10 MOBA Games Like League of Legends You Have to Play. How to make a game like league of legends

This is a free multiplayer video game in the online battle arena. In the game, the player is placed in the perspective of a giant transforming robot that hovers over the battlefield.

League of Legends: Wild Rift Monetization Strategy Revealed

League of Legends has dominated esports for over a decade.

The mobile gaming industry is booming, so it’s time for this game to join the competition.

Like its PC version, League of Legends: Wild Rift claims to be completely free.

Is it really free? How do I get paid for the game?

In this Wild Rift monetization analysis, I will answer these and many other questions about the game.

Data for this article is obtained from an internal source unless otherwise noted.

League of Legends: Wild Rift Overview

League of Legends: Wild Rift by Riot Games was a highly anticipated title. This game has been slowly developed since October 2020, region by region. From March 29, US players were finally able to try.

The game belongs to the MOBA strategy genre. Unlike PC, the MOBA market is not that crowded on mobile devices, especially in the Western market. Wild Rift only has a few main competitors: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Honor of Kings .

Over 35 million people have already downloaded the game, and its revenues have exceeded 21.8 million .

At the moment, South Korean players are in the first place. However, it looks like the American audience will soon take the helm. In just a few days on the market, the US audience has already taken 2nd place in total players spending! If that were to happen in a few days, we can’t wait to see what the US numbers will be in a few months.

You’re probably wondering – why did Riot create this game? What is the target audience of the game?

Here’s what Wild Rift design director Brian Feeney says about it.

“Playing League of Legends on other platforms has been something players have been asking and wanting for a very long time for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s the fact that it fits better with their lifestyle, due to time constraints, or the fact that many people no longer have access to a computer .”

You got it. There is no doubt, however, that Wild Rift also attracts a lot of new players.

In order to attract the right target audience, the game puts a lot of emphasis on advertising. You will recognize Wild Rift commercials thanks to cinematic shortcuts of the heroes and thrilling gameplay.

As for the game itself, I was curious to see how this game is doing:

• Expectations for the PC version
• Beginner friendliness
• Earning strategy

To find out all this, I played this game and analyzed it for you.

Items provide special bonuses and abilities that enhance the character of the player, also known as gods. Of course, you will have to increase your character’s skills and defeat enemies to win the game.

1. Dota 2

Dota 2 is the perfect multiplayer online battle arena. Matches are played between two teams of up to five players. Players occupy and defend their base located in separate parts of the map.

In the game, choose a hero with unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses. During the game, collect experience points and items to upgrade your hero to defeat the enemy. Destroy the other team’s “Ancient” – large structure in their base to win the game.

In 2020, it was named the fourth most played game on Steam. Would you like to miss it? Try your luck; you will like it. However, this is one of the most difficult MOBA games, so it may take a while to master the art of playing it.

2. Heroes of the Strom

This is an action RPG game. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows, macOS and Classic macOS. In the strange abyss of colliding universes known as the Nexus, team up in teams of five and fight.

Remember that the main goal of the game is to destroy the main structure known as the “King’s Core”. You control the hero you choose at the start of the game. Individual heroes have distinctive abilities and playstyles.

Heroes become more powerful during the match, collecting experience points and unlocking “talents”. These talents offer new abilities or enhance existing abilities.

Playing time can vary from 25 to 40 minutes depending on all factors, so you can play a quick game or a deep, intense match that will test your true skills. The eSports prize pool in HON Pre Season of Professional League 2015 was $ 236,185.14, so go ahead and get some money by playing MOBAs!

League of Legends MMO regions

Second, it’s only when the game is released that we’ll be able to explore across Runeterra as the MMO collapses. Fortunately, Riot has worked hard to make League of Legends as rich as it gets, with many famous regions.

In fact, there are thirteen named areas that Riot currently selects heroes from. We’ll likely see the same regions being selected for the new MMO title.

Major regions can be more “civilized” areas like Demacia, Noxus or Piltover, while fantastic regions like Bilgewater, Shurima and lovely Bandle City can also be important to online play.

These are all thirteen regions of Runeterra:

Riot Games may choose to start with just some of them ⁠ – they picked only eight as “card regions” for Legends of Runeterra ⁠ – but we’d expect them to eventually add all of League of Legends’ iconic areas to their planned online game.

There are tons of fantastic places in the world of Runeterra for an MMO to discover.

League MMO’s game map

There is no official confirmation that League of Legends MMO will copy Runeterra exactly, but we’d be very surprised if it didn’t. This means that players will be able to navigate a huge fantasy land by fast travel or simply by traversing lands and regions.

Here’s what the League of Legends MMO map might look like in-game:

A complete map of Runeterra, the world of League of Legends.

Blue crumbs can be obtained by playing and even more by winning. They are used to buy champions. Consequently, this currency makes all players feel equal and motivates them to win matches.

Play a Little at a Time, But Return For a Long Time

This is called retention, and it’s a hallmark of F2P games: these games are designed to be played little at once, but very often, for months or even years if possible. Why? There are several reasons for this:

• To frustrate the player and encourage him to purchase items that will allow him to continue the game.
• To motivate the player to log in daily. Advertising is a source of revenue for F2P and advertisers are looking for high exposure.
• To fight boredom. F2P games often involve repetitive actions.

What are the key design mechanisms used for this purpose?

Open loop. Tadhg Kelly, an accomplished social gaming consultant, explains that many social games are based on our innate desire to get things done, close the loops. These games offer the player to perform a number of small tasks: planting carrots and harvesting them, completing the construction, gathering enough resources to complete the upgrade, “employing” enough friends to fill the building, etc.

The player never has enough resources – energy, gold, wood, oil, etc. – to complete them. These can be obtained for free, but take time to build up, so the player knows when they log out of the game that they are leaving behind unfinished quests, open loops.

Her dearest desire is to go back to the game to close the open loops. And of course, as soon as the loop is closed, another one is created. It’s a never-ending story. Well-designed F2Ps generate an infinite number of tasks. As a result, the player logs into the game a lot, but only plays for a few minutes.

A variation on the open loop mechanism can be found in Mobster or Mafia Wars. Let’s use Mobster as our example. The player’s role is to manage the career of the would-be gangster. From a player’s perspective, the goal of the game is classic: develop your character, unlock new equipment, and climb the ranks. The starting point is quite simple: the player can complete missions or attack other players to earn money which he uses to buy equipment.

However, the equipment generates maintenance costs. The player must therefore invest in real estate that will provide regular rental income. In order to earn enough money and pay for lucrative real estate, the player must undertake increasingly difficult missions, requiring more expensive equipment, and so on. The player gradually discovers new features: an ever wider range of missions, mini-games, more equipment and the need to create a gang composed of his Facebook friends.

Soon, however, the player discovers a devilish mechanism created by the developers to make him return: the hardware generates expenses for maintenance. I need a lot of cash to keep them. His properties generate income to do this, but this money attracts another player to attack in his absence. Obviously, equipment whose maintenance costs are not covered cannot be used for protection.

• Player resource limitation. To perform the key actions offered by the game, a player must spend the game’s resources: health, stamina, food, movement points, whatever. These resources are used to perform rewarding activities such as harvesting, activities that generate income. The trick is that they wear out pretty quickly. They regenerate naturally but very slowly. This way the player will find themselves in a frustrating situation of having to wait a while before resuming a satisfying activity. This mechanism is quite common in F2P games. The main exceptions are MMOs and action games.
• Reward for players who log in regularly. Pet Society offers a lottery that can be used once a day. In CityVille, the player receives a gift of increasing value if he logs in every 24 hours.
• Obligatory tasks. As with the popular Tamagotchi toy from the 90s, some F2P games force the player to return to the app to get the job done. So, in Mafia Wars, the player has to check their properties daily to collect the rent. In Smurf Village, crops will die if not harvested in time. This mechanism can become frustrating for the player as no one likes restrictions, but it fully justifies selling items that will automate responsibilities within a certain time frame. The key to success is giving the task a satisfactory goal.
• New features and special events. F2P games are not static. New features have been introduced to keep the player’s interest: new gear, new missions and exclusive sales (the F2P boutique is managed like a store with promotions, events, etc.)
• Interaction with friends. The success of F2P games is based on their strong viral dimension. The game must encourage the player to get the attention of friends by inviting them to join him. But this “virality” has a two-way function. Not only friends are invited to the game, but they later remind the player and motivate him to continue playing. Therefore, in many F2P games, the player is often reminded to ask their friends for “virtual” help and lend them a helping hand. As a result, the user no longer plays for his own progress, but for someone else.

Embedding the Player Recruitment in the Design

This is a crucial point for any F2P developer. Only five to 10 percent of registered users make any purchases. If we want to generate income, having a large gaming community is essential. How can we generate a large number of players?

Develop a social platform. The most obvious path is to integrate the game with the social platform where you can have easy access to the player’s friends list. Facebook is the first to appear, with over 700 million members and 200 million players, but there are alternatives:

• Dedicated PC gaming portals, such as Bigpoint, Gaia or Playfirst. Their communities aren’t as big as Facebook, but they have the advantage of being mostly made up of players. Bigpoint already has over 200 million players and the number is growing. They all offer partner agreements to third-party developers.
• Smartphone gaming social networks. Apple already has its Game Center. Part of the iPhone software suite, Game Center isn’t really a social platform, but it makes it very easy to let your friends know if they’re already registered with Game Center or not about the game you’re playing. Therefore, it is a good tool to “virtualize” your game and attract new players. There are also third party offerings such as OpenFeint, Mobage, and Papaya.
• Google+. There is no doubt that Google wants to compete with Facebook in games. Google has a great asset: Gmail and its friends list.
• Xbox Live and PSN. These environments are natural social platforms, but have been closed to F2P games until now. Microsoft and Sony recently announced that free-to-play games will appear on their networks. Microsoft in particular is working hard to integrate Games for Windows, Live Messenger, and the Xbox Live community into one fluid environment.

Integrating with a social platform is not the only way to do this. Many F2Ps are standalone browser games. They may be quite successful, like Nexon’s Combat Arms or Riot’s League of Legends, but the path to building a large audience is much, much more difficult here.

League of Legends

Innovate! The new concept of the game is a natural way to create noise. A heavily licensed paint job will attract people’s attention, but are unlikely to tell your friends if the game experience adds nothing new. And there’s still plenty of room for new game themes and new mixes of F2P gameplay.

Designed for co-op gameplay. For games not connected to a social platform, the bold choice is to force the player to invite friends to play the game. In other words, there is no single player game mode. It’s a choice made by League of Legends that offers team play. You can always play with strangers, but playing with your buddies is much more fun and effective. Therefore, the concept of the game gives a very strong incentive to gather friends.

Cross-marketing. Another effective way to attract new players is through cross-marketing. User playing game X will see a banner while playing his game suggesting game Y. This highly effective tool is perfect for companies that publish several titles, but what if you only have one? Apps like Applifier allow smaller developers to connect and promote each other’s titles.

Recently, Riot Games released a warning about its new League of Legends MMORPG – “not everyone will love” the planned Open World Runeterra title, and that’s okay; they are not intended to please the entire crowd.

Complexity

DOTA 2 boasts a steep learning curve while League of Legends is fairly easy to get hold of.
While this may seem like a drawback on the part of DOTA 2, the complexity of the game makes it so much more rewarding when you take the time to understand the game mechanics and successfully complete some unusual builds and gameplay.

DOTA 2 has a unique mechanic called the counter mechanic – this means that no matter how strong any hero in the game is, there is another hero on the list that is more or less suited to stopping them.

This means DOTA 2 players need to have an in-depth understanding of the game’s composition, including adding an extra layer of skill to the game.

Community

League of Legends has around 70 million users worldwide, while DOTA 2 boasts around 43 million users, hence LOL is obviously the more popular game.

The main benefit to the average consumer of having such a large playerbase is the amount of content you can immerse into outside of the game, as the quantity and quality of LOL content overshadows what the DOTA community can hoard.

Moonton got into trouble when Riot Games (the creators of League of Legends) claimed that Moonton not only used a logo that looked too similar to League, but that they stole map items from Riot Games. Moonton lost the trial and had to pay 350.9 million for the crimes.

Heroes of the Storm

Defense of the Ancients was originally a modification to Warcraft III, so of course Blizzard couldn’t resist creating its own full-fledged MOBA game. Heroes of the Storm heroes are characters picked up from the StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch universes and caught up in an all-star mash-up – so if you fancy piloting D.Va Overwatch in battle with Jaina Proudmoore, HoTS is the MOBA for you.

Unlike League of Legends and Dota 2, Heroes does not contain any items. Instead, players choose to upgrade their skills as they level up, allowing them to focus on utility, resilience, or damage dealing. Each hero also has two ultimate abilities, only one of which can be activated in a single match.

Moreover, unlike the competition, Heroes offers a variety of maps with unique objectives that can turn the tide of battle. One sees players vying for temple domination firing lasers at opposing fortifications, another asks each team to collect plants that spawn a giant, controlled flower monster.

Blizzard has gone to great lengths to focus on combat and objectives rather than breaking numbers – you won’t find anyone bragging about high attack damage rates or critical chance. Matches are also much shorter, usually over after 30 minutes. However, what is dedicated in depth it makes up for with a sheer shine. However, the HoTS no longer has an official world championship, so if you’re looking for a solid esports scene, you’ll have to take a look at the other MOBAs on this list.

These are all the best MOBA games available today – it’s time to assemble your team, choose your heroes and hit the avenue in search of glory. If you’re constantly feeling under-grown, try playing one of the best farming games instead – it won’t help you grow better in MOBA games, but at least your crops won’t report you at the end of the match.

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Completing missions earns you weekly points, which then unlock weekly chests with different rewards. As progress resets every week, players feel compelled to start over – every week.

Dark Eclipse

Last but not least, Dark Eclipse becomes one of the best MOBA games out there. This MOBA was released at the end of September 2018 by Sunsoft, veterans of the video game industry. They have titles close and dear to my heart: Batman and Lemmings on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and countless others in the late eighties and early nineties.

First of all, they focused on mobile gaming, which opens the way for a more player-friendly experience, and perhaps more competitive, such as MOBAs. The Dark Eclipse website briefly introduces the purpose of Dark Eclipse in a pretty cool way:

“Play VR without the limits of a 2D screen. Control three characters called Leaders, build towers and destroy the enemy base. Developed by a team of MOBA and RTS enthusiasts. This is a MOBA players game for MOBA players.”

You read right: VR MOBA. I was curious and a bit skeptical. However, as soon as I started reading about it, it intrigued me.

“You can grab and move characters (called Leaders) directly. You don’t need a mini-map… just look around and you’ll see the entire battlefield. Feel the game with tactile feedback on your fingers and listen to enemy movements with 3D audio.”

It gives the player better control over their characters and really immerses you in the game.

Fear not – you can still use the DualShock controller to play if VR isn’t your style or it confuses you.

Heroes Evolved

I can’t wait to see the future of Dark Eclipse and what other MOBAs will follow. Will the best MOBAs be in VR? Time will tell, but it’s a good step. I also like the emphasis on developing MOBA players.

This happened with Dota; the people who love the builder of the world of WarCraft III have gathered and created a madness that shows no sign of stopping.