In a huge turnaround for the PC gaming market, DotA 2 has surpassed League of Legends as the most played PC title in the West over the course of 2013. The statistics were reported by DFC Intelligence, and if they're accurate, could mean some big industry shifts.
The report was covered by GamesIndustry.biz, and drew its numbers from a variety of sources including real-time stats from over 23 million Xfire users. It is somewhat important to note that this ranking is for Western audiences only, and did not measure game data from Asia, a massive market in and of itself.
This is especially surprising news considering that Valve's DotA 2 has not even been technically released yet, and is still officially a beta build. It surpasses PC gaming heavy hitters such as StarCraft II, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and the aforementioned League of Legends.
However, DFC notes that while DotA 2 has experienced a near astronomical rise, it doesn't seem to have cut into LoL's popularity in a significant way. This seems to indicate that the two games may have very separate fanbases, or more likely, that gamers interested in the MOBA genre are playing both.
"Usage of League of Legends has been steady the past year and surprisingly the huge success of Dota 2 did not seem to cut into its popularity as much as would be expected," said DFC analyst Jeremy Miller.
Additionally, DotA's growth seems to be reflective of the industry as a whole, with PC gaming overall on an upward trend. The top 20 "core" PC games experienced a 22% growth during the first quarter of 2012, and 8% during the last.
DFC analyst David Cole stated, "the past year has seen numerous blockbuster PC games that have really helped drive usage. This includes among others Diablo III, Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 3, Minecraft, World of Tanks and Valve's Counter-Strike series."