My opinion as to why League is so popular.

Hey. Just for the record. This is my opinion, I think that League is very popular for many, many other reasons besides the one Im going to talk about. Mine is sort of psychological. Note, Im not a psychologist, hell Im not even a legal adult yet. But still, I think that this impacts quite a bit in the games player base itself as well as its astoundingly high number. Sooo ill just throw some minutes here expressing myself while I wait for that sweet PBE update to finish.

[slayer-jinx-wink]

(Also, Ill use DOTA 2 as a comparative here. I do NOT think any of these are better. I think they are both different and original in their own ways, no game is better than the other(AGAIN IMO)).

So, ill start with a question. Do you feel proud of playing League? How many hours do you play per week? Id bet around 15 per week. Thats more or less my estimate. Thats a lot of time bruh. And a lot of people must feel proud of playing league.

However...

Lets be realistic here... There is a huge part that... isn't very proud about it.

Now, I LOVE this game. But sometimes I do HAVE that feeling of wasting my time that could be used on other things. Dont worry, I do have a social life of course, and I love my life (lets not make this a strange suicide note lol).

NOW, if you finally introduced into your brain the sad reality that a lot of people do feel uncomfortable playing so much time a game they absolutely love. Lets go into the actual topic. WHY is league so popular.

Now lets compare the two biggest MOBAS nowadays: DOTA and LoL.

Dota ended its BETA phase 4 years later than League (thats arguable since it was sort of an open beta), has a pretty big player base now. But let me tell you how this "late arrival" of Dota matters nothing at all when considering the games size. DOTA 2 was made by Valve, an ENORMOUS company. It has made many games I care deeply, and some which people consider among the best games of all time (Half-life, Portal...) underrated or overrated aside, they clearly have a lot of money. So DOTA 2 had a very good ground to startup, furthermore Valves Steam platform helps a ton on the marketing of the game. Cross promotions with other games of Valve made it easier for people to know the game and try it out (since its free) and Steam is know to be one of (if not THE) biggest gaming market platform out there. So its easy for DOTA to show itself off. League on the other side, had to make this fame. Which is rather hard. But the game has its charm which allowed a lot of people to clutch with it since Season 2, Season 1 even BETA.

So Dota, kinda has the advantage, its been like 3 years more or less since DOTA 2s release, IT should've caught up by now. But it actually didn't, LoL still has a bigger player base.

Now this because of many things. However, my opinion stems off the feeling I talked about earlier. That feeling of wasting your time. Its only natural that people want their time to be worth it. You want to play, and get something from it. Something... worth it. Like... a champion.

Dota gives out all of the heroes for free. Although you might say, "Oi mate! Thats much better!". It actually isnt as good as you probably think.

When you win a game in Dota, you have drop chance of getting cosmetics for your heroes. But thats a chance, most times you wont get anything at all. Now that sucks, it kinda makes you think in a sort of way "I wasted 60 minutes of my time, turning around that game after a rough start, and I got NOTHING?!". However in League you always get something, IP. Influence points. Yes in the moment it isnt very "sexy" (now its a bit sexier thanks to Hextech Keys and masteries), but you got SOMETHING at least.

Now the effect of "keep playing" is set by actually buying the champions. You save up your IP, and look forward to getting a new champion. So your reward lies in the new champion. A new play style, so you play and play and play. Get the new champion, play it a ton. Get bored of it. However you saw this guy playing a champion you liked. So you pick interest on that champion and start saving up for him. You play play play, buy, get bored, lock new target, play play play. Hence and repeat. Its the old school consumerism tactic, with a twist. Furthermore, it never ends, since riot creates content all the time, so whilst you're trying Fizz out, Ivern comes out. A new opportunity, a new play style, new fun. Later into the game, once you get all the champions or just simply got all the champions you're interested in (which takes 2 good years). Your focus will probably turn to ranked and LP (League Points) or maybe the hextech system.

Dota doesn´t have this system. Instead, it gives you all the heroes for free in one swoop. And you can try more things, quicker, and therefore get bored of the game much faster (which actually happened to me, I played Dota 2 in Beta and a bit afterwards, and got bored rather quick. League, on the other hand got quite stuck with me). This doesn´t happen in League since you have an extensive period between the "try outs" in which you grind to actually get the allowance of trying out a new champion.

About SMITE and HotS. Smite is extremely original in its own, a 3rd person Moba? Genius! But that originality stops there, I think that the design of their gods is rather uninteresting in my opinion (game play wise, art wise i think they're wonderful). I think they are pretty simple and some straight out boring. Their items feel hollow and uninteractive at most. HotS is rather new, and not progressing as well as many expected. I dont like it much because it doesn't have much variety when it comes to personalized play styles with its heroes (only having talents is rather limited). So, despite having the same system as League, I doubt they will ever get close to Leagues standards of popularity.

**TL:DR

You play this game that you love, a lot of time. You probably (but not surely) feel guilty for playing it so much. Therefore you have the unconscious tendency of wanting to get something for your time "wasted". In DOTA you're not rewarded very well or as consistently as LoL. LoL consistent system of rewards satisfies this psychological feeling of waste of time and therefore encourages people to keep playing, without them even noticing. This game recycles itself very well with new content every month, and has managed to age successfully. This helps improve this rewarding system, making it so that people tag along with the game as much as they want.**

ANYWAYS, PBE is ready. So time to try new Kat! [slayer-jinx-catface]

Still, I hope someone agrees with me. Once again its my opinion (jic), and this is only ONE aspect of MANY that make this game so good and popular. Its original concepts of game play and art, its player base dedication, its player base in the media (Youtube has helped League a TON to develop its fan base), the constant updates made by riot with reworks, visual redesigns, fantastic lore, great skins, the Loading Screens (They impact MUCH MORE than you think, I find myself looking for them in Youtube every once in a while because if its amazing animations and music, have you seen Jhins and Kindreds, masterpieces).

Have a good day, and sorry for the text wall!