League of Legends is the most watched esports game of 2022

The well-known analytical service Esports Charts has presented statistics on the most popular esports games in 2022. As predicted, Riot Games' League of Legends took first place, well ahead of its rivals, despite the decline in the number of championships held.

Tournament views in Riot Games' iconic MOBA were 617k hours, down 7% from 2021. However, the 2022 World Championship set a new discipline record for the number of viewers and became the most popular tournament over the past year. Well, in total, League of Legends matches have collected 611.77 million hours.

On the second line is CS: GO - a cult game in the FPS genre from Valve. The number of match viewings in 2022 amounted to 448.4 million hours, which is 8.5% more than last year. The spring PGL Major Antwerp 2022 became the most popular tournament of the last year — the grand final of the major between Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan was watched by 2.1 million viewers.

Third place went to Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which also became the most popular mobile discipline . Last year, matches collected 331.4 million hours, which is 14.4% less than in 2021.

In fourth place is another game in the MOBA genre - Dota 2. The brainchild of Valve last year collected 313.6 million hours. This is 10% less than a year earlier. The peak of the online broadcast at The International 2022 amounted to a modest 1.7 million viewers, which is why the discipline noticeably sank in the final list.

Rounding out the top five esports games is VALORANT. The relatively young discipline continues to conquer the scene, collecting 283.4 million hours last year. Remarkably, this is 32.9% more than in 2021. Last season's main tournament was VALORANT Champions 2022, which peaked online at over 1.5 million concurrent viewers.

TOP 5 esports games by hours watched in 2022:

1. League of Legends - 611.77 million hours
2. CS:GO - 448.4 million hours
3. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang - 331.4 million hours
4. Dota 2 - 313.6 million hours
5. VALORANT - 283.4 million hours