The finals of this year's League of Legends world championships will be hosted by South Korea on Oct. 19. It will be held at the Sang-am Stadium, which seats 67,000 people. About 40,000 people are expected to attend the event to witness eight professional teams vie for the title and several millions are expected to watch the championship online.

Within minutes of the tickets' release, the higher priced ones were already sold out. There are only a few thousand tickets that are still available. The prize is still $1 million plus a beautiful trophy called the Summoner's Cup. It is not just a simple trophy. This silver-plated cup, which looks like something straight out of the Game of Thrones, weighs 70 pounds and takes about five people to fully hoist it.

League of Legends, which costs about $18 million to create, is now expected to bring a revenue of about $1 billion to Riot Games, Mail & Guardian reports. This is a mighty return for a video game that does not require gamers to pay for it. It is a free game, and yet this fiscal year it is set to make its creators and publishers richer through sponsorships and ticket sales and from micro transactions earned from players who buy inexpensive items such as skins and champions to enhance their game. While the items may be inexpensive, the huge number of players worldwide adds up.

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle video game developed and published by Riot Games. It was released in 2009 and was very well received when it first came out. Through the years it has gained wider acceptance and popularity. Each month, about 67 million gamers play it. Each day there are about 27 million people that play League of Legends, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The popularity of the game gave rise to other competitive activities. Riot Games organizes the League of Legends Championship Series in Europe and North America. There are similar activities in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, South Korea and China. The regional competitions end with the staging of the annual League of Legends World Championships. Last year, the grand prize was $1 million. Online viewership during the championships was about 32 million.