Riot Games' League of Legends, the popular real-time strategy action game inspired by legendary gaming title World of Warcraft, has been revealed as the most-played PC game in North America and Europe.

According to research from DFC Intelligence in conjunction with Xfire, reported by Forbes, the title has stormed ahead of competitors such as Minecraft, Heroes of Newerth and even World of Warcaft itself to hit the top ranking, logging a staggering 1,292,502,456 plays between June 2011 and June 2012.

This does not take into account the game's massive popularity in Korea, where it is rapidly overtaking the legendary Starcraft II as the nation's favourite title.

League of Legends logged nearly 1.3 billion hours of gameplay over the course of the year, storming ahead of World of Warcraft, which registered around 600 million hours.

David Cole, DFC Intelligence chief executive officer, said: "The fact that online games such League of Legends eclipsed more than a billion hours of online game time in a year is simply incredible and a testament to the fundamental shift currently sweeping through the games industry."

He added that Diablo III - which was only released in mid-May, not long before the survey finished - still managed to record 172 million hours of usage.

"Usage of course declines after launch, but it is still doing quite well and may surpass World of Warcraft in usage over the next year," suggested Mr Cole.

Other popular PC titles that appeared on the list of most-played games over the 12-month period include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, StarCraft II, MapleStory and World of Tanks.

This marks the latest in a series of accolades bestowed upon League of Legends, which had roughly 32 million registrations in November 2011.

It has been named IGN PC Best Strategy Game 2009 and won a Golden Joystick award last year.ADNFCR-1220-ID-801407720-ADNFCR
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