League of Legends stats: 1.4m players daily

To celebrate the end of League of Legends' first competitive season, developer Riot Games has released a few statistics on the free-to-play's game player base. Over 15 million accounts have been registered since it launches in October 2010, with an average of 1.4 million playing every day and a peak of 500,000 playing at the same time.

Over a million rounds of LoL are played every day, mostly 5v5. 3.7 million hours are spent in-game each day; as the average LoL match is hardly hours long, presumably a lot of chatting and lollygagging are going on.

Then there's over six million page views per day on the official website, nearly 100 million Youtube views, and numbers, numbers, numbers. Unfortunately, Riot offers no numbers on how many actually pay for premium perks and actually support the game financially.

League of Legends

"We are extremely proud and appreciative of the devoted League of Legends community which has grown substantially over the last year and a half," Riot CEO Brandon Beck said in today's announcement.

"We're committed to continuing to match their dedication with our relentless focus on ongoing enhancements to the player experience with great new features, content, and polish - and we have some very exciting surprises in store just around the corner."

League of Legends runs under a free-to-play model, letting players download and play for nowt. However, only certain characters are playable for free, with Riot charging microtransactions to permanently unlock them. The free selection rotates every week, keeping the game fresh but also introducing players to more characters they might fancy buying. Cosmetic custom skins and boosters are also sold. However, you can unlock characters and items with in-game currency earned by playing, if you're patient and persistent.

"In the end, free-to-play is just a business model. It is viable for some games and not well suited for others," Beck recently told Joystiq. "Ultimately, if our players feel like they are getting a good value, being well taken care of, and having a good experience, they will make purchases in whatever fashion they are comfortable with."