【Animation Archives】

If there was any doubt before today,Animation Archives League of Legendsis definitely the most popular PC game in existence.

Over 100 million players are logging into League of Legendsevery month, Riot Games co-founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck told Polygon in an in-depth interview. The last time Riot Games released player numbers was back in 2014 when 67 million people were playing every month.

The second most-popular MOBA game, Dota 2, revealed a player base that's 13 million-strong in June, a fraction of League's numbers.

The fact that Leaguehas grown so much surprises its creators.

"We’ve kind of been in a reactionary mode," Beck told Phil Kollar. "Just like, holy crap, the game is getting really big and we have to keep up with the demands of our players."

Part of League of Legends' appeal is its free-to-play model (which Dota 2 uses as well), in which anyone can download and play the game for free. Players have the option to purchase in-game cosmetics and champions, which fuels the game's revenue.

League of Legendsalso has one of the largest followings in the esports scene, with leagues all over the world pulling thousands of fans to stadiums and hundreds of thousands or even millions more viewers online. Worlds 2015 -- the series world championships -- saw 4.2 million average concurrent viewers.

The game came out in 2009 and has been steadily growing its gigantic audience. So far, Leagueis Riot Games' only title, and the developers have been continuously updating it with new champions, gameplay tweaks and meta shifts to keep things from getting stale -- even if it occasionally upsets players and fans.

Riot has previously released game-altering patches at "sub-optimal" times, not allowing professional players enough time to practice before major playoff matches. Team owners have spoken out recently about how this hurts the competitive scene, stirring up a heated, public back-and-forth between those owners and Riot's Merrill.