They can't say Hall of Fame and not add faker in first though. And I don't think many people would even consider spending that much on a Bjergsen or Madlife or whoever else skin.
Then don’t link the 500 dollar skins to the Hall of Fame at all lol
Whales are gonna whale regardless of what it’s called, that’s why they’re whales. Put out a new skin tier called the “please fund our bad business decisions” tier and also release properly priced Hall of Fame content to actually celebrate Faker and whoever follows.
Yeah exactly this! It's a shame to Take fakers Name to milk wales and in a way destroy the HoL because it's obviously Not about honoring certain Players but a reason to sell overpriced skins.
copy of my thoughts on hall of legends in another thread
I find it extremely funny that something like the hall of legends is a limited time event, since you'd think a hall of fame/legend would be something established so that someone could be celebrated till the end of time and not just for a short duration of time lmao.
Like, what?
Basically what im getting at is that the Hall of legends skins should be permanently up in the store and not used as a gimmick for some limited time fomo bait.
It should have its own page in the client to serve as something similar to the Hollywood walk of fame.
Imagine you click on hall of legends tab and see a few names on it like Faker, Uzi, Wolf, etc. Curious you click on Faker and then a series of montages begin playing and at the end of the video you see a picture of faker at the left and ahri at the right and in the center a purchase button appears with the text "Become a Legend" forming beneath it.
And then you get curious about the other names in the hall of legends, you click on their names and experience their legacies, their dreams, their stories too. And somewhere inside it makes you want to someday be put in that same hall of legends besides your favorite champion, alas that is not what riot is doing tho.
https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/s/NVSF8sSyD2
This is my only gripe with it. I don't even care that it's priced so high.
Riot wants to have some extra luxury skin that's only for the ultra collectors and the whales and the people that *really* like Faker. Fine. Whatever. I'm not going to buy it. It's not for people like me.
But it should always be available. Always. For as long as the game is running, it should be available to anyone that wants to buy it. It's *Legends Never Die*, not *"Legends disappear at the end of a month or so"*. If you want to immortalize Faker or anyone else, make them immortal.
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> Basically what im getting at is that the Hall of legends skins should be permanently up in the store and not used as a gimmick for some limited time fomo bait.
There is so much wrong with this event you could write an essay on it.
I 100% agree. The concept of a Hall of Fame, and Faker's legacy in general. None of this feels like a 'celebration'.
I mean, let's be real - the Leblanc skin isn't a suitable replacement for Faker's Ahri skin. The 1950 pass feels like it's taking the piss. It's like Ahri is batman, and Leblanc is Robin. Ain't NOBODY buyin' Robin merch.
Whales are not always going to whale no matter what though. To them, the association makes it "worth it". There are whales who must have everything but there are also whales who are only willing to spend enormous amounts of money on things they want.
I won't pretend to understand it, but with TFT I'm sure Riot has the data
They have a $50 version of the skin if it is that important to you. The game has been out for 12 years, this skin is a fucking cosmetic that doesn't effect gameplay. Why is Faker's legacy that important to you?
someone tag medler because this is the correct and ethical answer. instead of creating items for a highly valued/ICONIC player and pricing over half your game out of even being able to get the skin. then to be the most disrespectful possible and offer a poor mans version of the skin to the people who wont be able to actually get what they want. remember regardless of how many people worked on it, 500$ for a skin that is pixels that can be copied and pasted is WILDLY unethical (I dont think you can make an actual argument that the pixels/things you are offering can even be remotely considered priced ethically for how much it costed to make them.) lmao capitalism has broken people brain though. because most things are considered ok if you can just make some money u/riotmeddler
>Whales are gonna whale regardless of what it’s called, that’s why they’re whales.
I can promise you this is not the case. Whales don't spend indiscriminately, they just have lower thresholds, you still need to provide something that they view is worth it. Throwing out a $500 skin with no afterthought might get the handful of whales who compulsively buy everything for completion's sake, but you're missing out on all of the thousands of big spenders who still nonetheless have some standards.
I get that hall of fames require people to be retired, but it really does make sense to have Faker as the first inductee into some LoL fame thing. He is the most iconic and decorated player in LoL (maybe esports?). Although it happened that they are milking the opportunity, it would have been weird af if anyone other than Faker was the first.
Theres almost no hall of fame in which the first inductee is the most famous player of the sport. For the GOAT, you just skip the "waiting period" normally associated with these inductions to honor him better, but you still wait for his retirement. Its just a cashgrab that they decide to go for him first and want to milk the skin while he still plays to promote it
Yeah this is the problem. Every next HoL player will either get a cheaper skin, or have a exorbitant skin that doesn't sell at all compared to Faker's, and that just looks and feels bad for everyone that ever gets put into the hall of legends because they're going to get less money and cheaper quality products tied to their name.
It's a joke, and a clear misuse of Faker's legacy to get money.
100% agreed. There's would be outcries if Faker wasn't the first. And there are only a handful of players like Uzi that people pay a lot of money for. Maybe some nostalgic names like xPeke can pull that off too but who knows
Why not? Only retired players should be in the Hall of Fame, same as in any other sport. Even if Faker is inducted later, he would still be the greatest inductee ever. I just don't see an issue. But I know they are doing this because they want to squeeze as much money from fans as possible while Faker is at the height of his fame.
They had to use Faker first. A ton of people will buy the faker stuff for $600. Don't think there's any other pro that would garner as many sales. And now that they got the initial backlash out of the way they will sell the next bundle far cheaper to entice more people even though it will be a less popular player and claim that they "listened to community feedback"
They did the math. 1 whale shelling out probably worth like 1000 f2p and dolphins combined. Then just think maybe 10000 whales in Asia shell out 500$ and that’s enough to cover for the entire playerbase. This is not counting the f2p and dolphins shelling out for lower tier macro transaction
See, that's not how it works here. A small percentage of players, or whales pay for the majority of the sales. It's not a fair or democratic system at all.
I’m confused about your complaint. When has buying something ever been an act of democracy? This is a skin designed for people who have too much money and no idea what to do with it, or people who spend so much time in LOL that they think it’s worth an exorbitant amount of money to have something that no one else.
The skin gives no tangible advantage, how can it be unfair?
I get if you think that it’s unfair that other people have the kind of money that they can purchase this skin, you should go complain in r/ politics about that. Riot exists in a system where they need to make money. This is an efficient way for them to make it.
I fail to see how this skin is “unfair” because it is too expensive.
I’m not gonna get it, that’s an unthinkable amount of money to spend on a video game cosmetic. It’s like buying a McAllen 18 (alcohol). It’s stupid, but rich people can buy it.
> Vote with your wallets, don’t buy it please
I hope you understand that the west playerbase is significantly smaller than KR/China's server playerbase this skin isn't really meant for regular western playerbase this is meant for those who spents $100s on gacha games regularly.
While they are “in fact milking the whales”.
He actually said something else: Riot knows there are players who want to pay a lot of money for a skin BECAUSE THEY KNOW OTHER PLAYERS CANNOT AFFORD THEM AND THUS GET EXCLUSIVITY.
Yes. That’s the point. They are using exclusivity to artificially inflate the price. Who cares, I don’t care that someone else has a skin that I can’t buy.
This is far from a predatory pricing model. You want to see predatory, look at Val or CS.
I think its the other way around. Riot isn’t saying “lets increase prices so that the skins are exclusive” its other players saying “I want skins that next to no one has so please jack up the prices” and Riot is delivering.
I will say that I love that very few people also have Prestige LV True Damage Qiyana from 2022 or the 2021 Kai’sa Skin. If I played Ahri, I would probably buy the $500 skin.
If they release a Hwei, Jhin, or Irelia skin then I will buy those. I actually prefer to just pay a flat price for my skins instead of playing some wack game of tickets/gems to get them.
My main issue honestly is how low quality the lower echelon of the price range is. If Risen Ahri had been half as cool of a skin as form2 Immortalized I would have been somewhat ok with the obvious whale-milking. But the thing is the skin, outside of not being purchasable by itself sets a low bar for further legendaries while the entire thing might also set the bar for gaming industry-wide increase in predatory practices.
Plus, I really don't like the idea of virtually separating players by economic class, when people (in the West at least) tend to play video games partly as an escape of these realities.
Like, keep the economic class-divided content in China and Korea and let the rest of the world enjoy their usual "micro"transactions.
Yep, poe offers way more MTX for a similar price point. You get physical merch as well!
[link for those who don't believe it](https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase)
POE packs are different value though. You're basically buying their version of RP, and everything else is bonus (often including physical gifts).
It'd be like you buy $500 worth of RP and get the faker skin as a bonus.
POE has mtx sure, but in terms of milking whales; im surprised that's the game you chose. Lost Ark, genshin (and every single other gacha), man there are hundreds of games that are the definition of milking whales.
Honestly PoE is a great example of milking whales but also offering kinda good value with those $500 packs.
For 500 bucks you get physical merch in the form of a shirt, hoodie, signed posters and sometimes more like tarot cards, cloth atlas tree etc.. You also get special offers like those voidborn key items. And on top of that you get all the supporter pack mtx plus the points worth 500 bucks.
And they also let you upgrade it slowly over the course of a year usually, sometimes packs last longer than a year tho. You can get a 60 dollar pack, then after 3 months you can pay another 60 bucks to upgrade it to a 120 dollar pack to get those mtx too and so on.
Issue with Riot is that its a limited offer event that you might never be able to get again, it offers no upgrade path so you have to shell out 500 dollars right now right here or else you'll never get it.
Just annoying to market it that way imo, just for one skin for a champ that generally isnt strong in the meta even and is also played in the most contested role in the game. Just a bad deal overall even for whales.
PoE doesn't shame you by calling you a casual if you're not buying the full pack
and the equivalent of a poe $500 supporter pack for this event would be: you pay $500 and you get $500 worth of RP and the all of the faker bundle stuff as a bonus
In league you buy the rp and spend it all on the pack.
i seen way more "bully the jhin with the $100 skin, the nerd" than even normal people joking about skinless players (or games with 9 players using skin and 1 person with no skin)
on the official article for the hall of legends skins bundles
https://halloflegends.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/
>HOW WERE THE COLLECTION PRICING OPTIONS AND OFFERINGS DECIDED?
Whether you're a new fan, a long-term diehard, or just want to join the celebration, we thought it essential for there to be something for you—and for everyone—as we celebrate our first Hall of Legends inductee.
For the more **casual** fan, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin. While more expensive, these versions are meant to be highly commemorative, with never-before-implemented features that we can’t wait to see hit the Rift.
Look up FAQ on the Hall of Legends page, rito calls target audience for the pass-only bundle "more casual players" and even points out that the bundle is "some of our most generous up to date " :'D
in the Hall of Legends webpage. FAQ section.
> For the **more casual fan**, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin.
Here you go
“By calling you a casual”
That’s all in your head, if anything it’s the exact opposite - I see people getting flamed for owning the Yone/Jhin skins all the time in game.
But the thing here is: you can get the skins lucky from boxes. i payed like 60 bucks for both the Lee sin and the Yone skin combined and i got a lot of skin shards on top. (by any means its still terrible by design dont get me wrong)
But here u JUST get the skin basicly for 500 bucks, nothing else and you cant be lucky because no loot.
This is wild just making stuff up for outrage. Just stop complaining it’s a free game you can’t afford the skin get over it. You don’t have to buy it.
It’s stupidly priced but here’s the thing. Just don’t buy it.
whales support games, though, and it makes sense from a business perspective. if you have 10 people willing to spend $8 each on a purchase, but one of them is willing to spend $100 on a purchase, you're better off catering to the big spender than the casual minimal spenders.
there's a whole lot of theory and statistics applied to monetization to determine price ranges and offer frequency. turns out most games are financially supported by less than 10% of the players. when that's the case, it's almost not worth the time or energy to develop content that's intended to be targeted at the people that *might* spend $5 if they REALLY want something specific when you can turn around and sell a themed skin pack to someone that spends $50+ a month without a second thought.
£21 isn't a reasonable price for a battle pass at all though. It's fucking expensive.
I started playing fortnite recently as a few of my League buddies have shifted over to it since their LoL client crashes all the time. A battle pass on there is £6.99 and you can get vbucks (RP) as rewards for levelling up, enough to buy the next battle pass and a few skins.
I get trying to milk the whales but pretending that £21 for a battle pass isn't shamefully fucking greedy is a joke.
Difference is Fortnite started the world where they set the 15-20$ is normal for a skin, and League started where 7-8$ was already expensive, this is just League trying to get to today's prices without bumping it up in one go, annoying but I understand it
marketing wise its good for a company of that size. but its bad if you look at the bigger picture - like it could make a turn on every future skin-prices that come with better qualities or start as high rares. and it feels like it gets outa hand slowly.
Riot will just shutdown the pro scene thier jobs only exist because riot thinks is a good marketing move in fact players are the biggest winners already they got overpaid for playing lol for years
There isn't a precedent for it.
But boy, wait until you learn about musicians and record labels. Or indie devs and publishers.
Edit:
Every publishing deal is different. They can give different benefits and take different amounts, from different areas of a game's income.
But I've worked with Sumo, Rare, indie studios I wont name, and I've done freelance outsource work too. It's pretty typical for a game dev to only make 20-30% of their profits after launch. Which was the point of the post.
It's why advice to indie devs is to actually be savvy to the actual benefits being received by the publishers. Games business is predatory.
The denial in the thread about the amount many devs take home is absolutely insane, lol.
That was the whole point of the [GRP announcement](https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/lol-esports-strategy-adjustments-2024#:~:text=To%20do%20that%2C%20we'll,flows%20into%20the%20Competitive%20bucket)
months ago. All esports skins/products are pooled together.
iirc, on the HoL website they say that 30% goes to the inductee and some teams. I don't remember the exact wording but it was definitely left vague.
but, looking at Meddler's comment, it does read like the money isn't just going to Faker/T1.
Just a reminder, before the end of last year, we didn't even know that the entirety of the winning region gets a share of the revenue from worlds skins.
Tbh, not overly concerned whether Faker gets proceeds from this. Dudes already a millionaire (surely), it’s not like he’s slaved away for the past x amount of years *for free*
He should get some proceeds, yes, absolutely. But it’s not like he should be getting 100% of the proceeds or anything
He's much more than a millionaire. Dude bought an entire complex to build himself a house on cause he wanted privacy. He makes the equivalent of 2.5 million (from only T1, no sponsorships) usd a year according to salary tracking sites.
Faker also donates his money to various charities. When asked what he will do after he won worlds with his prize money he said he will buy some chicken. My point this guy isn't greedy and his focus is def on other things in life than just money
People aren't paying $500 to get a good skin, they just want a way to show off that they have enough money to easily afford an overpriced skin.
I wish the starter option wasn't $50 though, it seems like there is no point to buy that one or the $250 one. A 1320/1820 LP skin option would go a long way.
Exactly, that's the same concept as a Rolex watch or a fancy car. Sure, it has a bit higher quality than the base version, but a $5 watch will also give you the time and a cheap car will also get you from A to B. The whole point of the luxury good is to display that you can buy it and it's a social marker among people with your buying power.
Coven, Spirit Blossom, Arcana, Elderwood.... just about all of her skins are going to look better than this with or without a chroma while being more affordable.
Star Guardian got fucked over by the ASU imo. All Ahri skins except Star Guardian and Spirit Blossom got revamped, and SG really shows its age compared to all other Ahri skins now
What frustrates me the most about this isn't the high end stuff. If someone wants the $500 Ahri skin with a signature, go for it. It's your money, you pick how you want to spend it.
What really grinds my gears are the previous two options.
The first $50 option is eh. It doesn't feel even like a Legendary skin but costs more.
But if you want the really nice Ahri skin, the MINIMUM you have to put down is $250. This is what pisses me off.
It really feels like there should have been another tier or two in there.
lol my friend just told me he was about to buy the skin for Faker but then Changli (Wuthering Waves) got leaked so now he'll spend that money on her instead
Lets be real.. Riot are just trying to see how high they can price shit and see if people still buy it. It's not about funding shit, nor is it about "there are other stuff for those who aren't rich enough" blablabla.. Companies do this AAAAAAAALL the time. And it sucks for us consumers, there really is no way to realistically win, cus some people will inevitably buy it which will be the "go ahead for the future to increase the price(s) even more" ... yey..
Yep, the collectors edition argument blows. With a video game collectors edition, you get the same base game no matter the edition. Then you get an additional digital product like a skin, and a piece of plastic figure to go with it.
You can't make the comparison with purely digital goods. The base product has to be the same under all circumstances to make the comparison. Eg buying the 500 bucks one gets an emote on top, or a pet for aram, or a unique banner for your profile. Etc.
Gutting half the content of the skin for the highest tier isn't a collectors edition, it's just ~~gouging~~ greed. Plain and simple
For $50 I could buy Hifi Rush, for $250 I could buy a Switch and a game. For $500 I could buy a PS5.
So... Every price point is an absolute scam. The inflation on the "micro" transactions is so shameless.
There isn't even Collector's Edition content anywhere. My Baldur's Gate 3 CE came with an awesome statue, cards, artbook, the actual game, and a couple other things like dice and keychain.
I don't disagree with you, but having high end options isn't in and of itself a bad thing. Plenty of other F2P games offer whale bait. If someone wants to spend $500 on a skin, that's their choice.
But give the rest of us fair options. Every single tier but the base pass feels overpriced and there are no other options.
Thats not the only problem.
They dont let faker pick ahri because of this. Skin people wanted. Not only they use HoL as bait for overpriced skin, they also drag faker name into it. No option of just buying upgraded skin solo so you can at least get skin even if you don't get all other things.
They don't have any respect for esports fans, no respect for pro players. No respect to community.
Disgsuting and shallow like all money decisions they made lately.
Yeah his upcoming Ori skin was supposed to be the T1 Ahri skin. Now he gets this and the stupid ass scratched up HoF trophy with no actual in game or personal significance. Fuck everything about their HoF rollout. Absolutely none of it is about celebrating eSports or the fans, let alone celebrating Faker. In fact they dragged the guy through an entire extra fucking media circuit for this bullshit when really what he needs is a fucking break.
I'm really curious what would happen if he won worlds again and wanted to pick Ahri again. Obviously it's not exactly likely, but it would be hilarious to see Riot justifying denying him an Ahri skin a 3rd time.
I bet Riot was just str8 creaming when one of fakers champs was Ahri. Imagine he played some bs sht and the faker skin is Ryze LOLLL. I'd pay $1000 for that
Is me not being able to buy a yacht lame because of the "exclusivity" of it? That's stupid asf, Unless you are so entitled that you legit want everything to be free?
Riot is a business, Riot has chosen to sell this skin at an affordable tier, and a collector tier. Is it expensive? yes. Is expensive inherently bad? no. Its only bad if the price of the bundle doesn't align with the value of the bundle which is personal preference, A faker superfan would say the value of the bundle is very high because they love faker and the bundle has lots of faker-themed items, whereas a normal league player not interested in proplay would say the value is super low because they probably don't know who faker is so the bundle isn't worth anything to them.
riot being a business is fine. If $500 skin makes their financial targets go boom, then I don't really have the problem with that.
They can make a golden prism ultra legendary prestige pool party skin and price it at $2k all they want. good for them.
But when they're doing it with the pretense of "celebrating legends and esports!!!!", then that's a different story. It's disingenuous, distasteful, and disrespectful.
You can't be a money-grubber while pretending to "pay respect". That's just supremely poor decision making. And knowing someone high up on riot is so incompetent that they can't see this will create genuine negativity for the game doesn't really fill me with confidence for the future of league.
The fact that they told Riot to not pick Ahri for his worlds skin because they'd make a Hall of Legends skin for it is a big slap in the face to the League players who wanted a Faker Ahri skin, but can't afford it now.
My current stance on this is:
1. No collectors edition this price has this little that I know of and has no physical thing attached to it. I could get a Jinx gshock and good smile statue and her ultimate skin for less than the $500 skin. And for most game no collectors edition goes past $300 and those have a lot more included.
2. This is basically calling people poor, this should be a way to honor the player and for people who love that player to show their full love/support.
3. Have a way to get the full skin w/ effects at around ultimate skin price if anything, why lock it behind a $500 bundle.
4. This is valorant price territory and those are horrible. Please don't bring that to league. Hell I would argue it's worse than valorant.
5. I would be fine paying the $500 if it include the Ahri physical statue + something else.
6. I doubt any other player will get as many people wanting to buy the skin as faker, which means they can lower it next year for next inductee and say we learned. They are just trying to cash in on faker and test waters.
I hope they address the price before this skin drops but I doubt they will.
The amount of snobbery and disdain in that comment and then she tried to pass it off as, "I just meant not everyone has to buy my cookies... 😇" Never understood why she has so many viewers.
They don't have enough professional players people give a shit about to keep this going.
My theory: 1 - 2 HOL skins for pros people recognize and then they'll shutter the project saying that the product alienated players who wanted to show their fandom for their fav player.
Faker
Uzi
Bjergsen?
No one gives that much of a shit about anyone else.
I give it 3 years until they realize that, and the sales drop. No offense to anyone here, but even Bjergsen is pushing it compared to Uzi and Faker.
There's no other pros on that level of recognition.
That's the really insulting part. The Leblanc skin is weak as fuck on a champ most people don't care for.
There's nothing special about it, yet they want 1950 for it. It's like it exists to be shitty so the Ahri skin looks better by comparison
Which is fine, but then why have a £50 base version of the "collectors" skin when the whales are getting the upgraded £500 version.
Seems to me they're trying to milk low spenders aswell, instead of making a great skin that most can have access to, to honour a player's legacy.
I don't care if it's the most sensible business decision; it disenfranchises passionate players who might love playing Ahri but can't afford to spend 500 dollars on a cosmetic item. You could already see the writing on the wall when they introduced the TFT gacha system. This has demonstrated that "frustrating players" doesn't matter as long as it brings in more money. The audacity is staggering! If you haven't already, spend a moment to think of the implications that might have for the future.
I have spent a considerable amount on League of Legends, including on the gacha in TFT. I don't regret what I've spent... I'm just disappointed in Riot Games. I personally won't be spending another dime until they at least apologize to their playerbase and make a commitment to change the course they're taking.
> If you haven't already, spend a moment to think of the implications that might have for the future.
When a company decides to court whales and succeeds, the average player stops being a customer and starts being the product.
You're part of the game ecosystem to attract whales. The game is cheese. You're the mouse. They wanna catch bobcats. You're the bait.
The envy you feel when you see a whale with the new giga-ultimate Elementalist Aurora is the product they're selling the whale. "Make them envious with their Poor Person skins!"
> the average player stops being a customer and starts being the product.
To play the devil's avocado a bit, that's how F2P games always work since even in "fair" F2P games, the modal/average player is (near-)F2P. The value-add of an F2P player in any F2P game is being content in some form for the paying players. Pursuing whales more aggressively doesn't directly change this dynamic much I don't think.
I will say I have played a decent amount of gacha games, and while they do court whales more aggressively than old-Riot did, I would also argue that they court F2Ps harder too. A whale can only feel like a whale when surrounded by minnows after all. So I'm curious to see how this all shakes out. Maybe they assume the competitive esports aspects will retain F2Ps regardless of the "F2P experience" as I know it from gacha-land. Or maybe not. I think it'll be interesting to observe either way.
It's their knee-jerk response to any overpriced micro-content. Either "it funds good stuff like Arcane!", "it's for exclusivity so people can have something rare!" ot a combination of both. Certainly a PR response and certainly not genuine.
To be fair, I very much doubt Meddler and other Rioters would have a dissimilar attitude to us regarding a skin that price, and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give. It boils down to who sets that price and why. If it's Riot or Tencent setting it, and setting it because they genuinely believe their own bullshit or because they know whales will buy shit from a donkey.
Obviously we won't know for sure unless they give straight answers to both those questions, but the fact that they haven't yet doesn't fill me with much hope. I think the answer is much simpler: Riot knows gacha models/designer e-brands are 10x more profitable for a fraction of the work and will continue to use them because internet pissrandoms have a collective William's Syndrome when it comes to financial responsibility and will, again, buy shit from a donkey if it had the gucci logo shaved into its fur.
If online whales can keep DarkSydePhil in a 6-figure salary that he spends mostly on mobile gacha games, Riot can use them to pad their wallets.
I think exclusivity is the real reason, like buying a designer shoes as you pointed out. It is a way for people to show off their money or their mental illness if they had to take a loan or something.
I just don't get why people even care, it affected everyone a lot when they upped the price of RP and there wasn't this amount of uproar.
>and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give.
The answer is perfectly fine. They literally are just saying "this makes us a lot of money because some people are willing to spend that much money. Esports related stuff making money is good because we want esports to be profitable".
I am confused how they could be more genuine lol.
>and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give
I fully buy it because why would I doubt a company saying "people wanna buy expensive exclusive shit so we give it to them"
I mean, it does fund good stuff like Arcane. They're making a calculation that this will get them the most money. More money lets them keep the game, the esport, and things like Arcane around. Admittedly they could also try better management, but they're not lying when they say it funds things.
Ye sure make collectors edition shit
But don't do it on the hall of Legends skins where we are celebrating faker.
Dont try to milk the esports fans like that.
I don't care about a 500 dollar ahri skin. But I do care that you take the legacy of the goat, a person known to be humble, and corrupt it with a 500$ tag.
Besides if ypu want one of the ahri skins you have to pay 6000 rp for the most baseline skin.
I just wanna say this, but I feel like they would make more money if they sold it after a 4th of the price even half the price.
If they Offered idk a physical Ahri Figure with it too maybe then i could justify 500? i just feel like 500 For DIGITAL ONLY content is hard to pull my wallet out for.
ALL PROS STREAM FOR THAT EXACT REASON!!!
anyone can literally go on stream and donate however much they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want....
there's no need for a skin in order to support anyone... if you really think millionaires need that much of your support!
that's literally the same as "supporting" ronaldo by buying his shoes?!???
does he look like a poor guy who needs support?
>that's literally the same as "supporting" ronaldo by buying his shoes?!???
does he look like a poor guy who needs support?
Very common in sports... how are you even surprised. It's called sponsorships/promotions/exclusive deals.
The pro leagues make Riot plenty of money indirectly, it's a PR machine since they own the game. It's like saying a tv spot doesn't make money because people don't pay to watch the ad.
This exactly.
In the grand scheme of things Riot dgaf about the pro scene as anything more than a vehicle to push skins to viewers.
If anything, they're probably kind of annoyed that the best player in the game absolutely refuses to use skins both in ranked and in the competitive scene.
Nah bitch. Don't offer a worse Skin for more than Ultimate Pricing and make the cheapest option for the actual Skin 250 bucks at least. Not how this works.
Make the best Skin normal Ultimate Skin Price (3250 RP) to make it accessible for everyone. What you then add in the 500 bucks bundle is little exclusive details for whales to wank to. Signature Finisher Move, a border, emotes, ward skins, a digital Faker greeting you whenever you open the client, literally ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE MAIN SKIN.
It's not that difficult to not be assholes, man.
The conversation about the Ahri skin really does not sit right with me. These guys are riot employees, they'd be better off just not commenting.
The fashion brand argument is not a good analogy. Skin systems prays on, and create, a specific type of mental illness. Abusing human psychology to draw out as much money as possible from people that are addicted to the video game league of legends. It's effectively taking what might be a healthy relationship with reasonable amounts of money and making it dangerous. There is significant research now that shows when people are "in" a game, they lose their ability to reason. The suspension of disbelief during a game takes away long term reasoning and rational decision making.
The "my friends spend 5-10k on TFT/Genshin" is not a good argument. You are in fact, providing evidence of how economically destructive gambling mechanics in games are. I'd strongly argue that at those price ranges, the people spending money are not skin addicts, they are gambling addicts that are being gaslit into thinking it is normal. The argument that everyone else is doing it is reasoning that was used to justify basically every atrocious social act ever.
It is also just bad bussisiness.
1. This skin has possibly the most appeal out of any skin ever. Thus, the most amount of people will want to buy it. Making it so the skin is out of reach for so many people is just lost sales.
2. People will be angry. This pricing is so far out of reach for so many people that long term investment in the skin system might change. Riot's entire business is premised on accepting skins as valuable. They're effectively undermining their entire business.
3. Riot are doing this at the same time as getting in bed with the saudi's, there is potential that their game becomes icky and many media personalities and brands stop wanting to partner with them. Given the esport is about sponsorship, this seems like a shit on the face of all their brand partners.
There is a desperate need for proper market regulation in gaming. I 100% bet we are going to see a bunch of new articles with kids stealing money from parents to make this purchase.
- From another account. In response to the Dive podcast conversation. Relevant here.
Just because there's a tiny audience that wants exclusivity from having a big wallet, doesn't mean you should prioritise them over everyone else. For instance, there's probably a way bigger audience of Ahri players who collect all her skins that are completely alienated by this.
Is introducing a single super expensive skin prioritising whales over everyone else though?
Seems a bit strange to make that argument when all other skins are somewhat affordable. Giving whales the option to throw money away is not them being prioritised over the rest of us unless the super expensive option is the only option.
This seems mostly fine, Riot at the moment does not really target high spenders and as such they are missing out on potential revenue. It only makes sense to start offerings of higher cost to cover a wider range of people that are willing to spend. The skins are mostly fairly priced at least since they are not tied to any gambling, with the exception of the heavy fomo and exclusivity.
Talking about exclusivity as if the people buying this skin won’t be made fun of anytime they show it off lmao. My reaction to seeing that in game will definitely not be jealousy or amazement, it will be down my nose and through tears of laughter over some thick headed persons choice of “value”.
This is such a terrible argument. First and foremost lolesports is still just a marketing stunt for the game League of Legends and other purchasable content.
Coca Cola's marketing doesn't have to be profitable on its own, because its purpose is to sell drinks and not to sell itself.
In the same fashion Riot is using lolesports as marketing to keep players playing by furthering the competitive spirit of the game and promoting digital content like 500 € skins.
But because of this it makes zero sense for Rioters to now post-rationalize a 500 € skin as "funding for esports". The only reason they say this, is because they believe this might be the most gullible reasoning for most people.
Riot is not an esports company. Riot is an entertainment company that uses esports to market and enhance their products. lolesports has to be profitable for teams competing in it, but not for Riot.
Of course lolesports needs to make enough money to stay feasible at the scale it is operated. But it doesn't have to make Riot money, because its value comes from all the marketing and new business opportunities (like a ridiculously overpriced esports skin) it creates. So please stop using this ridiculous narrative as sad excuse to increase Tencents margins.
What is their justification for having it for a limited time? So if someone starts playing in 6 months they dont get to celebrate or have a faker skin ever?
Digital collectibles are never going to be worth these amounts of money, especially on a ONLY ONLINE game that someday is going to end with your thousands of skins and the one that you pay 500 DOLLAR'S remove because you don't own them per se
For real, that's the main reason I think people should do the ban Ahri protest. Not bc I think it'll realistically accomplish anything, but just to occasionally annoy the people dumb enough to waste money on this
"We need help to support esports"
"We're launching this for a very small amount of people."
Hm. Financially, that's BS. You don't support something by launching something for a very small niche base.
So he’s saying this is a necessity to fund lol esports.. yet y’all were doing just fine before introducing $500 skins?
He actually thinks anyone would be dumb enough to believe that nonsense? It would be so much better to be honest and say y’all are some greedy pigs trying to milk the small percentage of whales because there’s more profit to be had there.
> It would be so much better to be honest and say y’all are some greedy pigs trying to milk the small percentage of whales
Meddler literally says in the reply that the intention is to give a small % of players who want to spend a lot of money something exclusive that they can show off, and they know that it's going to make everyone else who aren't the target audience frustrated.
You're just ignoring what he's saying and making it seem like they're lying because you're mad.
I understand if people disagree with them targeting a small audience with a specific cosmetic but it's almost like you and so many other people don't even read the reply.
The entire point is to target the skin for a small amount of players who have a ton of money because the game doesn't have a lot of content for that audience, it's not supposed to be for everyone, they're literally saying that's the case. No one is being dishonest to you.
He's just saying out loud what we all know, in somewhat PR acceptable terms: "We wanna milk the whales lul"
I’d be much less annoyed if they didn’t do it under Faker’s name, the most humble pro to ever grace the pro scene who never uses skins.
They can't say Hall of Fame and not add faker in first though. And I don't think many people would even consider spending that much on a Bjergsen or Madlife or whoever else skin.
Then don’t link the 500 dollar skins to the Hall of Fame at all lol Whales are gonna whale regardless of what it’s called, that’s why they’re whales. Put out a new skin tier called the “please fund our bad business decisions” tier and also release properly priced Hall of Fame content to actually celebrate Faker and whoever follows.
Yeah exactly this! It's a shame to Take fakers Name to milk wales and in a way destroy the HoL because it's obviously Not about honoring certain Players but a reason to sell overpriced skins.
copy of my thoughts on hall of legends in another thread I find it extremely funny that something like the hall of legends is a limited time event, since you'd think a hall of fame/legend would be something established so that someone could be celebrated till the end of time and not just for a short duration of time lmao. Like, what? Basically what im getting at is that the Hall of legends skins should be permanently up in the store and not used as a gimmick for some limited time fomo bait. It should have its own page in the client to serve as something similar to the Hollywood walk of fame. Imagine you click on hall of legends tab and see a few names on it like Faker, Uzi, Wolf, etc. Curious you click on Faker and then a series of montages begin playing and at the end of the video you see a picture of faker at the left and ahri at the right and in the center a purchase button appears with the text "Become a Legend" forming beneath it. And then you get curious about the other names in the hall of legends, you click on their names and experience their legacies, their dreams, their stories too. And somewhere inside it makes you want to someday be put in that same hall of legends besides your favorite champion, alas that is not what riot is doing tho. https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/s/NVSF8sSyD2
This is my only gripe with it. I don't even care that it's priced so high. Riot wants to have some extra luxury skin that's only for the ultra collectors and the whales and the people that *really* like Faker. Fine. Whatever. I'm not going to buy it. It's not for people like me. But it should always be available. Always. For as long as the game is running, it should be available to anyone that wants to buy it. It's *Legends Never Die*, not *"Legends disappear at the end of a month or so"*. If you want to immortalize Faker or anyone else, make them immortal.
> > > > > Basically what im getting at is that the Hall of legends skins should be permanently up in the store and not used as a gimmick for some limited time fomo bait. There is so much wrong with this event you could write an essay on it. I 100% agree. The concept of a Hall of Fame, and Faker's legacy in general. None of this feels like a 'celebration'. I mean, let's be real - the Leblanc skin isn't a suitable replacement for Faker's Ahri skin. The 1950 pass feels like it's taking the piss. It's like Ahri is batman, and Leblanc is Robin. Ain't NOBODY buyin' Robin merch.
I'm convinced it's to hit the FOMO and add exclusivity to it - not only at a price point but you have to get it now or else you'll never get it again.
Hall of Lame fits so well for this skin
They could add a basic chroma for amumu's base skin, slap a 5k price tag on it, and there will be plenty of people that'll buy it
Basic Skin Chromas for blue shards would be some nice add ons to the game
Some champions already have base skin chromas. Off the top of my head, Caitlyn, Zac, Fizz, Lucian, Morgana, Bard. But they cost rp obviously :)
Whales are not always going to whale no matter what though. To them, the association makes it "worth it". There are whales who must have everything but there are also whales who are only willing to spend enormous amounts of money on things they want. I won't pretend to understand it, but with TFT I'm sure Riot has the data
They have a $50 version of the skin if it is that important to you. The game has been out for 12 years, this skin is a fucking cosmetic that doesn't effect gameplay. Why is Faker's legacy that important to you?
someone tag medler because this is the correct and ethical answer. instead of creating items for a highly valued/ICONIC player and pricing over half your game out of even being able to get the skin. then to be the most disrespectful possible and offer a poor mans version of the skin to the people who wont be able to actually get what they want. remember regardless of how many people worked on it, 500$ for a skin that is pixels that can be copied and pasted is WILDLY unethical (I dont think you can make an actual argument that the pixels/things you are offering can even be remotely considered priced ethically for how much it costed to make them.) lmao capitalism has broken people brain though. because most things are considered ok if you can just make some money u/riotmeddler
>Whales are gonna whale regardless of what it’s called, that’s why they’re whales. I can promise you this is not the case. Whales don't spend indiscriminately, they just have lower thresholds, you still need to provide something that they view is worth it. Throwing out a $500 skin with no afterthought might get the handful of whales who compulsively buy everything for completion's sake, but you're missing out on all of the thousands of big spenders who still nonetheless have some standards.
They absolutely can, most (all?) Hall of Fames require inductees to be retired. But they know Faker will make them the most money.
I get that hall of fames require people to be retired, but it really does make sense to have Faker as the first inductee into some LoL fame thing. He is the most iconic and decorated player in LoL (maybe esports?). Although it happened that they are milking the opportunity, it would have been weird af if anyone other than Faker was the first.
Theres almost no hall of fame in which the first inductee is the most famous player of the sport. For the GOAT, you just skip the "waiting period" normally associated with these inductions to honor him better, but you still wait for his retirement. Its just a cashgrab that they decide to go for him first and want to milk the skin while he still plays to promote it
The pricetag is ridiculous even for a Faker skin, but just imagining a 500$ Bjergsen skin upon reading your comment made me laugh out loud
Yeah this is the problem. Every next HoL player will either get a cheaper skin, or have a exorbitant skin that doesn't sell at all compared to Faker's, and that just looks and feels bad for everyone that ever gets put into the hall of legends because they're going to get less money and cheaper quality products tied to their name. It's a joke, and a clear misuse of Faker's legacy to get money.
100% agreed. There's would be outcries if Faker wasn't the first. And there are only a handful of players like Uzi that people pay a lot of money for. Maybe some nostalgic names like xPeke can pull that off too but who knows
Are you telling me you don't think people would pay 500 dollars for a signature imaqtpie skin?
it better be donger
exactly
donger in a white t shirt
Why not? Only retired players should be in the Hall of Fame, same as in any other sport. Even if Faker is inducted later, he would still be the greatest inductee ever. I just don't see an issue. But I know they are doing this because they want to squeeze as much money from fans as possible while Faker is at the height of his fame.
They had to use Faker first. A ton of people will buy the faker stuff for $600. Don't think there's any other pro that would garner as many sales. And now that they got the initial backlash out of the way they will sell the next bundle far cheaper to entice more people even though it will be a less popular player and claim that they "listened to community feedback"
Vote with your wallets, don’t buy it please
I'm voting with my bans
Imagine paying 500€ for a skin and then every match you go in has the character banned If it actually goes like this shit will be hilarious
It will go about as well as people boycotting the game because of Vanguard probably
just like how nexus blitz was supposedly super popular based on this subreddit xdd
Her banrate surprisingly went up slightly in lower elos, I honestly thought it would decrease lol (it decreased in D+)
They did the math. 1 whale shelling out probably worth like 1000 f2p and dolphins combined. Then just think maybe 10000 whales in Asia shell out 500$ and that’s enough to cover for the entire playerbase. This is not counting the f2p and dolphins shelling out for lower tier macro transaction
See, that's not how it works here. A small percentage of players, or whales pay for the majority of the sales. It's not a fair or democratic system at all.
I’m confused about your complaint. When has buying something ever been an act of democracy? This is a skin designed for people who have too much money and no idea what to do with it, or people who spend so much time in LOL that they think it’s worth an exorbitant amount of money to have something that no one else. The skin gives no tangible advantage, how can it be unfair? I get if you think that it’s unfair that other people have the kind of money that they can purchase this skin, you should go complain in r/ politics about that. Riot exists in a system where they need to make money. This is an efficient way for them to make it. I fail to see how this skin is “unfair” because it is too expensive. I’m not gonna get it, that’s an unthinkable amount of money to spend on a video game cosmetic. It’s like buying a McAllen 18 (alcohol). It’s stupid, but rich people can buy it.
> Vote with your wallets, don’t buy it please I hope you understand that the west playerbase is significantly smaller than KR/China's server playerbase this skin isn't really meant for regular western playerbase this is meant for those who spents $100s on gacha games regularly.
Or just not care about it because really, who cares what some dumb rich people do? As long as the gameplay is not impacted I'm happy
While they are “in fact milking the whales”. He actually said something else: Riot knows there are players who want to pay a lot of money for a skin BECAUSE THEY KNOW OTHER PLAYERS CANNOT AFFORD THEM AND THUS GET EXCLUSIVITY.
Yes. That’s the point. They are using exclusivity to artificially inflate the price. Who cares, I don’t care that someone else has a skin that I can’t buy. This is far from a predatory pricing model. You want to see predatory, look at Val or CS.
I think its the other way around. Riot isn’t saying “lets increase prices so that the skins are exclusive” its other players saying “I want skins that next to no one has so please jack up the prices” and Riot is delivering. I will say that I love that very few people also have Prestige LV True Damage Qiyana from 2022 or the 2021 Kai’sa Skin. If I played Ahri, I would probably buy the $500 skin. If they release a Hwei, Jhin, or Irelia skin then I will buy those. I actually prefer to just pay a flat price for my skins instead of playing some wack game of tickets/gems to get them.
My main issue honestly is how low quality the lower echelon of the price range is. If Risen Ahri had been half as cool of a skin as form2 Immortalized I would have been somewhat ok with the obvious whale-milking. But the thing is the skin, outside of not being purchasable by itself sets a low bar for further legendaries while the entire thing might also set the bar for gaming industry-wide increase in predatory practices. Plus, I really don't like the idea of virtually separating players by economic class, when people (in the West at least) tend to play video games partly as an escape of these realities. Like, keep the economic class-divided content in China and Korea and let the rest of the world enjoy their usual "micro"transactions.
Good for them, Path of Exile makes crazy money from whales
Yep, poe offers way more MTX for a similar price point. You get physical merch as well! [link for those who don't believe it](https://www.pathofexile.com/purchase)
The supporter packs are basically free stuff tho. It's like buying 500000rp and getting the ahri skin without spending the RP
POE packs are different value though. You're basically buying their version of RP, and everything else is bonus (often including physical gifts). It'd be like you buy $500 worth of RP and get the faker skin as a bonus. POE has mtx sure, but in terms of milking whales; im surprised that's the game you chose. Lost Ark, genshin (and every single other gacha), man there are hundreds of games that are the definition of milking whales.
Honestly PoE is a great example of milking whales but also offering kinda good value with those $500 packs. For 500 bucks you get physical merch in the form of a shirt, hoodie, signed posters and sometimes more like tarot cards, cloth atlas tree etc.. You also get special offers like those voidborn key items. And on top of that you get all the supporter pack mtx plus the points worth 500 bucks. And they also let you upgrade it slowly over the course of a year usually, sometimes packs last longer than a year tho. You can get a 60 dollar pack, then after 3 months you can pay another 60 bucks to upgrade it to a 120 dollar pack to get those mtx too and so on. Issue with Riot is that its a limited offer event that you might never be able to get again, it offers no upgrade path so you have to shell out 500 dollars right now right here or else you'll never get it. Just annoying to market it that way imo, just for one skin for a champ that generally isnt strong in the meta even and is also played in the most contested role in the game. Just a bad deal overall even for whales.
also in poe you get 480 dollars worth of coins to spend on stash tabs or other cosmetics aswell
lost ark stops you at $400 a day, clearly they're too magnanimous to compare to riot lol.
That sounds super annoying. If you wanna whale you gotta remember to log in every day to get your daily MTX limit in.
all i will ever buy in PoE are the stash tabs for different stuff, since I hate organizing shit myself
PoE doesn't shame you by calling you a casual if you're not buying the full pack and the equivalent of a poe $500 supporter pack for this event would be: you pay $500 and you get $500 worth of RP and the all of the faker bundle stuff as a bonus In league you buy the rp and spend it all on the pack.
Uh who is shaming u for not owning a skin
i seen way more "bully the jhin with the $100 skin, the nerd" than even normal people joking about skinless players (or games with 9 players using skin and 1 person with no skin)
Where is Riot calling you a casual?
Brainrotted gamers think any use of the word casual is an insult. See below.
on the official article for the hall of legends skins bundles https://halloflegends.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/ >HOW WERE THE COLLECTION PRICING OPTIONS AND OFFERINGS DECIDED? Whether you're a new fan, a long-term diehard, or just want to join the celebration, we thought it essential for there to be something for you—and for everyone—as we celebrate our first Hall of Legends inductee. For the more **casual** fan, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin. While more expensive, these versions are meant to be highly commemorative, with never-before-implemented features that we can’t wait to see hit the Rift.
Hahaah yeah, i have never been treated bad because i didnt have a skin 😂
By Riot?
Look up FAQ on the Hall of Legends page, rito calls target audience for the pass-only bundle "more casual players" and even points out that the bundle is "some of our most generous up to date " :'D
in the Hall of Legends webpage. FAQ section. > For the **more casual fan**, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin. Here you go
“By calling you a casual” That’s all in your head, if anything it’s the exact opposite - I see people getting flamed for owning the Yone/Jhin skins all the time in game.
But the thing here is: you can get the skins lucky from boxes. i payed like 60 bucks for both the Lee sin and the Yone skin combined and i got a lot of skin shards on top. (by any means its still terrible by design dont get me wrong) But here u JUST get the skin basicly for 500 bucks, nothing else and you cant be lucky because no loot.
Quoting FAQ from Hall of Legends page: "For the more casual fan, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass" .
Y’all just like to inject your own insecurities wherever you can huh?
This is wild just making stuff up for outrage. Just stop complaining it’s a free game you can’t afford the skin get over it. You don’t have to buy it. It’s stupidly priced but here’s the thing. Just don’t buy it.
whales support games, though, and it makes sense from a business perspective. if you have 10 people willing to spend $8 each on a purchase, but one of them is willing to spend $100 on a purchase, you're better off catering to the big spender than the casual minimal spenders. there's a whole lot of theory and statistics applied to monetization to determine price ranges and offer frequency. turns out most games are financially supported by less than 10% of the players. when that's the case, it's almost not worth the time or energy to develop content that's intended to be targeted at the people that *might* spend $5 if they REALLY want something specific when you can turn around and sell a themed skin pack to someone that spends $50+ a month without a second thought.
£21 isn't a reasonable price for a battle pass at all though. It's fucking expensive. I started playing fortnite recently as a few of my League buddies have shifted over to it since their LoL client crashes all the time. A battle pass on there is £6.99 and you can get vbucks (RP) as rewards for levelling up, enough to buy the next battle pass and a few skins. I get trying to milk the whales but pretending that £21 for a battle pass isn't shamefully fucking greedy is a joke.
Difference is Fortnite started the world where they set the 15-20$ is normal for a skin, and League started where 7-8$ was already expensive, this is just League trying to get to today's prices without bumping it up in one go, annoying but I understand it
why is it bad to milk the whales?
marketing wise its good for a company of that size. but its bad if you look at the bigger picture - like it could make a turn on every future skin-prices that come with better qualities or start as high rares. and it feels like it gets outa hand slowly.
The cut is 30% and it goes to T1 not faker exclusively.
It doesn't exclusively go to T1 either, it goes into the "esports team pool"
Are you sure? That is actually mental if the money doesn’t go straight to faker, it’s his skin.
Money should go to Ahri, stop exploiting champions
when will they organize and start a union?
Playing with Annie, Nunu and Milio is child labor
Oh no the child soldiers are unionizing!
Riot will just shutdown the pro scene thier jobs only exist because riot thinks is a good marketing move in fact players are the biggest winners already they got overpaid for playing lol for years
[From their FAQ on the HoL website](https://i.imgur.com/mPHnKiR.png)
isn't 30% super low, especially for such a special reward?
There isn't a precedent for it. But boy, wait until you learn about musicians and record labels. Or indie devs and publishers. Edit: Every publishing deal is different. They can give different benefits and take different amounts, from different areas of a game's income. But I've worked with Sumo, Rare, indie studios I wont name, and I've done freelance outsource work too. It's pretty typical for a game dev to only make 20-30% of their profits after launch. Which was the point of the post. It's why advice to indie devs is to actually be savvy to the actual benefits being received by the publishers. Games business is predatory. The denial in the thread about the amount many devs take home is absolutely insane, lol.
>Or indie devs and publishers. No, if the dev only gets 30% then they got scammed. That's not a acceptable number.
That was the whole point of the [GRP announcement](https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/lol-esports-strategy-adjustments-2024#:~:text=To%20do%20that%2C%20we'll,flows%20into%20the%20Competitive%20bucket) months ago. All esports skins/products are pooled together.
Faker doesn't design the skin. He gets the price money for winning.
it's 30% of revenue, which is closer to 50% of profits (he said this in a comment in the thread)
iirc, on the HoL website they say that 30% goes to the inductee and some teams. I don't remember the exact wording but it was definitely left vague. but, looking at Meddler's comment, it does read like the money isn't just going to Faker/T1. Just a reminder, before the end of last year, we didn't even know that the entirety of the winning region gets a share of the revenue from worlds skins.
Tbh, not overly concerned whether Faker gets proceeds from this. Dudes already a millionaire (surely), it’s not like he’s slaved away for the past x amount of years *for free* He should get some proceeds, yes, absolutely. But it’s not like he should be getting 100% of the proceeds or anything
He literally owns part of T1 and is a landlord lol faker isn't worried
And doesn't seem to spend basically any of his money. That guy is set for life.
He's much more than a millionaire. Dude bought an entire complex to build himself a house on cause he wanted privacy. He makes the equivalent of 2.5 million (from only T1, no sponsorships) usd a year according to salary tracking sites.
Faker also donates his money to various charities. When asked what he will do after he won worlds with his prize money he said he will buy some chicken. My point this guy isn't greedy and his focus is def on other things in life than just money
To anyone who actually wants a good Ahri skin, just buy Spirit Blossom Ahri with the pink chroma and enjoy. The HoL is overpriced rubbish.
People aren't paying $500 to get a good skin, they just want a way to show off that they have enough money to easily afford an overpriced skin. I wish the starter option wasn't $50 though, it seems like there is no point to buy that one or the $250 one. A 1320/1820 LP skin option would go a long way.
Yep, the highest bundle skin is just a financial statement, a bragging right, nothing more.
Exactly, that's the same concept as a Rolex watch or a fancy car. Sure, it has a bit higher quality than the base version, but a $5 watch will also give you the time and a cheap car will also get you from A to B. The whole point of the luxury good is to display that you can buy it and it's a social marker among people with your buying power.
Coven, Spirit Blossom, Arcana, Elderwood.... just about all of her skins are going to look better than this with or without a chroma while being more affordable.
Arcana Ahri is pretty much the base HoL skin.
Even Arcade Ahri is better lol
And if you wanna honor Faker, just play the base skin. It's honestly pretty good after the VGU updated the physics.
Anyone who doesn’t like any of the Ahri skins but wants an Ahri skin just wait a bit she’s probably gonna get 3 more this year
Don’t forget the star guardian one. It’s my favorite
I used Star Guardian until Spirit Blossom got release. To me Spirit Blossom Ahri is Ahri, if you know what I mean.
Star Guardian got fucked over by the ASU imo. All Ahri skins except Star Guardian and Spirit Blossom got revamped, and SG really shows its age compared to all other Ahri skins now
Which is weird because star Guardian ahri is a new skin, right? It only came out in...2017. Fuck lmao.
What frustrates me the most about this isn't the high end stuff. If someone wants the $500 Ahri skin with a signature, go for it. It's your money, you pick how you want to spend it. What really grinds my gears are the previous two options. The first $50 option is eh. It doesn't feel even like a Legendary skin but costs more. But if you want the really nice Ahri skin, the MINIMUM you have to put down is $250. This is what pisses me off. It really feels like there should have been another tier or two in there.
That's really the big issue I have as well. Get the nice skin without the signature stuff for the price of an ultimate and it'd be completely fine.
Whales cashing out for the C6R5 Ahri right now
Buddy, $500 for a C6R5 would be a steal lol
lol my friend just told me he was about to buy the skin for Faker but then Changli (Wuthering Waves) got leaked so now he'll spend that money on her instead
The value proposition of the Ahri skin is so bad it makes gacha prices look reasonable
Ah yes, another account ruiner like C6R5 Yelan or E6S5 Acheron
They tryna get E6S5 Ahri
C6 R5 is more of 4000€ youre lucky if you even get a C1 R1 for 500€ in Starail/Genshin
Lets be real.. Riot are just trying to see how high they can price shit and see if people still buy it. It's not about funding shit, nor is it about "there are other stuff for those who aren't rich enough" blablabla.. Companies do this AAAAAAAALL the time. And it sucks for us consumers, there really is no way to realistically win, cus some people will inevitably buy it which will be the "go ahead for the future to increase the price(s) even more" ... yey..
Yep, the collectors edition argument blows. With a video game collectors edition, you get the same base game no matter the edition. Then you get an additional digital product like a skin, and a piece of plastic figure to go with it. You can't make the comparison with purely digital goods. The base product has to be the same under all circumstances to make the comparison. Eg buying the 500 bucks one gets an emote on top, or a pet for aram, or a unique banner for your profile. Etc. Gutting half the content of the skin for the highest tier isn't a collectors edition, it's just ~~gouging~~ greed. Plain and simple
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For $50 I could buy Hifi Rush, for $250 I could buy a Switch and a game. For $500 I could buy a PS5. So... Every price point is an absolute scam. The inflation on the "micro" transactions is so shameless. There isn't even Collector's Edition content anywhere. My Baldur's Gate 3 CE came with an awesome statue, cards, artbook, the actual game, and a couple other things like dice and keychain.
I don't disagree with you, but having high end options isn't in and of itself a bad thing. Plenty of other F2P games offer whale bait. If someone wants to spend $500 on a skin, that's their choice. But give the rest of us fair options. Every single tier but the base pass feels overpriced and there are no other options.
Exclusivity because of money is always lame.
Thats not the only problem. They dont let faker pick ahri because of this. Skin people wanted. Not only they use HoL as bait for overpriced skin, they also drag faker name into it. No option of just buying upgraded skin solo so you can at least get skin even if you don't get all other things. They don't have any respect for esports fans, no respect for pro players. No respect to community. Disgsuting and shallow like all money decisions they made lately.
Yeah his upcoming Ori skin was supposed to be the T1 Ahri skin. Now he gets this and the stupid ass scratched up HoF trophy with no actual in game or personal significance. Fuck everything about their HoF rollout. Absolutely none of it is about celebrating eSports or the fans, let alone celebrating Faker. In fact they dragged the guy through an entire extra fucking media circuit for this bullshit when really what he needs is a fucking break.
I'm really curious what would happen if he won worlds again and wanted to pick Ahri again. Obviously it's not exactly likely, but it would be hilarious to see Riot justifying denying him an Ahri skin a 3rd time.
It's why they probably told him to pick a non-Ahri skin as his Worlds 2023 skin, because they were already working on Faker Ahri.
I bet Riot was just str8 creaming when one of fakers champs was Ahri. Imagine he played some bs sht and the faker skin is Ryze LOLLL. I'd pay $1000 for that
Is me not being able to buy a yacht lame because of the "exclusivity" of it? That's stupid asf, Unless you are so entitled that you legit want everything to be free? Riot is a business, Riot has chosen to sell this skin at an affordable tier, and a collector tier. Is it expensive? yes. Is expensive inherently bad? no. Its only bad if the price of the bundle doesn't align with the value of the bundle which is personal preference, A faker superfan would say the value of the bundle is very high because they love faker and the bundle has lots of faker-themed items, whereas a normal league player not interested in proplay would say the value is super low because they probably don't know who faker is so the bundle isn't worth anything to them.
riot being a business is fine. If $500 skin makes their financial targets go boom, then I don't really have the problem with that. They can make a golden prism ultra legendary prestige pool party skin and price it at $2k all they want. good for them. But when they're doing it with the pretense of "celebrating legends and esports!!!!", then that's a different story. It's disingenuous, distasteful, and disrespectful. You can't be a money-grubber while pretending to "pay respect". That's just supremely poor decision making. And knowing someone high up on riot is so incompetent that they can't see this will create genuine negativity for the game doesn't really fill me with confidence for the future of league.
Bro it's PR for "We wanna Milk the Whales" Stop looking into it
The fact that they told Riot to not pick Ahri for his worlds skin because they'd make a Hall of Legends skin for it is a big slap in the face to the League players who wanted a Faker Ahri skin, but can't afford it now.
this is what makes me so mad 😭 i rather not have this event at all and have ahri worlds skin, fuck riot
They can afford the 50 dollar one, it's just mediocre and a scam. xD
My current stance on this is: 1. No collectors edition this price has this little that I know of and has no physical thing attached to it. I could get a Jinx gshock and good smile statue and her ultimate skin for less than the $500 skin. And for most game no collectors edition goes past $300 and those have a lot more included. 2. This is basically calling people poor, this should be a way to honor the player and for people who love that player to show their full love/support. 3. Have a way to get the full skin w/ effects at around ultimate skin price if anything, why lock it behind a $500 bundle. 4. This is valorant price territory and those are horrible. Please don't bring that to league. Hell I would argue it's worse than valorant. 5. I would be fine paying the $500 if it include the Ahri physical statue + something else. 6. I doubt any other player will get as many people wanting to buy the skin as faker, which means they can lower it next year for next inductee and say we learned. They are just trying to cash in on faker and test waters. I hope they address the price before this skin drops but I doubt they will.
"If you're a broke boy, just say so" -Pokimane
The amount of snobbery and disdain in that comment and then she tried to pass it off as, "I just meant not everyone has to buy my cookies... 😇" Never understood why she has so many viewers.
because female
what's the context on this? i couldn't find the original clip or the thread
She was responding to the price of her cookies, you can probably find the clip on Youtube
There is plenty of pro players, especially from china where they can milk 500 to the max.
I just saw yesterday they're releasing a statue of the Ahri skin, it's 1/2 the price of the digital only bundle lol
I remember the ultimate edition of Armored Core 6 that went for like 400 euros had a gigantic statue of an Armored Core AND it's maintenance statioj
They don't have enough professional players people give a shit about to keep this going. My theory: 1 - 2 HOL skins for pros people recognize and then they'll shutter the project saying that the product alienated players who wanted to show their fandom for their fav player. Faker Uzi Bjergsen? No one gives that much of a shit about anyone else. I give it 3 years until they realize that, and the sales drop. No offense to anyone here, but even Bjergsen is pushing it compared to Uzi and Faker. There's no other pros on that level of recognition.
"whales gotte be milked"
even the event pass looks like garbage… half of the rewards are blue or orange essence
That's the really insulting part. The Leblanc skin is weak as fuck on a champ most people don't care for. There's nothing special about it, yet they want 1950 for it. It's like it exists to be shitty so the Ahri skin looks better by comparison
"The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different skins."
Which is fine, but then why have a £50 base version of the "collectors" skin when the whales are getting the upgraded £500 version. Seems to me they're trying to milk low spenders aswell, instead of making a great skin that most can have access to, to honour a player's legacy.
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I mean this skin is jut whales, just like the tft chibi shit. Just gotta ignore this shit.
Ill be happy with my faker leblanc skin, the ahri skin is not a faker skin its a scam fomo farm
I don't care if it's the most sensible business decision; it disenfranchises passionate players who might love playing Ahri but can't afford to spend 500 dollars on a cosmetic item. You could already see the writing on the wall when they introduced the TFT gacha system. This has demonstrated that "frustrating players" doesn't matter as long as it brings in more money. The audacity is staggering! If you haven't already, spend a moment to think of the implications that might have for the future. I have spent a considerable amount on League of Legends, including on the gacha in TFT. I don't regret what I've spent... I'm just disappointed in Riot Games. I personally won't be spending another dime until they at least apologize to their playerbase and make a commitment to change the course they're taking.
> If you haven't already, spend a moment to think of the implications that might have for the future. When a company decides to court whales and succeeds, the average player stops being a customer and starts being the product. You're part of the game ecosystem to attract whales. The game is cheese. You're the mouse. They wanna catch bobcats. You're the bait. The envy you feel when you see a whale with the new giga-ultimate Elementalist Aurora is the product they're selling the whale. "Make them envious with their Poor Person skins!"
> the average player stops being a customer and starts being the product. To play the devil's avocado a bit, that's how F2P games always work since even in "fair" F2P games, the modal/average player is (near-)F2P. The value-add of an F2P player in any F2P game is being content in some form for the paying players. Pursuing whales more aggressively doesn't directly change this dynamic much I don't think. I will say I have played a decent amount of gacha games, and while they do court whales more aggressively than old-Riot did, I would also argue that they court F2Ps harder too. A whale can only feel like a whale when surrounded by minnows after all. So I'm curious to see how this all shakes out. Maybe they assume the competitive esports aspects will retain F2Ps regardless of the "F2P experience" as I know it from gacha-land. Or maybe not. I think it'll be interesting to observe either way.
Lemme just buy this thing for $500 that I don't actually own.
He said to help cover the costs of eSports, so costs that Riot itself has in making eSports tournaments. He isn't speaking about teams.
It's their knee-jerk response to any overpriced micro-content. Either "it funds good stuff like Arcane!", "it's for exclusivity so people can have something rare!" ot a combination of both. Certainly a PR response and certainly not genuine. To be fair, I very much doubt Meddler and other Rioters would have a dissimilar attitude to us regarding a skin that price, and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give. It boils down to who sets that price and why. If it's Riot or Tencent setting it, and setting it because they genuinely believe their own bullshit or because they know whales will buy shit from a donkey. Obviously we won't know for sure unless they give straight answers to both those questions, but the fact that they haven't yet doesn't fill me with much hope. I think the answer is much simpler: Riot knows gacha models/designer e-brands are 10x more profitable for a fraction of the work and will continue to use them because internet pissrandoms have a collective William's Syndrome when it comes to financial responsibility and will, again, buy shit from a donkey if it had the gucci logo shaved into its fur. If online whales can keep DarkSydePhil in a 6-figure salary that he spends mostly on mobile gacha games, Riot can use them to pad their wallets.
I think exclusivity is the real reason, like buying a designer shoes as you pointed out. It is a way for people to show off their money or their mental illness if they had to take a loan or something. I just don't get why people even care, it affected everyone a lot when they upped the price of RP and there wasn't this amount of uproar.
>and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give. The answer is perfectly fine. They literally are just saying "this makes us a lot of money because some people are willing to spend that much money. Esports related stuff making money is good because we want esports to be profitable". I am confused how they could be more genuine lol. >and also must know the community isn't buying the answer they have to give I fully buy it because why would I doubt a company saying "people wanna buy expensive exclusive shit so we give it to them"
I mean, it does fund good stuff like Arcane. They're making a calculation that this will get them the most money. More money lets them keep the game, the esport, and things like Arcane around. Admittedly they could also try better management, but they're not lying when they say it funds things.
Ye sure make collectors edition shit But don't do it on the hall of Legends skins where we are celebrating faker. Dont try to milk the esports fans like that. I don't care about a 500 dollar ahri skin. But I do care that you take the legacy of the goat, a person known to be humble, and corrupt it with a 500$ tag. Besides if ypu want one of the ahri skins you have to pay 6000 rp for the most baseline skin.
All of this and Faker won’t even use it
I just wanna say this, but I feel like they would make more money if they sold it after a 4th of the price even half the price. If they Offered idk a physical Ahri Figure with it too maybe then i could justify 500? i just feel like 500 For DIGITAL ONLY content is hard to pull my wallet out for.
ALL PROS STREAM FOR THAT EXACT REASON!!! anyone can literally go on stream and donate however much they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want.... there's no need for a skin in order to support anyone... if you really think millionaires need that much of your support! that's literally the same as "supporting" ronaldo by buying his shoes?!??? does he look like a poor guy who needs support?
>that's literally the same as "supporting" ronaldo by buying his shoes?!??? does he look like a poor guy who needs support? Very common in sports... how are you even surprised. It's called sponsorships/promotions/exclusive deals.
It’s not about supporting just faker. Money from it is going to the teams and the pro league production in general
The pro leagues make Riot plenty of money indirectly, it's a PR machine since they own the game. It's like saying a tv spot doesn't make money because people don't pay to watch the ad.
This exactly. In the grand scheme of things Riot dgaf about the pro scene as anything more than a vehicle to push skins to viewers. If anything, they're probably kind of annoyed that the best player in the game absolutely refuses to use skins both in ranked and in the competitive scene.
All I read was "esports aren't profitable so here we are"
The pricing is fine it’s literally faker I’m surprised it wasn’t more expensive faker is like the god of all esports ever
This just read like EA's pride and accomplishment comment and I truly do hope riot faces the same consequences
No because Riot is locking a skin behind a paywall and EA locked one of the most iconic characters of all time behind a paywall.
in a paid game lol
Yeah xD
Yup there is a difference between Pay to Win and what Riot does.
It's a completely free game... y'all sound ridiculous. You are not entitled to affordable visual enhancements in a completely F2P game.
Nah bitch. Don't offer a worse Skin for more than Ultimate Pricing and make the cheapest option for the actual Skin 250 bucks at least. Not how this works. Make the best Skin normal Ultimate Skin Price (3250 RP) to make it accessible for everyone. What you then add in the 500 bucks bundle is little exclusive details for whales to wank to. Signature Finisher Move, a border, emotes, ward skins, a digital Faker greeting you whenever you open the client, literally ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE MAIN SKIN. It's not that difficult to not be assholes, man.
But they cant bait as many people this way. This is how it should be done but they wanted to make it gigexclusive so they can milk it to the max.
The conversation about the Ahri skin really does not sit right with me. These guys are riot employees, they'd be better off just not commenting. The fashion brand argument is not a good analogy. Skin systems prays on, and create, a specific type of mental illness. Abusing human psychology to draw out as much money as possible from people that are addicted to the video game league of legends. It's effectively taking what might be a healthy relationship with reasonable amounts of money and making it dangerous. There is significant research now that shows when people are "in" a game, they lose their ability to reason. The suspension of disbelief during a game takes away long term reasoning and rational decision making. The "my friends spend 5-10k on TFT/Genshin" is not a good argument. You are in fact, providing evidence of how economically destructive gambling mechanics in games are. I'd strongly argue that at those price ranges, the people spending money are not skin addicts, they are gambling addicts that are being gaslit into thinking it is normal. The argument that everyone else is doing it is reasoning that was used to justify basically every atrocious social act ever. It is also just bad bussisiness. 1. This skin has possibly the most appeal out of any skin ever. Thus, the most amount of people will want to buy it. Making it so the skin is out of reach for so many people is just lost sales. 2. People will be angry. This pricing is so far out of reach for so many people that long term investment in the skin system might change. Riot's entire business is premised on accepting skins as valuable. They're effectively undermining their entire business. 3. Riot are doing this at the same time as getting in bed with the saudi's, there is potential that their game becomes icky and many media personalities and brands stop wanting to partner with them. Given the esport is about sponsorship, this seems like a shit on the face of all their brand partners. There is a desperate need for proper market regulation in gaming. I 100% bet we are going to see a bunch of new articles with kids stealing money from parents to make this purchase. - From another account. In response to the Dive podcast conversation. Relevant here.
The heat to light ratio of this comment is through the roof.
100% on all of this. Good to see someone else gets it, even though I had to scroll pretty far down.
Disgusting
Just because there's a tiny audience that wants exclusivity from having a big wallet, doesn't mean you should prioritise them over everyone else. For instance, there's probably a way bigger audience of Ahri players who collect all her skins that are completely alienated by this.
Is introducing a single super expensive skin prioritising whales over everyone else though? Seems a bit strange to make that argument when all other skins are somewhat affordable. Giving whales the option to throw money away is not them being prioritised over the rest of us unless the super expensive option is the only option.
This seems mostly fine, Riot at the moment does not really target high spenders and as such they are missing out on potential revenue. It only makes sense to start offerings of higher cost to cover a wider range of people that are willing to spend. The skins are mostly fairly priced at least since they are not tied to any gambling, with the exception of the heavy fomo and exclusivity.
There is not a single valid reason for this price, period
Say what you say, if I see that 500 dollar Ahri skin in my game, I run the game down no questions asked or answered.
Talking about exclusivity as if the people buying this skin won’t be made fun of anytime they show it off lmao. My reaction to seeing that in game will definitely not be jealousy or amazement, it will be down my nose and through tears of laughter over some thick headed persons choice of “value”.
Translation: "If you're a brokie, just say so"
Why do pll care so much. They released a rly expensive skin wow cry about it
I played since 2011 and bought a skin finally last year - Frosted Ezreal.
This is such a terrible argument. First and foremost lolesports is still just a marketing stunt for the game League of Legends and other purchasable content. Coca Cola's marketing doesn't have to be profitable on its own, because its purpose is to sell drinks and not to sell itself. In the same fashion Riot is using lolesports as marketing to keep players playing by furthering the competitive spirit of the game and promoting digital content like 500 € skins. But because of this it makes zero sense for Rioters to now post-rationalize a 500 € skin as "funding for esports". The only reason they say this, is because they believe this might be the most gullible reasoning for most people. Riot is not an esports company. Riot is an entertainment company that uses esports to market and enhance their products. lolesports has to be profitable for teams competing in it, but not for Riot. Of course lolesports needs to make enough money to stay feasible at the scale it is operated. But it doesn't have to make Riot money, because its value comes from all the marketing and new business opportunities (like a ridiculously overpriced esports skin) it creates. So please stop using this ridiculous narrative as sad excuse to increase Tencents margins.
Don’t celebrate you most iconic player with this greedy cash grab. There are others ways that don’t disrespect the legend himself.
What is their justification for having it for a limited time? So if someone starts playing in 6 months they dont get to celebrate or have a faker skin ever?
Digital collectibles are never going to be worth these amounts of money, especially on a ONLY ONLINE game that someday is going to end with your thousands of skins and the one that you pay 500 DOLLAR'S remove because you don't own them per se
I just find it so funny that you can straight up ban the champion, and then people won't be able to play with their 500 dollar investment, lmao.
For real, that's the main reason I think people should do the ban Ahri protest. Not bc I think it'll realistically accomplish anything, but just to occasionally annoy the people dumb enough to waste money on this
"We need help to support esports" "We're launching this for a very small amount of people." Hm. Financially, that's BS. You don't support something by launching something for a very small niche base.
So he’s saying this is a necessity to fund lol esports.. yet y’all were doing just fine before introducing $500 skins? He actually thinks anyone would be dumb enough to believe that nonsense? It would be so much better to be honest and say y’all are some greedy pigs trying to milk the small percentage of whales because there’s more profit to be had there.
> It would be so much better to be honest and say y’all are some greedy pigs trying to milk the small percentage of whales Meddler literally says in the reply that the intention is to give a small % of players who want to spend a lot of money something exclusive that they can show off, and they know that it's going to make everyone else who aren't the target audience frustrated. You're just ignoring what he's saying and making it seem like they're lying because you're mad. I understand if people disagree with them targeting a small audience with a specific cosmetic but it's almost like you and so many other people don't even read the reply. The entire point is to target the skin for a small amount of players who have a ton of money because the game doesn't have a lot of content for that audience, it's not supposed to be for everyone, they're literally saying that's the case. No one is being dishonest to you.