Arcane 2’s success prompts comparisons within a legendary game community
After the conclusion of Worlds 2024, the League of Legends community welcomed a new event: the release of Arcane 2 – the sequel to the animated series based on the stories of champions in Runeterra, the world of League of Legends. Part 2 of the series continues the events occurring in Piltover – Zaun and explores the origins of champions like Jayce, Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, and more. Similar to Part 1, upon its release, Arcane 2 became a hot topic worldwide, receiving a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, this has left many DOTA 2 fans feeling “bittersweet.” On social media Reddit, a player of the MOBA game considered a “rival” of League of Legends lamented: “Dragon’s Blood is a chaotic and terrible mess. Meanwhile, our TI is completely forgettable, and I indeed forgot about it. Comparing the quality to Worlds 2024 is like night and day. Every year, we get to see familiar faces at TI. Fly is already 31 this year. Valve didn’t even bother to spend a small amount to run the Late Game Show.”
Is DOTA 2 already “lagging” long before Arcane 2?
In fact, for many years now, DOTA 2 has been showing signs of “lagging” compared to League of Legends. The viewership of DOTA 2’s The International tournament has declined significantly for the third consecutive year. According to statistics, TI 2024 suffered a 17% drop. The tournament itself also failed to attract the huge prize pools it once did.
Meanwhile, with the continued success of T1 and Faker, League of Legends has seen a steadily increasing viewership year after year. This year alone, the finals of Worlds 2024 reached nearly 7 million views. The ongoing success of Arcane 2 shows that while Riot may not host tournaments with “sky-high” prize pools, it certainly has a much larger and stronger community than DOTA 2.
Therefore, it can be said that long before now, League of Legends had already outpaced DOTA 2 in terms of community growth. Arcane 2 is just another example illustrating the vast gap between the two games that have been “rivals” for so long.