Overwatch was already big on the day of its release, and as time passed it only grew bigger.
Blizzard’s extremely successful new product has now reached a new milestone, topping League of Legends as the most-played game in South Korean internet cafés.
A new week, a new king
Last week, Gametrics, which provides data from Korea’s most popular PC bang software, made public that Overwatch, for the first time, placed first on its website at 30.36 percent of the market. League of Legends had dropped to second place with 27.86 percent.
It’s an incredible development, especially when you consider Overwatch was released less than two months ago. League of Legends was sitting in the first place spot for about 204 weeks, almost four years.
This does not necessarily mean Blizzard’s first-person shooter has become the most popular game in Korea, but it does show how quickly the market is responding to a good product.
The fact that the game is still fairly new could also mean that the initial hype has pumped people to try the new, exciting game, which may have resulted in many players temporarily switching from their standard preferences to Overwatch.
Unlike League of Legends, which is free-to-play, Overwatch does require an initial investment of $40 for those who want to own the game. For others who only want to check out the game, paying about $1 per hour in Korea’s PC bangs lets them play with all heroes unlocked and a boost to the rate with which they earn in-game currency.
This factor will definitely affect the market share of the game in the future, at least in Korea.
With all this being said, GettGold, a different PC bang chain, already named Overwatch “the most popular title” nearly two weeks ago based its own statistical data. Even though using data from internet cafés (not Korean homes) may not show the whole picture, both reporting companies have solidified the obvious: Overwatch’s success is not slowing down anytime soon.
