoL player is transferring there.
After 3 years, LoL is back close to Fortnite
This makes it particularly noteworthy: Through this leap, LoL is now back in striking distance of Fortnite: The online shooter from Epic Games had surpassed LoL in January 2018. After more than 3 years, LoL is now back very close to Fortnite worldwide and could possibly surpass it next week.
We have covered in detail the rise of Riot Games on MeinMMO:
The studio behind League of Legends, Riot, is currently becoming the new Blizzard
