League of Legends tops the global MMO revenue tables as F2P dominates subscriptions

Look, we don’t know if it’s an MMO or a MOBA, so don’t shout at us.

That aside, however, SuperData research has named League of Legends as the world’s biggest MMO (or digital online game, as we’d probably label it) with year-to-date revenues of $946m for 2014, claiming 11.9 per cent of the market.

Venturebeat reports that World of Warcraft is currently ranked fourth ($728m, 9.1%) with World of Tanks in fifth ($369m, 4.6%), DOTA 2 ninth ($136m 1.7%) and Hearthstone tenth ($114m, 1.4%).

The sector is estimated to reach a total worth of $10.5bn in 2014 and grow to $12.8bn by 2017.

Online games currently account for 21 per cent of the overall digital games market, the firm claims.

Interestingly, free-to-play is now firmly in control of the sector, dominating subscription MMOs in every region. Free-to-play is now over three times bigger than subscription in both Europe and Asia.

Asia remains the biggest region for MMO games, accounting for $4.3bn followed by Europe at $3.1bn and North America at $2.1bn.