League of Legends developers accused of massive online inflation

Riot Games has been accused of artificially boosting online player numbers and game statistics. Critics believe these actions may have helped the company win awards at The Game Awards and also improve its investment appeal and keep its stock positions stable.

The discussion started after an investigation by YouTuber Crow, who analyzed available data and came to the conclusion that Riot Games and Tencent could have intentionally interfered with the statistics. He pointed out that shortly before The Game Awards the activity numbers increased sharply, but right after the ceremony they returned to normal levels.

One of the key points is that the real online numbers for League of Legends are officially hidden which makes it impossible to verify the exact figures. At the same time according to Crow, in November the online count was allegedly shown at around 100 million players but later these numbers were revised and dropped to about 40 million.

The author of the investigation also stresses that this situation was allegedly not limited to League of Legends. According to him similar spikes and sudden drops in statistics were also seen in VALORANT which could suggest a wider and more systemic issue.

So far Riot Games has not made any official statements regarding these accusations. However some people online have started to speculate that various streaming services might have been used to boost the numbers on purpose but there is still no solid evidence to prove this.