Dota 2 vs. HotS vs. LoL #HO

League of Legends shot to the top of our playtime charts due in part to its wildly popular spectator modes, tournament livestreams, and world championships. DOTA 2 officially launched (after an extended beta) on July 9 and just concluded its own livestreamed championship event, The International, which ran August 7-11 and offered in-game incentives for viewers.

No doubt that had a strong effect on DOTA 2′s numbers. LoL’s Season 3 World Championships just finished up last week, giving Riot a big opportunity to recoup.

But Valve’s challenger has nipped at LoL’s heels for months now. DOTA 2 first passed LoL in total players on March 3 — coincidentally, right when LoL servers went down (possibly due to a denial-of-service attack). That gave DOTA 2 a free shot at taking the lead for a day. A few isolated days followed where DOTA 2 came within a few hundred players of LoL’s total…or leapfrogged it by six or seven thousand without warning.

Those events occasionally coincided with Riot releasing major patches — typically a source of downtime for online games. But even with servers up and running at capacity, Riot’s numbers have taken a substantial hit of late. Total LoL playtime hours have dropped 13% in the last 30 days. New members in that same timeframe are up a healthy 27%, but overall unique active members are down 6%.

That suggests older, established players are drifting away, and the new players coming in aren’t engaging as deeply.

By contrast, in the same 30-day window, DOTA 2 saw an 11% increase in unique active members while new signups were down 3%. It’s the exact opposite of LoL’s problem…players are engaging long term, but the influx of new blood is starting to dip.

Pushing into the first week of September, it looks so far like a fairly even split between days favoring League of Legends and those carried by DOTA 2. With the glow of The International pretty much faded and LoL’s incredibly popular World Championships happening last week, it’s likely LoL’s numbers will angle straight up again in the middle of the month. But the recent erosion of its player base should be a serious cause for concern if the trend continues after the World Championships. And DOTA 2′s numbers prove that if Riot Games opens the door, Valve’s increasingly popular MOBA will walk right on through