Fortnite and League of Legends have a ton of similarities. Both games have come to define and revolutionize their respective genres, opening up massive competitive scenes and becoming a gaming household name, both holding over 100 million unique monthly users.
Each game attracts a distinct audience with unique characteristics in terms of player demographics. Let's do a review of what kind of people, and how many people play League of Legends and how many people play Fortnite.
League of Legends and Fortnite have both achieved massive popularity in the video game industry, though their roots are in different genres. League of Legends, developed by Riot Games, was released in 2009 and helped pioneer the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre. As a competitive, strategy-driven team-based game, it relies heavily on teamwork and skill to achieve victory in a 5v5 format. Over the years, League has built a passionate, loyal player base of hundreds of millions and a robust esports scene in each of its regions, on top the yearly Worlds Championship.
On the other hand, Fortnite by Epic Games is a free-to-play battle royale game that became a global sensation following its 2017 release. Fortnite’s core mode, Battle Royale, thrusts players into a survival competition, where they fight to be the last person standing. This format, coupled with Fortnite’s visual style, unique mechanics, and partnerships with other popular game franchises and celebrities has gathered a massively diverse audience. Additionally, Fortnite’s dynamic seasonal content updates have helped retain player interest and encourage a more casual player focus compared to League of Legends.
When examining which of these two games has a larger active player base, it’s important to note the difference in their target audiences, regional popularity, and gameplay longevity. Both League of Legends and Fortnite maintain impressive monthly active users, but they occupy different positions within the online gaming ecosystem. They have different demographics to appeal to, and exist in different markets.
Moreover, both games have incredibly explosive seasonal content. Since both games have a simple fundamentals, compared to their incredibly fluid metas, it's easy for veterans of the game to return to it if they see new content they'd enjoy.
League of Legends has long been a powerhouse in the gaming world, largely due to Riot Games’ commitment to consistent updates, balancing changes, and new content. These updates help retain player interest and attract new players, a factor contributing to the game’s impressive and steady player base.
While League of Legends’ player count has seen fluctuations, especially during seasonal events and major tournaments, it remains resilient. Average monthly players in League of Legends has remained with an average of 151 million over the year of 2023.
League of Legends playtime data and player counts have predictably peaked in 2020-2022 during COVID. At the start of 2019, the game had around 80 million players, and peaked at about 180-200 million players in 2020.
Aside from huge events like Worlds Championships, League of Legends player counts remains relatively stable as events go on. Although there's obviously a sawtooth pattern coinciding with patches and events coming out, the playerbase seems to stay stable at around the 150 million players mark.
Since the chinese League servers are pretty split off from other servers, it's a little hard to carry out surveys and get statistics from the majority of League of Legends players . However, we do have some demographics of the remaining 40% of players, courtesy of Celianna's 2022 survey.
League of Legends mostly has players in the 18-28 age range. Interestingly enough, Fortnite sports almost twice as much incidence of older players, with 2% of players being in the 35-50 age range.
Most League of Legends players have actually been playing for a long time. Given that there's a big amount of players playing since 6-9 years ago in 2022, it seems that most players started playing in 2013-2016 and have been playing since.
28% of players queue SUPPORT: Support is the most popular role in this survey. The results lean slightly more towards Support players because the survey was also posted in some specific Enchanter main subreddits. However, even without these votes, Support remained the most popular role. It is also the role most played by those who play with their romantic partner in Summoner's Rift, logically followed by Bot.
Support has a higher amount of female and non-binary players than other roles, and is also the role with the highest amount of people who main that role, excluding Fill.
19% of players queue MID: The second most popular role. Burst mages have a higher incidence of female players, while assassins have a higher incidence of male players. Most players who queue up as Mid do so because the champions they like to play are meant for the role. A meaningful amount of them also responded they like carrying games, though.
17% of players queue TOP: Top has a higher than average incidence of male-identifying players, and most respondents say they enjoy the 1v1 aspect of the lane. Juggernauts are by far the most popular class in any role, beating out even enchanters in Support.
16% of players queue BOT: Also known as ADC. Due to the fact that the role is mostly just Marksmen, an overwhelming amount of Botlane players play them. Just like Support, it has a higher concentration of players who play with their partner.
12% of players queue JUNGLE: Jungle, at the time of this survey, was the least popular role. In general, most people in the game won't even queue up Jungle as secondary, with only 19% of Toplane players queuing up Toplane-Jungle. As such, there's a higher amount of people who main the role in here, compared to other roles.
4% of players queue FILL: While not a true role in Summoner's Rift, Fill is something people will still pick as their main role. These players overwhelmingly stated that they play Fill because they like playing whatever their team needs. They are the biggest team players, taking up roles no one else wants to play.
Fortnite's playerbase is way more unstable than League of Legends. Depending on the day, the peak concurrent player count can go from 1-2 million all the way to 10 million.
In total, 221 million players play Fortnite each month on average, almost twice the amount of people who play League of Legends. The game has around 600 million registered players, some of which return to the game every now and then depending on events and new content.
Both Fortnite and League of Legends have secured their positions in the gaming industry, amassing large and loyal player bases that have continued to thrive even in a saturated market. With that said, Fortnite sports 25% more players, with 221 million monthly active players compared to LoL's 150 million.
Each game attracts a different type of player. League of Legends appeals to a globally diverse and competitive audience, while Fortnite skews to a younger audience and more casual players. League, overall, has an easier time retaining players for longer amounts of time, but is struggling to introduce new players to the format.
