League of Legends had been the number one video game in Korean internet cafes for almost four years. That all came to an end last month, as Overwatch overtook League of Legends for the lead.
It's a narrow yet decisive margin. League of Legends now owns about a 27.8 percent share of the market in Korean internet cafes, and Overwatch has carved out a 30 percent share, according to Gametrics charts.
Gametrics tracks more than 4,000 of South Korea's "PC bangs," which are internet cafes that offer PC gamers anytime access to the latest games and a place to hang out with other players.
Overwatch, released in late May, surged out of the gates and captured 7 million accounts in its first week. Two weeks after that, Blizzard announced that the count climbed to over 10 million players.
While Overwatch is off to an impressive start, in terms of its growing community, Riot Games' League of Legends, released nearly seven years ago, still has the bigger player base by far. League of Legends attracts 67 million players each month, 27 million each day and over 7.5 million concurrent players during peak hours.
So considering League of Legends' larger following, it's an especially good sign for Blizzard that the colorful hero-shooter Overwatch has bested the multiplayer online battle arena game in the PC bangs of Korea.
Despite the huge gulf between the two games in player count, Overwatch is set to become an even bigger threat to League of Legends' share of PC bangs and personal gaming machines worldwide.
Overwatch launched without its competitive play component, but that issue is being ironed out now. Last week, Blizzard launched a community test environment for the game's long-awaited competitive mode, and players have given the company more feedback about it.
"We're always listening to your feedback and, as a result, we'll continually iterate on Competitive Play," said Jeff Kaplan, game director. "Each season will get better, and we'll hope you'll stick with us for that journey."
Blizzard hasn't committed to an exact date for the release of the game's competitive mode but has previously stated it hopes to launch it before this month comes to a close.
Game director Jeff Kaplan is back to chat about our upcoming Competitive Play mode! | https://t.co/2JFJ8DAyjz pic.twitter.com/I0sQqSCs0B
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) June 17, 2016
Ten million Overwatch agents activated and counting! Thank you for daring to see the world for what it could be. pic.twitter.com/5nCe4e32XT — Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) June 14, 2016
