Top League of Legends players in South Korea 2024, by prize money earned

As of August 2024, the top South Korean earner of prize money in League of Legends tournaments was Sang Hyeok Lee, also known as "Faker", who has earned around 1.72 million U.S. dollars. The follower-up was Ho Seong Lee, going by the player ID "Duke", with a total of about 954.9 thousand dollars. As of January 2024, Faker was the top earner of League of Legends prize money worldwide.

League of Legends

League of Legends, often referred to as LoL, is a free-to-play MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game developed by Riot Games. Even though the game is more than a decade old, it is still enjoying major popularity among South Koreans. As of July 2024, about 37.3 percent of the total playtime in so-called PC bangs was accumulated by League of Legends. Due to the game’s popularity, South Korea has been holding its own League of Legends championships called "League of Legend Champions Korea" since 2012. Between 2013 and 2017, South Korean teams consecutively won the League of Legends World Championship. Even though the winning streak has been broken, teams from the country have won an additional three times since.

PC bangs

In the early 2000s, PC bangs, a type of LAN gaming center, formed from regular internet cafés and became a hotspot for gamers. PC gamers use those spaces to meet with their peers and use the high-end computers provided to play games. PC bangs usually take an hourly fee and are open all day. While casual players might just stay a short amount of time, more competitive players stay there for more much longer hours. Due to a high rate of gaming addiction in the country, the government introduced a law prohibiting minors from playing online games during the night. As of 2023, people who visited PC bangs at least once a week stated that they visited those facilities for around 7.2 times per month and stay for an average of nearly three hours.