League of Legends breaks 27 million daily active players

A spokesperson for Riot Games told the Wall Street Journal today that the company's flagship MOBA League of Legends now averages 27 million daily active players worldwide, hitting peaks of up to 7.5 million concurrent players. That's a significant jump over the 12 million daily active players Riot reported in October 2012, suggesting the game has more than doubled its playerbase in just over a year. The rapid growth of the League of Legends community lends some credence to the development philosophies espoused by Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill on Reddit earlier this month. The outspoken Merrill responded to complaints that Riot was being "greedy" -- the company earned an estimated $624 million in revenue last year according to a recent report from market research firm SuperData -- and neglecting players, countering that Riot taps its coffers to invest heavily in supporting the community through video game broadcasting and professional eSports initiatives.