Mobile Legends: Bang Bang—a Tier 1 esports title? We compare the game to its competitors

This fall, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is celebrating its 10th anniversary—since 2016, the game has come a long way from a local mobile game to a large-scale project with a massive audience and an esports discipline vying for a spot among the top competitive games. 

Now, debates continue to rage among MLBB fans and PC gaming veterans: can MOONTON’s game be considered a Tier 1 esports discipline both within and beyond the esports scene? We decided to answer this question and compare Mobile Legends with other industry leaders based on several metrics, including the number of players and tournament viewers, as well as the quality of the competitive scene.

Let’s start with the key metric—the size of the game’s audience. To mark its anniversary, MOONTON released statistics on the number of players, and the figures are impressive: MLBB has been installed over 1.5 billion times, with the number of monthly active players exceeding 110 million.

Developers of other games are reluctant to disclose MAU (monthly active users) data, and Steam uses a different metric altogether—games are compared based on average concurrent users. But we can at least roughly compare the figures and identify the following leaders in terms of monthly players:

In the case of Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, Rainbow Six, and other Steam games, it is more difficult to estimate the monthly audience. Experts estimate the online audience for Valve’s titles at around 25–30 million people—unlike mobile games, PC titles have higher engagement but a smaller total online audience. For other games (Overwatch, Rainbow Six), the audience may be even smaller.

Thus, Mobile Legends’ results are already comparable to the highest figures among competitive games. Of course, the metrics for LoL or Fortnite could grow even further by 2026, but even so, MLBB can confidently be placed in the very top tier. 

In the mobile segment, MLBB is among the most popular games in the world. According to Sensor Tower, the game regularly ranks in the top 10 by monthly downloads, although it consistently trails leaders such as Roblox, Free Fire, and Subway Surfers. However, in terms of total downloads over the past 10 years, MOONTON’s game has consistently been among the leaders:

All in all, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang can definitely be considered one of the most popular esports games and one of the most popular mobile games. While MLBB isn’t the leader in either segment, it’s closing in on the top spots, far outpacing more familiar titles like Dota 2, Valorant, Among Us, and Genshin Impact.

Following the success of The International, developers of competitive games began to seriously consider esports as a promotional tool for their projects or as a full-fledged related ecosystem. However, in some cases, this is limited to world championships with prize pools of around $1,000,000, exhibition tournaments, and partnerships with clubs.

It’s fair to say that over the past 10 years, MOONTON has built a robust system of professional competitions—two major tournaments (the M World Championship and the Summer Mid-Season Cup), supplemented by regional leagues and a small number of commercial tournaments. This is already bringing MLBB closer to the status of esports leaders.

In the table below, we’ve compared the 12 largest disciplines by prize pool for 2025, and we’ve also highlighted the main championship and the total number of competitions based on data from the analytics platform Esports Charts.

Valve’s titles remain the leaders in prize money and the number of tournaments, as they are less heavily controlled by the developers—anyone can host Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 championships. League of Legends, PUBG Mobile, and Valorant also stand out—due to the scale of their pro scenes, game developers offer large prize pools and host a vast number of different championships and leagues.

At the same time, even without taking the women’s scene into account (where half a million dollars is up for grabs at the world championship), Mobile Legends ranks on par with the PC versions of PUBG, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six, and Rocket League. Whether these projects should be considered Tier 1 games or placed in the next tier is up to each individual to decide.

It’s worth noting that MLBB is much more heavily concentrated around a few major competitions. Therefore, the number of tournaments and the total prize pool don’t fully reflect the scale of the main professional scene compared to games like Dota or Counter-Strike.

In any case, in this regard, MLBB occupies roughly the same position as it does in terms of total player count: it falls short of the leaders but firmly ranks in Tier 2 or among the top ten esports games in the world.

Another key metric for esports remains audience engagement—especially since the Esports World Cup 2026 recently concluded, featuring all the top games. 

At the conclusion of the tournament in Paris, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang took first place by a wide margin, although it actually attracted slightly fewer peak viewers than last year—likely because there were no teams from Indonesia or the Philippines in the finals. 

It’s also worth noting that this World Cup isn’t particularly significant for League of Legends or Counter-Strike 2. However, the other tournaments within the EWC are on par with world championships or majors; therefore, MLBB’s performance as an esports discipline is exceptionally strong. 

Here are the top 15 most popular disciplines by peak viewership:

The statistics for the major tournaments in each discipline may be even more revealing. In terms of both peak viewership and total views, Mobile Legends came very close to the last Worlds. The Counter-Strike 2 Major and the Dota “Int” followed well behind, with Valorant rounding out the top five—the rest lagged far behind.

It’s also worth noting that this is a more accurate and meaningful metric. We cannot compare exact player numbers, and prize money and the number of tournaments depend on the chosen development model. At the same time, the game’s World Championship final is the most significant esports event of the year, and MLBB’s results solidify its position among the top disciplines in 2026.

A major esports discipline is characterized by popularity across all major regions, not just one. For example, Honor of Kings significantly outpaces most games in both viewership and prize money—but only in China. In the U.S., Call of Duty ranks among the top titles, with a major local league modeled after the NBA.

It is here that MLBB faces its most serious challenge to its status as a global esports game. MOONTON’s game is popular mainly in Southeast Asian countries, whereas there aren’t that many teams from North America and Europe (and none of them are among the best).

According to Esports Charts, representatives from three countries (the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia) account for nearly 50% of the pro scene’s total volume. In League of Legends and Valorant, the top 3 include countries from different regions, and their share is significantly smaller.

Here’s what the list looks like for each discipline:

The service does not provide statistics for other games, so we compiled comparative data from recent world championships, identifying the dominant country and geographic region for each. Below, you can see the total number of players and the number in the top 8, as well as their share of the total.

The best distribution among the world’s major esports disciplines is seen in the shooters Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant. The center of gravity for Dota 2 is shifting increasingly toward Russia and Eastern Europe, but this is nothing compared to the scale of MLBB and LoL—and while organizers generally try to diversify the World Championship roster, the same flags appear on the list of winners year after year.

Philippine teams have won the last six MLBB World Championships, and Korean teams have held their own against China in the Worlds finals for four consecutive years. If we look at the major Asian regions (PH/ID/MY versus China and Korea), they have dominated for many years in terms of both player numbers and trophies.

Does this mean that Mobile Legends isn’t a Tier 1 discipline in the conventional sense? If so, then League of Legends would have to be removed from the list as well. Esports is structured in such a way that certain games are popular in some regions and countries—and completely unknown in others. 

Undoubtedly, the Counter-Strike and Valorant ecosystems are more stable and engaging. However, it cannot be said that MLBB isn’t striving for this: although the experience and player base are much stronger in Asian countries, representatives from other countries are increasingly providing stiff competition—just look at the results of Team Spirit and Turkey’s Aurora at recent major tournaments.

Geography remains a weak point for Mobile Legends, as it does for a number of other mobile esports disciplines. The game still has a noticeable skew toward Southeast Asia (SEA), but the developers are actively working on new leagues (in 2026 alone, they launched leagues in Western Europe and India) and the development of new regions in general (Turkey will host the M8 World Championship).

Over the past ten years, MLBB has gone from a regional mobile hit to one of the world’s biggest games. 1.5 billion downloads and 110 million monthly active players, a full-fledged system of regional leagues, and popular global tournaments with substantial prize pools—all these are hallmarks of a major esports discipline.

The developers and the Mobile Legends community still have work to do: the game has the potential to expand into new regions, increase the number of tournaments, and further grow its audience. But even now, in many respects, this MOBA ranks among the top 10 esports titles and has even taken the lead in some areas.

MLBB has definitely secured a spot above Rocket League, PUBG, and Apex Legends. By some metrics, the MOBA even outperforms Valorant and Dota 2. And if the only ones ahead (or, rather, already right next to it) are giants like League of Legends and Counter-Strike—isn’t that the highest tier for an esports project?