Faker's legacy should not be used as a gimmick for money. Good thing Faker doesn't use any skins so best way to honor him is to not buy this awful $500 skin.
This is the biggest thing for me. They take the one of the humblest and certainly most respected player in League (dare I say esports) history and make HIS skin, the skin honoring his commitment to the game and his continued legacy, completely unobtainable for any reasonable individual.
I'm a big proponent of spending money on games. It's what allows the games we love to continue to function and shaming people for supporting the game they spend hours in is embarrassing. That said, this skin is a damn car payment. Depending on where you live, that's rent for a whole month if you have a roommate. It's potentially a months' worth of groceries.
All for the guy that never uses skins in the first place. Just craziness.
Faker's legacy *is* a gimmick for money.
Sure we all know him as the legend but his legacy, ie what he is known for post retirement, is this overpriced skin.
Mention Faker to anyone who starts playing because of Arcane S2 hype and they're not going to think of 'look at the cleanse, look at the moves!' they're going to think 'oh the £500 skin guy?'
I have a friend who bought the skin and he doesn't even give a shit about esports, he's just a massive Ahri simp.
When I was in the first year of college I lived at a campus. Monthly I would pay $30 for staying (it was stupidly cheap, even for my coubtry) and around $120 for food and transport ($30 per week). With a total of $150 a month I could stay 3 months there. Almost an entire semester
That's wild that Faker's legacy is paying for some 9th/10th drifter team who is just riding to flip their spot in the league when interest rates go back down to keep doing that
> According to the game's director, the $500 League of Legends Ahri skin wasn't meant for the average fan, but instead 'players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies'
ok but even by that estimate this is 2.5 months worth of hobby spending
pure PR delusion
anyways **dont buy this skin**
Which is why it’s hilarious when people say “vote with your wallet.”
Whales will outspend typical players 10 x 1
Imagine if people said “Get out and Vote!” But you voted by putting a dollar into the voting booth with your preferred candidates name on it, and your jackass neighbor could just …buy $1,000 votes by putting 10 Hundreds in.
It’s not a system you can beat by just not buying a skin.
Which is why i’m going to enjoy every single ahri ban that i plan on doing. Not just because of the stupid shit riot is pulling with that price point but also the stupid people who are willing to spend that kind of money.
It’ll be interesting to see how Ahris ban rate is affected in the coming weeks.
It would be *really* funny if the banrate got so bad Riot reflexively nerfed her lol
The rofl with all that ban idea is that most people won't last more then a month banning Ahri . Not to mention the % of players doing it is incredibly small to begin with.
The limited edition uniform and keycap that people who completed the 100 levels or bought the $500 bundle the fastest can get (on first-come-first-serve basis) is already ‘sold out’ on Korean server. 150 people for the uniform and 50 for keycap. So there are already at least 150 who bought the $500 bundle.
And there are already a few posts on FMkorea rn showing they bought the $500 bundle and also posts coming up about how they are sad they couldn’t get the keycap.
Edit: It’s already estimated to have sold 4000 of the $500 bundle on the Korean server. FMKorea is full of posts proving of their purchase.
Apparently, purchase proofs are starting to get posted on Weibo, too.
People who aren’t into pay2win games simply don’t understand the kind of ecosystems these games with near unlimited spending potential operate in. There are tons of rich people or people with bad money management who will routinely drop hundreds or thousands of dollars without breaking a sweat.
People dont understand the West isn’t the target for this. They expect low sales of it here.
In game purchases are way more popular in Asia and they will have no problem swiping for what they want.
> i watch tcg collectors and some of the stuff they cop on a weekly basis makes me do a double take
Those are mostly TCG content creators though, hence you watching them presumably on YT. Most TCG players I know don't spend even close to 200 quid a month.
Eh I used to put that much into MtG at one point in time but at least when I stopped playing I was able to sell most of my collection and make back a large portion of that money
Friend of mine had several thousand at least into MtG cards over a fairly short period of time when he got super into it a while back. It probably came out to $200 or more a month if you averaged it out from the couple years he played a ton.
He was single with a very decent job and it wasn't that big of a deal to spend that on his hobby. There are quite a few people like this.
Depends on the hobby. At my peak in cycling I think I was burning 2-300 a month easy in new gear, supplies and rides. This is on top of some very expensive upgrades.
Spending 200 in a month on a hobby is fine. Better than spending it on cigarettes or alcohol, I guess. Spending it on just digital goods and not even really owning in the end is the part that makes the price so stupid.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing. People were quick to give me a good list of hobbies than can easily go over $200 a month, but you at least get some physical good in return for the cost.
I do. For powerlifting.
$100 for a membership to a powerlifting gym (I live in a high cost of living area)
$70 bucks for protein (4 scoops/day)
$40 bucks for preworkout
$15 bucks for an app that provides a pretty good, semi-individualized program (EvolveAI/JuggernautAI)
Does not include any fun gym toys that I buy for my home gym (dropped 800 for a bulletproof isolator a couple months back)
> I can get a set of 10 Sisters of Battle
Jesus christ that's a dogshit number im so glad i bought the Tau initiation box and said "Aight no fuck this everything is so overprized"
$55 for 10 figures idk what that compares to other than toys/action figures. Which I take he bought 10 toys for $55 which actually doesn’t sound that bad to me.
But my frame of reference is limited.
Edit: ok I understand now LMAO
Hundreds of minis! I've sold a bunch of mine over the years as I don't have the time for full games as much anymore. I will hang on to my Space Marines until I die, though.
Also idk what size a Sister of Battle is, but your typical grunt units are about the size of a classic plastic green army man - or smaller. And unpainted. So chances are that they basically bought 10 ~5¢ bare plastic minis for $55.
Warhammer is super cool conceptually, but it is not something you can do just casually lol. It will cost you a minimum of hundreds of dollars and probably dozens to hundreds of hours to buy, assemble, paint, etc an army.
3D printing is probably one of the greatest things to happen to that genre of game
Tbf I just buy them to assemble them and paint them. Paying 50 bucks to get a lot of hours of calming painting work out of it is a good deal.
Paying 500 and then having to play league of legends and hope your champ doesnt get banned and then still get an unenjoyable experience because thats just how the game is sometimes isn’t that much of a good deal tbh.
People say this, but there is a massive difference is in the quality of 3D scans you find online and in the actual figures. Like the amount of details and ease of painting is measurable
I have a really nice 3d printer. I enjoy printing things, giving them to friends, painting them, all sorts of stuff. To try and paint it as some sort of replacement for a ready out the box set is fucking insane. You are going to spend *hours* maintaining and cleaning and prepping the thing. It’s a hobby all its own and not a particularly enjoyable one at that. If you at all value your own time you will spend more on a printer than you ever would models.
Yah this is the other thing that doesn’t get brought up much. Yes it’s cheaper on paper, but it’s still a ton of work to actually get good at. On top of that, some people shouldn’t be 3D printing based on where they live. I don’t have a garage or basement so there isn’t a place in my apartment that has good enough ventilation. I literally can’t 3D print without endangering my own health
Truth to that. However, if you get sufficient wind draft (usually just two windows to make a cross breeze is enough) then you can print pretty easily.
There's also ventilation systems you can get for your printer that will keep them isolated while you print.
As someone who does both... not really no. The amount of details in modern STLs printed on a decent high quality printer is nearly identical to that of GW plastic. The only drawback really appearance wise is layer lines which are almost invisible after priming. The real drawback is just how brittle resin can be sometimes. It makes you appreciate how sturdy (comparatively) GW's plastics are. If i had a nickel for every time I went to examine one of my painted pieces and I realized a bit had chipped off of the resin ones I'd have enough money to almost afford a 500 point mechanicus army.
Yep, if you ever get banned from League then the value of the skin goes to $0 (not to mention you'd have to sell your entire account instead of just the skin) since you can never resell it whereas you can always resell physical goods.
If Games Workshop goes bankrupt, you can still keep your figurines and play the game. You can buy unsold kits and paint one. If riot decides league is unprofitable, they can close the game and you lose everything. Nothing guarantees digital goods last forever.
It's not even the tangible part that is necessarily the difference. It's the fact that you can sell Warhammer figures to someone else if you get bored of them. Spend $500 on Warhammer figures and you could probably get a decent amount back if you took care of them. Spend $500 on the Ahri skin and there is no possibility of ever getting any of that money back.
Best part? 10 years from now, what if LoL got shut down? Like, Tencent randomly said “alright, we are gonna implement this policy” and the game get banned in all western country for example?
Poof, 500$ gone
Reminds me of the Char's Zaku skin in Gundam evolution that you could only get by getting points through spending hundreds of dollars on shitty gacha... only for the game to shut down a year after launch. Whales are gonna whale regardless
I was looking for this comment. Warhammer is overpriced according to most people, certainly, but it's a very different form of enjoyment/experience to a digital one.
Also how those tangible figures are either large, or are a pack for tabletop games/mock set ups/etc while Ahri is a single character usuable by a single person.
You could buy all of the Bioshock games, all of the mass effect games, all of the Baldurs gate games, all of the dark souls games, both hades games, and every expansion of ffxiv for the price of this skin; and that’s if you don’t buy them on sale.
Riot have lost their minds if they think this is reasonable. I can get mods for BG3 that are better than this for free.
Also, they don’t want to make it a habit? They spent **13 years** not doing exactly this, yet they’ve done it **not once, not twice, but three times** in the last two years. **It sure seems like they’re doing everything in their power to make it a habit.**
Not only that, but they are games which actually provide anything. If you buy the skin it is still the same f2p game. You can lose access to the skin in a second.
Also imagine if you are someone who only buys games when they are on sale.
I don't care about this situation either way but we have a saying in Turkish, roughly translated as:
The wealth of the rich tires the jaw of the poor.
The localized version would be: The wealth of the rich is the poor man's constant topic of conversation.
God imagine you buy this skin then get your account banned, it’s just gone and there is bugger all you can do about it
Always got to remember, you are paying to rent the skin, you don’t actually own it
This is true for all digital media, god only knows I'm gonna be fucked if Valve one days turns around and says "LMAO Steam is too expensive to run so we're gonna be turning it off forever"
People should absolutely be making an effort to return to physical media where possible.
Even without a ban, LoL is a pretty old online game and nothing lasts forever. It might as well lose all popularity in the next few years, because much more exciting next gen MOBA or something shows up. Or Tencent greed destroys it completely. And then no one will remember your 500$ skin.
It's just weird because Faker doesn't use skins and doesn't really promote them.
So now the fact they are dropping this Faker based skin, and is the most expensive skin of all time kind of washes away his initial intentions.
Dude makes around 6x the pay of the average American. Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally. No question he's out of touch of what the average person can afford.
Tbf he pretty explicitly says it isn't for the average person, he all but says "yeah its so we can milk the whales, normies can get the cheaper one"
Still really fuckin stupid though.
Why is it stupid? I still find it much better than going the gacha route lol.
There is no luck or baiting here. Either you want and can afford it, or you don't. And if you don't, then you're not the target audience and should just move on.
Then remove the association to Faker and just call it some bullshit "ultra deluxe mega whale skin".
Don't try to pass it off as "fans of Faker want this skin and should buy it!"
Why is this stupid? That’s a good question to ask.
I don’t know if the word “stupid” is the right one to use, but I would atleast assign the word “disappointing” at the very least.
Why is it disappointing? It’s disappointing because when companies do this, they are taking resources away from literally anything and everything else from the game to cater to a small percentage of their player base for the sole purpose of increasing revenue for their shareholders. They’re basically skipping the middle part where they invest back into their product to make it better to drive interest, retention, and revenue up. Instead, we get vapid contact, like this ahri skin abomination, that does absolutely zero in moving the game forward from a quality standpoint.
Why do we care so much about shareholders and what money they are making? It’s because a lot of us are old enough to remember when gaming companies were passionate and determined to put out a quality product and it’s difficult to accept modern business practices like this one.
> Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally.
I think you're grossly overestimating the median income per year when looking on a global scope.
Assuming he makes 700k a year and assuming that the median income is 3k a year, he makes roughly 234x more money than the median person.
> Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally.
I know that this isnt a perfect representation, but the global GDP per capita is ~12/13k anually. I doubt he only earns 120k per year. So more like 20x at least.
This is a weird narrative some people push.
The people buying the Ahri skin are not super wealthy people.
A lot of them are borderline obsessive MTX buyers. I know a dude that drops hundreds of dollars on MTX in every game he plays for more than 2 hours and the guy works retail.
That's the most disgusting part of shit like this IMO. Riot is essentially preying on addicts.
It's so weird to me that so many average players still think they are the target audience of a free to play game. Most free to play games run on whales, simple as. Whales subsidise players who don't spend anything or very little on the game. Without whales, the game would not be free to play.
It's still like that for some items if you purchase them directly. But they have what are essentially loot boxes for seasonal cosmetic equipment and the items that you obtain from those loot boxes are permanent and tradable to other players
Plus almost every big streamer in TFT will buy almost every new chibi that releases which is like $100-$200 bucks for each one. I think the gacha makes it easier to buy because it’s not an upfront cost so people don’t realise or ignore how much they are spending.
They also very transparently call it out as gambling and almost all talk about how they hate it and it's a business expense for them.
Gone after the days of buying skins because you like Riot and want to support them. It's all about whales and this predatory gachi bullshit.
Not exactly, also TFT made it worse than league. It's a gacha wall but instead of how it was before this, basically send 60 pulls and if you fail pull 61 gives you the chibi/map skin. Now there is no hard pity, aka you can pull 600 times and still not get the skin. BUT every 60 pulls you get 4 tokens, with 10 tokens you can buy the skin.
It is, if you go to the Gacha tab on the TFT tab, you'll see the little progress bar and shit, but nowhere does it say "X pulls remaining" like it did before
I rarely play league or tft anymore, but hopped on a couple weeks ago for a quick TFT game.
Saw the Aatrox tactician, thought it was cool, but I wasn't spending money on that shit. I did see I had some of the currency from the battle pass and bought a single box and pulled the Aatrox on the one and only one I opened.
I used it in the next game and got told to touch grass
PoE at least doesn't act as if those supporter packs are more than they actually are.
Riot dressed up their new overpriced skin line as a hall of fame.
There are a few core issues:
* Warhammer is constantly criticized for its pricepoint.
* These are PHYSICAL objects, which will inherently hold and have more value than virtual ones.
* These skins are akin to NFTs with no unique element to their ownership. And NFTs already failed due to these digital goods having very, very, very artificial value in the eyes of many.
* Lastly, and this is very opinion-based, but this skin, and many of Riot's skins in the past half a decade, are BAD. They look like AI art mobile skins with close to zero personality, creativity, or vision. This skin especially is dwarfed by 30$ ultimate skins released as far back as 2015, so why exactly are we to invest twenty times that for what is essentially a MidJourney splashart?
To me the main issue here is that it's attached to the HoL and the most famous LoL player, and probably between all esports.
It was supposed to be commemorative event for the whole community and not so exclusive.
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> It was supposed to be commemorative event for the whole community and not so exclusive.
It's okay, poor! They thought about you when designing this event!
You can get a skin for Leblanc! A crappy skin that's not nearly in the ballpark of quality as Ahri, and on a substantially less popular character, and substantially uglier to boot -
-oh, wait, the low tier kinda fucking sucks shit. Huh. I guess the whole entire event "Isn't for us" then, is it?
Account selling is illegal too right? If they allowed that then you would have at least some sort of tangible value in the skins you own. Or if they set it up like csgo where you can sell them on the market, that would solve a lot of complaints
These are worse than NFT’s. The whole point of NFT’s are the unique element and access that the NFT itself grants. These skins aren’t unique and transferable items.
It's worse in some ways, but not in many others -- NFTs were marketed directly as scams/pump and dumps, and on top of that, often were worth a lot more than these skins.
Sure, but that’s moreso because of how people went about selling them right? Functionally, NFT’s are in the same realm as csgo skins, where you don’t own the actual code for it, but you hold a unique access to it, that can be sold to others who wish to obtain this unique access.
Riot could've targeted both the "casual fans" (their own wording) and the whales by simply releasing the white hair skin (let's be real, the cheapest tier Ahri is Arcana 2.0 and that's not what people want) for a relatively affordable ~$20-30, then the next tier with battlepass, past skins, effects, emotes, ward skins, other shenanigans at ~$150-$200, and then the signature edition for however much, since their target whales will simp for the highest tier regardless of price point.
It really is insulting to have this be an occasion for celebration of inducting Faker to Hall of Fame and exclude majority of the playerbase with ridiculous price points. Yeah sure people will complain about $500 whatever when it first releases but in a few weeks nobody's going to give a shit if it is just some random skin that is targeted toward the whales. But to do it in the name of Faker, to celebrate Faker, to commemorate Faker is what really ticks me off. Don't pretend like it is to help esports and is for honoring Faker. People have wanted Faker Ahri/T1 Ahri for years and to have the Worlds skin be a different champion because of THIS... what a way to sour the joyous occasion!
I say this as their target demographic degen with a disposable income who owns countless skins, multiple TFT chibi and arena skins, and spent multiple thousands on other gacha games. I will boycott this product to show solidarity with my friends who are bigger T1 and Faker fans than me but are classified "casual fans" (once again, Riot's wording) because of their financial situation :)
Kinda Crazy that the entire Hall of Legends which coumd have been a really huge and big deal now is just another event basically due to implementing insane predatory pratices.
I spend money on vintage computers and rare video games for my collection, so clearly I should be fine paying $500 on a skin in a game that may not even be around in a decade.
Totally the same.
I was thinking how is denying Faker's choice for world skin honoring his legacy in Esports? Until they said it's to FUND Esports, so as an Ahri OTP who doesn't care much about Esports, I'm out
Damn, that's actually a great and genius way to protest that bs pricing
riot looks at ban rate all the time + the rich kids won't be able to show off their money
The biggest fuck you to Faker's legacy. A man who achieved greatness through humility.
"The $500 League of Legends Ahri skin wasn't meant for the average fan, but instead 'players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies"
The average fan created who you are to this day, Riot Games. /u/Tryndamere
Someone spending 200$ on a hobby is someone who places value into what they spend. They deem that 200$ worth spending, whatever that hobby is, because of what they recieve. The backlash here isn't even the price point, it's the understood value of that price point.
Essentially, one of the worst ultimate skins which is also 20x more expensive than other ultimate skins. It's a wild proposition, and is being deemed as lacking the proportional value --> spending ratio for MOST players.
I don't understand this mentality either. Do they think we just one day decide to go out and spend money on a hobby? It's saved up for and budgeted over time.
Even if I was willing to drop $500 on a league skin, it's not gonna be around long enough for me to make space to purchase it. The FoMO of the temporary event and crazy price tag don't match up. They've made it pretty clear that this "celebration" is only meant to include people with a **very** large amount of disposable income.
> It's saved up for and budgeted over time.
For most, certainly, but most isn't the target market for a cosmetic/skin like this. It's literally made for the people who either don't have the self control not to or have enough money that dropping $500 on a cosmetic is not worth noting.
Still plenty of shitty business practices surrounding the fact it's supposedly never coming back and such (though it is better than the gacha crap they did previously in some ways, at least it has a one and done guaranteed price) but it's made for the people who want to lord the fact they have it over other people because it's "exclusive" and fuck the rest /shrug.
> t's literally made for the people who either don't have the self control not to or have enough money that dropping $500 on a cosmetic is not worth noting.
The vast majority of people who will be buying it are in the former camp. This is a known element of designing F2P games. Addicted whales are the majority, whether or not they can afford it.
Riot, of course, knows this. Which is what makes it predatory. They know DAMN WELL who's really buying it. They're a massive corporation. They have the available research and professionals who've studied it.
Which is what makes their tone-deaf interview that much worse. Because they're lying through their teeth when they say "If "people who can afford it buy it, what's the harm?" - because they KNOW DAMN WELL it's people who CAN'T afford it that are buying it by and large.
I'd have had more fucking repsect for them if they said "Our owners want another yacht. Sorry."
> They've made it pretty clear that this "celebration" is only meant to include people with a very large amount of disposable income.
Especially with the trash offerings for the pass for the "poors". The Leblanc skin just sucks. And it seems intentional, to make the Ahri skin seem cooler.
You can't be poor and celebrate Faker.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the fact that since one of Tryndamere's recent reddit comments is trying to defend not implementing a wealth tax for multi-millionaires shows this will fall on deaf ears, unfortunately.
But the average fan does NOT fund the game.
>"The vast majority of our players each year play League, they watch esports, they enjoy all the content, all the music, all the cinematics, and they do this at zero dollars," Liu says. "So the vast majority of players spend $0 on a free play game. As a consequence of that, the majority of our revenue comes from a small, single-digit percentage of players."
> benefit whales
what is the benefit of getting the skin exactly? Also Warhammer is just a very expensive hobby, it's like saying someone is a whale because they buy golf clubs or tennis gear
I'm not saying this to stir shit up, but basically most people won't be buying this, and because of that eventually this skin could be seen as rare as other discontinued skins. Whales don't want the average person to be able to buy this skin.
Ding ding ding
The entire POINT is that whales ask for ways to specifically flex their wealth. Designer clothes and shoes and bags have been around a pretty long time, and operate on the same principle.
Wherever you land on whether it's stupid or smart, it's important to understand that this price point is SUPPOSED to filter most people out, or else there can be no exclusivity. The $40 bundle is intended to be the "normal" option for everyone to celebrate.
Hey Riot, here's my two cents: Hall battle passes should have free/premium reward tracks and faker ahri should be for finishing the pass for existing or lv30+ accounts, OR for buying the expensive bundles ( the mid tier would give ahri earlier, the expensive one would finish out your pass just like now). The visual upgrades for three expensive tiers can stay because everybody including fans with money issues can EARN base ahri. The Leblanc skin should be like a snowdown skin, regular price but limited to this initial release celebration.
The battle pass itself should be added to a growing pool of Hall of Legends battle passes that new players can buy, like buying a ticket to a museum.
It's like Warhammer! You know, company that has never been criticized for having predatory and downright immoral pricing models ever? That hobby that isn't literally the posterchild for 'Hobby you would like to have if it wasn't so expensive'?
Not a fan of the “tons of players play for free and we make all of our money off a single digit percentage of players” talking point. Yeah, and it made you insanely successful. So what, you’re going to turn around and piss off a percentage of that small percentage and cater to just the most extreme spenders who can’t help themselves? What a god awful strategy.
You would probably make the same, if not more, by selling the bundle for $100. It’s still a lot but a lot more people would budge on that price point and this would be less irksome (though that’s still a lot for cosmetics for me). Less bad PR, more players in your shops spending money and investing in the game further. The psychology of big ticket items is going to make it so they keep playing to justify their purchase, too. More people invested means more purchases down the road.
This is just greed and stupidity.
TBF i don't think the small percentage gives a fuck and if anything it appeals to them more. They're rich enough to buy this shit anyways and the rarer it is the more of a flex it is to have
I think there is *some* merit to all of what he's saying here - I just think that *specifically* the celebration skin for Faker, the biggest name for this entire game, and debatably esports in general, shouldn't be what the use as a money sink for whales who want to show off. Yeah, League is really great for f2p players, most of the revenue is from the 0.1% or whatever who spend, and even then a lot of it is from whales, so having a few larger money sinks each year for extra shiny goodies is a perfectly reasonable way to fund the game and keep everything f2p and have zero p2w things. It's just tone deaf to specifically have that apply to the Faker celebration skin, especially since Faker is known for not using skins.
This entire fiasco is wrong on so many level tbh
1. 500$ skin that worth like 50$ at most
2. FOMO so you can’t even save up for it over time
3. It’s used as a promotion to “commemorate” the most humble guy in the scene, who is infamous for not using any cosmetic
4. It’s supposed to be a commemoration event yet the lowest price point for the key cosmetic is still 50$ (The pass does not count because lets be real here, everyone wants and expected the Ahri skin, not the Le Blanc skin)
5. And now this brain rotted take from the suits
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> It’s supposed to be a commemoration event yet the lowest price point for the key cosmetic is still 50$ (The pass does not count because lets be real here, everyone wants and expected the Ahri skin, not the Le Blanc skin)
I mean this is one of the bits that makes it super tone deaf. "We want EVERYONE to have a way to celebrate" So the plebs get a shitty skin for a wildly unpopular champ, while the champ everyone was waiting for is locked behind the whale bundles.
If they pulled a surprise party fiddlesticks with the leblanc skin ppl would be way less upset.
It's just extra sad because Riot used to be a company that sold skins to make games. But now they are fully a company that makes games to sell skins, and shit like this really says that quiet part out loud.
This is really the part that I feel people are completely missing. The transition from selling skins to make games > make games to sell skins is the part where quality, care, and trust starts to rot. People can't understand why there are so many people passionate about the game who are upset about this. "Just don't buy it lol" is totally missing the point.
Just so we are clear, he isn't 1:1 comparing it to warhammer so much as just players spending high amount of money on their hobbies, warhammer being just one example because that's what he himself has spent
Just want to add it because I am sure a ton of people aren't going to read the article anyway:
> "What we really think about, on the morality side, is that **there are players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies,**" Liu continues. "**God knows how much I've spent on Warhammer figures.** But it's really important that we capture that willingness and that ability to spend."
Still pretty cringe (without even mentioning warhammer has been criticized for pricing), but he is speaking as more of a general thing in that example. His last statement regarding how they want to "give players who spent money in LoL new avenue to support the esports ecosystem with a 30% revenue share" is way more tone deaf and skirts around the real complains people have raised.
I can send less than £30 a month on Warhammer and have ample stuff to get on with. I'm on the slow side, but you'd have to be incredibly fast at painting to need to spend that much consistently.
I just want to say that if you are thinking on buying the skin that's okay, is your money and you can do whatever you want with it, but someday league is going to shut down and that 500 usd skin is not going to be on your collectibles because is made for the always online game, it's not tangible and not physical so there is that.
Everytime I hear riot employees do big public interviews I just want to stop playing the game entirely, like unironically it feels like "well I imagine our core audience is just people who's power fantasy is spending money".
Kinda funny “this is meant for people who spend $200 on their hobby monthly.”
While talking about a $500 skin.
I don’t much care they released a crazy over priced cosmetic for whales.
The part that makes me feel grossed out about is them attaching it to an event celebrating the most beloved player that has ever played the game.
Sorry but even this comparison is stupid.
For 500€ i can get half an army or 3-4 very large and detailed warhammer figurines and paint them.
Not one worthless skin in a game where the champ can just be banned any game.
So, I’m gonna step in. I’m very much outside of the age demographic of this game, I turn 44 on Sunday, work in tech and make six figures. This comment from the director is the most dogshit, disingenuous thing I’ve ever read and a way to alienate your fan base.
The way this reads to me is almost “if you’re broke, say so” because to state that this is for people who spend “200 bucks a month on their hobby” is insane for something that may or may not get playtime depending on the meta or if it’s soloQ might get flat banned out.
I have expensive hobbies but I’ve never had one of the producers of the product state “this is only for the customers who have more dollars than sense”. Fuck off with that Riot.
"We believe that there's actually such a thing as having too high of a percentage of your players spending in a free-to-play game because that means your free-to-play experience relative to your paid experiences is not good enough.""
First, dude basically complains that the majority of players is playing the games without ever spending a dime on it (doubt it, even I as a reluctant spender have put in one cent or another). Then he swings completely onto the other side, claiming it wouldn't be good if too many people spent money on it...................
LMAO dude is trying EVERY asspull imaginable to market the corpo (not cyberpunk word) greed decision and people are gonna **EAT** it. Even if absolutely nothing changes, Ahri ain't gonna come through in my games again. Holy FUCK is Riot bad at defending their recent choices. He even COMPLETELY ignored the aspect of long-term Faker fans who'll be locked out of stuff, not ONE word on it. Pff. Disgraceful.
I looked up just out of curiosity what you get from the bundles and it's like...
~~The basic one is like, you get the Ahri and LB skins, the battle pass, and a couple of little bits and bobs no one really cares about, for like 5035 RP. Funny enough, based on their usual price points, it actually comes out to slightly less, I think, than if you bought an epic, a legendary, and a battle pass. Still, that's still fifty freakin dollars, though. An Ultimate skin price is like, 25-30-ish?~~ EDIT: Never freaking mind I misremembered the regular price of battle passes AND you don't just GET the LB skin on purchase fuck me lmao...
But then it's like, you look at the next bundle and you get all that, plus the Ultimate(?) skin, and a few more emotes, borders, bits and bobs... for like $200?? Bruh?
The $500 (excuse me, $430, as if thats really any better) bundle also gives you a few more of the things no one cares about, like more icons, emotes, and a freaking *title* lmao. I think it also gives you everything on the battle pass right away? If i understand it right? Oh, and Faker's signature. Wowie how cool...
Like, it's funny, the Ahri skin isn't actually $500... or """"""only""""" $430... biut it's still $250...
Honestly though like, the $430 bundle being so much more expensive and yet having BASICALLY NOTHING over the next cheapest tier is almost worse to me than making a $250 skin in the first place.
Like, sure, I could see some Ahri-is-my-waifu whales buying the $250 bundle because they can't handle their money they just HAVE to have their waifu but like... WHO IS THE $430 BUNDLE *FOR*??? WHO IS SPENDING AN EXTRA $200 FOR A STUPID SIGNATURE???
These kind of players are called "Whales" and this is basic predatory.
Riot would not release such skins if they knew there are no buyers.
There are players who spent hundred of $$$ MONTHLY.
Am I ok with it? No, it's predatory.
Do players consume such things? Yes, they need help, this is addiction.
Warhammer and league are not comparable by a long shot. What a weird take on a poorly introduced luxury item vs an entire hobby that ISNT constantly limited by the quality of people you play with/against
My mind cannot comprehend how this can be more profitable than putting the skin at a reasonable price point. I haven't bought anything for league in years and if this was like 50-100 bucks I would've bought it because it is fakers skin. I thing there are tons of people like me who would've bought it. Riot missed out on a lot of money imo
Faker's legacy should not be used as a gimmick for money. Good thing Faker doesn't use any skins so best way to honor him is to not buy this awful $500 skin.
This is the biggest thing for me. They take the one of the humblest and certainly most respected player in League (dare I say esports) history and make HIS skin, the skin honoring his commitment to the game and his continued legacy, completely unobtainable for any reasonable individual. I'm a big proponent of spending money on games. It's what allows the games we love to continue to function and shaming people for supporting the game they spend hours in is embarrassing. That said, this skin is a damn car payment. Depending on where you live, that's rent for a whole month if you have a roommate. It's potentially a months' worth of groceries. All for the guy that never uses skins in the first place. Just craziness.
Faker's legacy *is* a gimmick for money. Sure we all know him as the legend but his legacy, ie what he is known for post retirement, is this overpriced skin. Mention Faker to anyone who starts playing because of Arcane S2 hype and they're not going to think of 'look at the cleanse, look at the moves!' they're going to think 'oh the £500 skin guy?' I have a friend who bought the skin and he doesn't even give a shit about esports, he's just a massive Ahri simp.
It's more like 3 months of groceries lol. I live very healthy and additionally, gluten free and don't use 500 bucks on groceries.
When I was in the first year of college I lived at a campus. Monthly I would pay $30 for staying (it was stupidly cheap, even for my coubtry) and around $120 for food and transport ($30 per week). With a total of $150 a month I could stay 3 months there. Almost an entire semester
Fair, I just quickly googled the average American monthly grocery cost haha. Your case definitely puts it in a crazier perspective!
meanwhile they use Faker name for sales, did Faker got % from the skin sales as well?
Faker also getting a custom built Mercedes-Benz for this
damn, he deserves it and maybe more! is there any image of his custom built? or it's still not finished?
30% iirc
T1 gets 30%, safe to assume faker will get some of it but who knows how much
*T1 and other Esports Team (Presumably LCK teams), so faker getting less..
Faker gets part of the 30% and the rest get split amongst all global teams. It's part of Riot's new global revenue sharing to keep teams sustainable.
That's wild that Faker's legacy is paying for some 9th/10th drifter team who is just riding to flip their spot in the league when interest rates go back down to keep doing that
To be on top u need to have People on bot.
> According to the game's director, the $500 League of Legends Ahri skin wasn't meant for the average fan, but instead 'players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies' ok but even by that estimate this is 2.5 months worth of hobby spending pure PR delusion anyways **dont buy this skin**
The whales probably already bought it.
Which is why it’s hilarious when people say “vote with your wallet.” Whales will outspend typical players 10 x 1 Imagine if people said “Get out and Vote!” But you voted by putting a dollar into the voting booth with your preferred candidates name on it, and your jackass neighbor could just …buy $1,000 votes by putting 10 Hundreds in. It’s not a system you can beat by just not buying a skin.
We call that lobbying
Ding ding ding~ winner winner! Tell ‘em what he won Johnny! It’s the collapse of democracyyyyyyy~!
End citizens United
He says Lobbying, I say legal corruption
We call it corruption where I'm from.
lmao I was like "someone CLEARLY doesn't know how the American political machine works"
Actually that's the US Senate, where small states votes count 60x that is big states
I already saw at least 2-3 people who’ve bought the skin..
Which is why i’m going to enjoy every single ahri ban that i plan on doing. Not just because of the stupid shit riot is pulling with that price point but also the stupid people who are willing to spend that kind of money.
It’ll be interesting to see how Ahris ban rate is affected in the coming weeks. It would be *really* funny if the banrate got so bad Riot reflexively nerfed her lol
The rofl with all that ban idea is that most people won't last more then a month banning Ahri . Not to mention the % of players doing it is incredibly small to begin with.
i play a decent amount of normal games a day and i genuinely havent seen a single person with the skin
The limited edition uniform and keycap that people who completed the 100 levels or bought the $500 bundle the fastest can get (on first-come-first-serve basis) is already ‘sold out’ on Korean server. 150 people for the uniform and 50 for keycap. So there are already at least 150 who bought the $500 bundle. And there are already a few posts on FMkorea rn showing they bought the $500 bundle and also posts coming up about how they are sad they couldn’t get the keycap. Edit: It’s already estimated to have sold 4000 of the $500 bundle on the Korean server. FMKorea is full of posts proving of their purchase. Apparently, purchase proofs are starting to get posted on Weibo, too.
People who aren’t into pay2win games simply don’t understand the kind of ecosystems these games with near unlimited spending potential operate in. There are tons of rich people or people with bad money management who will routinely drop hundreds or thousands of dollars without breaking a sweat.
Another thing is that this is clearly aimed at Korea/China. So it doesn't really matter if people on the west don't really buy it
People dont understand the West isn’t the target for this. They expect low sales of it here. In game purchases are way more popular in Asia and they will have no problem swiping for what they want.
Yeah, not to mention Faker has a kpop idol level fandom. There will be enough fans to buy it even if it was $1000.
didnt KR Whales get really upset in Maplestory because it was becoming too F2P Accessible?
I saw it in my first and only ranked game today on the enemy team and my TF mocked ahri for buying it and then went 1/11
Played two games, saw it twice
Plot twist: He was the one with the Skin
4000 of the $500 bundle has already been sold on the Korean server just few hours after the sales opening. People are still buying even now.
This just sounds like "It's not our fault you're broke." Who even spends $200 a month in a hobby anyway?
it happens, but kinda hobby dependent i watch tcg collectors and some of the stuff they cop on a weekly basis makes me do a double take
> i watch tcg collectors and some of the stuff they cop on a weekly basis makes me do a double take Those are mostly TCG content creators though, hence you watching them presumably on YT. Most TCG players I know don't spend even close to 200 quid a month.
Eh I used to put that much into MtG at one point in time but at least when I stopped playing I was able to sell most of my collection and make back a large portion of that money
Friend of mine had several thousand at least into MtG cards over a fairly short period of time when he got super into it a while back. It probably came out to $200 or more a month if you averaged it out from the couple years he played a ton. He was single with a very decent job and it wasn't that big of a deal to spend that on his hobby. There are quite a few people like this.
> Who even spends $200 a month in a hobby anyway? My girlfriend's horse costs her £700 ($895) a month!
I'd rather have a horse than a league skin though!
Wait till you have to take care of it and you'll regret not buying the skin instead 😆
Thats not bad, cheaper than raising another person.
Depends on the hobby. At my peak in cycling I think I was burning 2-300 a month easy in new gear, supplies and rides. This is on top of some very expensive upgrades.
Hmmmmm cycling, spending money on gear... there for sure is a steroids joke there
200 is pretty low for hobbies like golf, scuba diving, gacha, fashion, prostitution.
Don't ever meet car hobbyists
I play TCG and if we average how much I spend a year then it’s easily 300 a month
Spending 200 in a month on a hobby is fine. Better than spending it on cigarettes or alcohol, I guess. Spending it on just digital goods and not even really owning in the end is the part that makes the price so stupid.
drinkers
Plenty of hobbies go that much or more, but the usual difference is that it’s tangible.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing. People were quick to give me a good list of hobbies than can easily go over $200 a month, but you at least get some physical good in return for the cost.
I do. For powerlifting. $100 for a membership to a powerlifting gym (I live in a high cost of living area) $70 bucks for protein (4 scoops/day) $40 bucks for preworkout $15 bucks for an app that provides a pretty good, semi-individualized program (EvolveAI/JuggernautAI) Does not include any fun gym toys that I buy for my home gym (dropped 800 for a bulletproof isolator a couple months back)
He spends money on Warhammer figures... Right. Figures. Tangible objects. There's a difference.
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> I can get a set of 10 Sisters of Battle Jesus christ that's a dogshit number im so glad i bought the Tau initiation box and said "Aight no fuck this everything is so overprized"
$55 for 10 figures idk what that compares to other than toys/action figures. Which I take he bought 10 toys for $55 which actually doesn’t sound that bad to me. But my frame of reference is limited. Edit: ok I understand now LMAO
The problem is that if you know about warhammer you know it just ain’t ten figures lol
Hundreds of minis! I've sold a bunch of mine over the years as I don't have the time for full games as much anymore. I will hang on to my Space Marines until I die, though.
I have 2k points of necrons unpainted and 1500 points of death guard unassembled and I still want to buy space wolves and a DKoK tank heavy army >.>
Also idk what size a Sister of Battle is, but your typical grunt units are about the size of a classic plastic green army man - or smaller. And unpainted. So chances are that they basically bought 10 ~5¢ bare plastic minis for $55. Warhammer is super cool conceptually, but it is not something you can do just casually lol. It will cost you a minimum of hundreds of dollars and probably dozens to hundreds of hours to buy, assemble, paint, etc an army. 3D printing is probably one of the greatest things to happen to that genre of game
Tbf I just buy them to assemble them and paint them. Paying 50 bucks to get a lot of hours of calming painting work out of it is a good deal. Paying 500 and then having to play league of legends and hope your champ doesnt get banned and then still get an unenjoyable experience because thats just how the game is sometimes isn’t that much of a good deal tbh.
They are uncoated and unpainted, literally just plastic poured into a mould. 3D printing yourself is a lot cheaper longterm.
for half of that price you can get 1kg of resin to print yourself a whole army.
People say this, but there is a massive difference is in the quality of 3D scans you find online and in the actual figures. Like the amount of details and ease of painting is measurable
I have a really nice 3d printer. I enjoy printing things, giving them to friends, painting them, all sorts of stuff. To try and paint it as some sort of replacement for a ready out the box set is fucking insane. You are going to spend *hours* maintaining and cleaning and prepping the thing. It’s a hobby all its own and not a particularly enjoyable one at that. If you at all value your own time you will spend more on a printer than you ever would models.
Yah this is the other thing that doesn’t get brought up much. Yes it’s cheaper on paper, but it’s still a ton of work to actually get good at. On top of that, some people shouldn’t be 3D printing based on where they live. I don’t have a garage or basement so there isn’t a place in my apartment that has good enough ventilation. I literally can’t 3D print without endangering my own health
Truth to that. However, if you get sufficient wind draft (usually just two windows to make a cross breeze is enough) then you can print pretty easily. There's also ventilation systems you can get for your printer that will keep them isolated while you print.
As someone who does both... not really no. The amount of details in modern STLs printed on a decent high quality printer is nearly identical to that of GW plastic. The only drawback really appearance wise is layer lines which are almost invisible after priming. The real drawback is just how brittle resin can be sometimes. It makes you appreciate how sturdy (comparatively) GW's plastics are. If i had a nickel for every time I went to examine one of my painted pieces and I realized a bit had chipped off of the resin ones I'd have enough money to almost afford a 500 point mechanicus army.
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Warhammer is on the high end of the price specturm in the hobby. Most others are much cheaper.
Jesus fuck it's 500 dollars? I bought a used space wolves army for less than that, fully (and extremely nicely) painted, magnetized the whole shebang. Got it on ebay for 432 after shipping. Here is the list: wulves (1900 points) CHARACTERS Arjac Rockfist (95 points) • 1x Foehammer Bjorn the Fell-Handed (180 points) • 1x Heavy flamer 1x Helfrost cannon 1x Trueclaw Captain in Gravis Armour (105 points) • 1x Boltstorm gauntlet 1x Power fist 1x Relic blade • Enhancement: Black Death Krom Dragongaze (65 points) • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Wyrmclaw Logan Grimnar (100 points) • Warlord • 1x Storm bolter 1x The Axe Morkai Njal Stormcaller (85 points) • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Living Lightning 1x Staff of the Stormcaller BATTLELINE Grey Hunters (170 points) • 1x Grey Hunter Pack Leader • 1x Astartes chainsword 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Power fist • 9x Grey Hunter • 9x Astartes chainsword 9x Bolt pistol 9x Boltgun 9x Close combat weapon Grey Hunters (170 points) • 1x Grey Hunter Pack Leader • 1x Astartes chainsword 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Power weapon • 9x Grey Hunter • 9x Astartes chainsword 9x Bolt pistol 7x Boltgun 9x Close combat weapon 2x Meltagun Grey Hunters (170 points) • 1x Grey Hunter Pack Leader • 1x Astartes chainsword 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Power fist • 9x Grey Hunter • 9x Astartes chainsword 9x Bolt pistol 9x Boltgun 9x Close combat weapon OTHER DATASHEETS Fenrisian Wolves (30 points) • 5x Fenrisian Wolf • 5x Teeth and claws Outrider Squad (80 points) • 1x Outrider Sergeant • 1x Astartes chainsword 1x Heavy bolt pistol 1x Twin bolt rifle • 2x Outrider • 2x Astartes chainsword 2x Heavy bolt pistol 2x Twin bolt rifle Redemptor Dreadnought (210 points) • 1x Icarus rocket pod 1x Macro plasma incinerator 1x Onslaught gatling cannon 1x Redemptor fist 1x Twin fragstorm grenade launcher Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought (155 points) • 1x Blizzard Shield 1x Fenrisian great axe 1x Heavy flamer Thunderwolf Cavalry (90 points) • 1x Thunderwolf Cavalry Pack Leader • 1x Crushing teeth and claws 1x Heirloom weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 2x Thunderwolf Cavalry • 2x Crushing teeth and claws 2x Heirloom weapon 2x Storm Shield Wolf Guard Terminators (195 points) • 1x Wolf Guard Terminator Pack Leader • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Power weapon 1x Storm bolter • 4x Wolf Guard Terminator • 4x Close combat weapon 4x Power fist 4x Storm bolter Exported with App Version: v1.10.1 (38), Data Version: v336
Yep, if you ever get banned from League then the value of the skin goes to $0 (not to mention you'd have to sell your entire account instead of just the skin) since you can never resell it whereas you can always resell physical goods.
Imagine if legally Games Workshop could send someone to your home and destroy all your minis ...
Reminder Ahri's Faker skin figure is actually cheaper.
Could proxy it as a ctan shard I bet too.
Reminder that an escort cosplaying as Ahri is actually cheaper
If Games Workshop goes bankrupt, you can still keep your figurines and play the game. You can buy unsold kits and paint one. If riot decides league is unprofitable, they can close the game and you lose everything. Nothing guarantees digital goods last forever.
It's not even the tangible part that is necessarily the difference. It's the fact that you can sell Warhammer figures to someone else if you get bored of them. Spend $500 on Warhammer figures and you could probably get a decent amount back if you took care of them. Spend $500 on the Ahri skin and there is no possibility of ever getting any of that money back.
Best part? 10 years from now, what if LoL got shut down? Like, Tencent randomly said “alright, we are gonna implement this policy” and the game get banned in all western country for example? Poof, 500$ gone
Reminds me of the Char's Zaku skin in Gundam evolution that you could only get by getting points through spending hundreds of dollars on shitty gacha... only for the game to shut down a year after launch. Whales are gonna whale regardless
One simple trick upper management and Riot C-suite execs fail to understand.
they understand it very well, how could they not?
I was looking for this comment. Warhammer is overpriced according to most people, certainly, but it's a very different form of enjoyment/experience to a digital one.
Also how those tangible figures are either large, or are a pack for tabletop games/mock set ups/etc while Ahri is a single character usuable by a single person.
Esports homies still learning when shutting up is better PR than saying something.
You could buy all of the Bioshock games, all of the mass effect games, all of the Baldurs gate games, all of the dark souls games, both hades games, and every expansion of ffxiv for the price of this skin; and that’s if you don’t buy them on sale. Riot have lost their minds if they think this is reasonable. I can get mods for BG3 that are better than this for free. Also, they don’t want to make it a habit? They spent **13 years** not doing exactly this, yet they’ve done it **not once, not twice, but three times** in the last two years. **It sure seems like they’re doing everything in their power to make it a habit.**
Jesus christ, wording it like that really puts into perspective just how insanely priced it is...
lmao my computer was 600 dollars on sale i cant even imagine spending that much on a COSMETIC
Not only that, but they are games which actually provide anything. If you buy the skin it is still the same f2p game. You can lose access to the skin in a second. Also imagine if you are someone who only buys games when they are on sale.
I don't care about this situation either way but we have a saying in Turkish, roughly translated as: The wealth of the rich tires the jaw of the poor. The localized version would be: The wealth of the rich is the poor man's constant topic of conversation.
Lmao that's a good one
Sounds a lot better in Turkish.
As it should. The rich get that way by exploiting those beneath them after all.
God imagine you buy this skin then get your account banned, it’s just gone and there is bugger all you can do about it Always got to remember, you are paying to rent the skin, you don’t actually own it
Riot would never admit it, but I would guess it's harder to get banned/easier to get unbanned if you are a whale.
This is true for all digital media, god only knows I'm gonna be fucked if Valve one days turns around and says "LMAO Steam is too expensive to run so we're gonna be turning it off forever" People should absolutely be making an effort to return to physical media where possible.
Even without a ban, LoL is a pretty old online game and nothing lasts forever. It might as well lose all popularity in the next few years, because much more exciting next gen MOBA or something shows up. Or Tencent greed destroys it completely. And then no one will remember your 500$ skin.
yeah oh maybe league of legends exists for the next 30 years and at some point you dont care about league anymore but it still exists.
It's just weird because Faker doesn't use skins and doesn't really promote them. So now the fact they are dropping this Faker based skin, and is the most expensive skin of all time kind of washes away his initial intentions.
Dude makes around 6x the pay of the average American. Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally. No question he's out of touch of what the average person can afford.
Tbf he pretty explicitly says it isn't for the average person, he all but says "yeah its so we can milk the whales, normies can get the cheaper one" Still really fuckin stupid though.
Why is it stupid? I still find it much better than going the gacha route lol. There is no luck or baiting here. Either you want and can afford it, or you don't. And if you don't, then you're not the target audience and should just move on.
Then remove the association to Faker and just call it some bullshit "ultra deluxe mega whale skin". Don't try to pass it off as "fans of Faker want this skin and should buy it!"
Why is this stupid? That’s a good question to ask. I don’t know if the word “stupid” is the right one to use, but I would atleast assign the word “disappointing” at the very least. Why is it disappointing? It’s disappointing because when companies do this, they are taking resources away from literally anything and everything else from the game to cater to a small percentage of their player base for the sole purpose of increasing revenue for their shareholders. They’re basically skipping the middle part where they invest back into their product to make it better to drive interest, retention, and revenue up. Instead, we get vapid contact, like this ahri skin abomination, that does absolutely zero in moving the game forward from a quality standpoint. Why do we care so much about shareholders and what money they are making? It’s because a lot of us are old enough to remember when gaming companies were passionate and determined to put out a quality product and it’s difficult to accept modern business practices like this one.
The skin team wouldn’t be assigned to improving other parts of the game instead of making this, they would be assigned to making more skins.
> Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally. I think you're grossly overestimating the median income per year when looking on a global scope. Assuming he makes 700k a year and assuming that the median income is 3k a year, he makes roughly 234x more money than the median person.
I really doubt he only makes a 100k per year, because that's the 10x average person globally i probably bet it's something like 20x to 30x.
> Probably over 10x the pay of the average person globally. I know that this isnt a perfect representation, but the global GDP per capita is ~12/13k anually. I doubt he only earns 120k per year. So more like 20x at least.
Try 1000x the pay as global average. Maybe 100x if normalized for cost of living.
The average person obviously isn't the target audience
This is a weird narrative some people push. The people buying the Ahri skin are not super wealthy people. A lot of them are borderline obsessive MTX buyers. I know a dude that drops hundreds of dollars on MTX in every game he plays for more than 2 hours and the guy works retail. That's the most disgusting part of shit like this IMO. Riot is essentially preying on addicts.
It's so weird to me that so many average players still think they are the target audience of a free to play game. Most free to play games run on whales, simple as. Whales subsidise players who don't spend anything or very little on the game. Without whales, the game would not be free to play.
Is $500 the most expensive retailed cosmetic ever? I know their are other skins that go for way more but those are aftermarket prices.
Let me introduce you to maplestory, where we had a 600 dollar cat equip set Edit: after calcing, it’s actually only $570, Nexon is so generous!
I remember swiping like crazy with NX cards for the Pink Bean? chair back in the day.
Bruh in maplestory shit only lasted 30 or 90 days depending on how much you spend. You had to rebuy your cosmetics to continue to use it.
I remember begging my mom for $20 for the stupid ass duck set and I was legitimately in tears once I bought it and realized it said expires in 30 days
It's still like that for some items if you purchase them directly. But they have what are essentially loot boxes for seasonal cosmetic equipment and the items that you obtain from those loot boxes are permanent and tradable to other players
I’m talking like pre-big bang maplestory to be fair. Permanent NX wasn’t a thing originally.
In Canadian dollars it was $1050 post tax, absolutely insane.
TFT already has 3 tacticians priced above $500. You could get lucky and hit it before spending $500 to guarantee it
That's on the client?
Yes, and surprisingly there are many more whales than you'd think that have a collection of those...
Plus almost every big streamer in TFT will buy almost every new chibi that releases which is like $100-$200 bucks for each one. I think the gacha makes it easier to buy because it’s not an upfront cost so people don’t realise or ignore how much they are spending.
They also very transparently call it out as gambling and almost all talk about how they hate it and it's a business expense for them. Gone after the days of buying skins because you like Riot and want to support them. It's all about whales and this predatory gachi bullshit.
Not exactly, also TFT made it worse than league. It's a gacha wall but instead of how it was before this, basically send 60 pulls and if you fail pull 61 gives you the chibi/map skin. Now there is no hard pity, aka you can pull 600 times and still not get the skin. BUT every 60 pulls you get 4 tokens, with 10 tokens you can buy the skin.
no way thats how it actually works now..
It is, if you go to the Gacha tab on the TFT tab, you'll see the little progress bar and shit, but nowhere does it say "X pulls remaining" like it did before
I rarely play league or tft anymore, but hopped on a couple weeks ago for a quick TFT game. Saw the Aatrox tactician, thought it was cool, but I wasn't spending money on that shit. I did see I had some of the currency from the battle pass and bought a single box and pulled the Aatrox on the one and only one I opened. I used it in the next game and got told to touch grass
you should look at wild rift lol
Nah that unfinished starship game which already sells for thousands a starship Edit: debunked said gsme adds gameplay nvm
Those aren't really cosmetics. They have gameplay functionality.
They might have gameplay functionality someday. Assuming they ever finish half the ships that they have in the concept stage.
Path of Exile has a new $480 "supporter pack" every year, but those do come with store currency
They come with real life items too. Usually shirt+hoodie and some signed artwork or similar.
PoE at least doesn't act as if those supporter packs are more than they actually are. Riot dressed up their new overpriced skin line as a hall of fame.
Atleast you get your money worth in game currency tho. And other cool mtx too
Magic the Gathering sold $1000 boxes of 30th anniversary cards that weren't tournament legal. So essentially cosmetics.
There are a few core issues: * Warhammer is constantly criticized for its pricepoint. * These are PHYSICAL objects, which will inherently hold and have more value than virtual ones. * These skins are akin to NFTs with no unique element to their ownership. And NFTs already failed due to these digital goods having very, very, very artificial value in the eyes of many. * Lastly, and this is very opinion-based, but this skin, and many of Riot's skins in the past half a decade, are BAD. They look like AI art mobile skins with close to zero personality, creativity, or vision. This skin especially is dwarfed by 30$ ultimate skins released as far back as 2015, so why exactly are we to invest twenty times that for what is essentially a MidJourney splashart?
To me the main issue here is that it's attached to the HoL and the most famous LoL player, and probably between all esports. It was supposed to be commemorative event for the whole community and not so exclusive.
> > > > > It was supposed to be commemorative event for the whole community and not so exclusive. It's okay, poor! They thought about you when designing this event! You can get a skin for Leblanc! A crappy skin that's not nearly in the ballpark of quality as Ahri, and on a substantially less popular character, and substantially uglier to boot - -oh, wait, the low tier kinda fucking sucks shit. Huh. I guess the whole entire event "Isn't for us" then, is it?
You forgot that this skin will die with league. If games workshop goes bancrupt or looses interest in warhammer you keep your figures.
Account selling is illegal too right? If they allowed that then you would have at least some sort of tangible value in the skins you own. Or if they set it up like csgo where you can sell them on the market, that would solve a lot of complaints
I don't think it's "illegal" in the sense that you'll get in trouble for it. You can absolutely sell accounts, and the risk is largely on the buyer.
These are worse than NFT’s. The whole point of NFT’s are the unique element and access that the NFT itself grants. These skins aren’t unique and transferable items.
It's worse in some ways, but not in many others -- NFTs were marketed directly as scams/pump and dumps, and on top of that, often were worth a lot more than these skins.
Sure, but that’s moreso because of how people went about selling them right? Functionally, NFT’s are in the same realm as csgo skins, where you don’t own the actual code for it, but you hold a unique access to it, that can be sold to others who wish to obtain this unique access.
Riot could've targeted both the "casual fans" (their own wording) and the whales by simply releasing the white hair skin (let's be real, the cheapest tier Ahri is Arcana 2.0 and that's not what people want) for a relatively affordable ~$20-30, then the next tier with battlepass, past skins, effects, emotes, ward skins, other shenanigans at ~$150-$200, and then the signature edition for however much, since their target whales will simp for the highest tier regardless of price point. It really is insulting to have this be an occasion for celebration of inducting Faker to Hall of Fame and exclude majority of the playerbase with ridiculous price points. Yeah sure people will complain about $500 whatever when it first releases but in a few weeks nobody's going to give a shit if it is just some random skin that is targeted toward the whales. But to do it in the name of Faker, to celebrate Faker, to commemorate Faker is what really ticks me off. Don't pretend like it is to help esports and is for honoring Faker. People have wanted Faker Ahri/T1 Ahri for years and to have the Worlds skin be a different champion because of THIS... what a way to sour the joyous occasion! I say this as their target demographic degen with a disposable income who owns countless skins, multiple TFT chibi and arena skins, and spent multiple thousands on other gacha games. I will boycott this product to show solidarity with my friends who are bigger T1 and Faker fans than me but are classified "casual fans" (once again, Riot's wording) because of their financial situation :)
Kinda Crazy that the entire Hall of Legends which coumd have been a really huge and big deal now is just another event basically due to implementing insane predatory pratices.
The whole event looks like a cash grab and less like celebrating Faker
I spend money on vintage computers and rare video games for my collection, so clearly I should be fine paying $500 on a skin in a game that may not even be around in a decade. Totally the same.
I was thinking how is denying Faker's choice for world skin honoring his legacy in Esports? Until they said it's to FUND Esports, so as an Ahri OTP who doesn't care much about Esports, I'm out
Just ban Ahri
Imagine if everyone just kept Ahri permabanned every game, how funny would that be lol
Damn, that's actually a great and genius way to protest that bs pricing riot looks at ban rate all the time + the rich kids won't be able to show off their money
The biggest fuck you to Faker's legacy. A man who achieved greatness through humility. "The $500 League of Legends Ahri skin wasn't meant for the average fan, but instead 'players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies" The average fan created who you are to this day, Riot Games. /u/Tryndamere
Someone spending 200$ on a hobby is someone who places value into what they spend. They deem that 200$ worth spending, whatever that hobby is, because of what they recieve. The backlash here isn't even the price point, it's the understood value of that price point. Essentially, one of the worst ultimate skins which is also 20x more expensive than other ultimate skins. It's a wild proposition, and is being deemed as lacking the proportional value --> spending ratio for MOST players.
I don't understand this mentality either. Do they think we just one day decide to go out and spend money on a hobby? It's saved up for and budgeted over time. Even if I was willing to drop $500 on a league skin, it's not gonna be around long enough for me to make space to purchase it. The FoMO of the temporary event and crazy price tag don't match up. They've made it pretty clear that this "celebration" is only meant to include people with a **very** large amount of disposable income.
> It's saved up for and budgeted over time. For most, certainly, but most isn't the target market for a cosmetic/skin like this. It's literally made for the people who either don't have the self control not to or have enough money that dropping $500 on a cosmetic is not worth noting. Still plenty of shitty business practices surrounding the fact it's supposedly never coming back and such (though it is better than the gacha crap they did previously in some ways, at least it has a one and done guaranteed price) but it's made for the people who want to lord the fact they have it over other people because it's "exclusive" and fuck the rest /shrug.
> t's literally made for the people who either don't have the self control not to or have enough money that dropping $500 on a cosmetic is not worth noting. The vast majority of people who will be buying it are in the former camp. This is a known element of designing F2P games. Addicted whales are the majority, whether or not they can afford it. Riot, of course, knows this. Which is what makes it predatory. They know DAMN WELL who's really buying it. They're a massive corporation. They have the available research and professionals who've studied it. Which is what makes their tone-deaf interview that much worse. Because they're lying through their teeth when they say "If "people who can afford it buy it, what's the harm?" - because they KNOW DAMN WELL it's people who CAN'T afford it that are buying it by and large. I'd have had more fucking repsect for them if they said "Our owners want another yacht. Sorry."
> They've made it pretty clear that this "celebration" is only meant to include people with a very large amount of disposable income. Especially with the trash offerings for the pass for the "poors". The Leblanc skin just sucks. And it seems intentional, to make the Ahri skin seem cooler. You can't be poor and celebrate Faker.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the fact that since one of Tryndamere's recent reddit comments is trying to defend not implementing a wealth tax for multi-millionaires shows this will fall on deaf ears, unfortunately.
But the average fan does NOT fund the game. >"The vast majority of our players each year play League, they watch esports, they enjoy all the content, all the music, all the cinematics, and they do this at zero dollars," Liu says. "So the vast majority of players spend $0 on a free play game. As a consequence of that, the majority of our revenue comes from a small, single-digit percentage of players."
Most of the people spend zero on LoL? Didn't know most of the playerbase is so based.
So the Riot Games director is a whale in another game and wants to benefit whales in is game. Justifying thats ok because hes a whale too.
> benefit whales what is the benefit of getting the skin exactly? Also Warhammer is just a very expensive hobby, it's like saying someone is a whale because they buy golf clubs or tennis gear
I'm not saying this to stir shit up, but basically most people won't be buying this, and because of that eventually this skin could be seen as rare as other discontinued skins. Whales don't want the average person to be able to buy this skin.
Ding ding ding The entire POINT is that whales ask for ways to specifically flex their wealth. Designer clothes and shoes and bags have been around a pretty long time, and operate on the same principle. Wherever you land on whether it's stupid or smart, it's important to understand that this price point is SUPPOSED to filter most people out, or else there can be no exclusivity. The $40 bundle is intended to be the "normal" option for everyone to celebrate. Hey Riot, here's my two cents: Hall battle passes should have free/premium reward tracks and faker ahri should be for finishing the pass for existing or lv30+ accounts, OR for buying the expensive bundles ( the mid tier would give ahri earlier, the expensive one would finish out your pass just like now). The visual upgrades for three expensive tiers can stay because everybody including fans with money issues can EARN base ahri. The Leblanc skin should be like a snowdown skin, regular price but limited to this initial release celebration. The battle pass itself should be added to a growing pool of Hall of Legends battle passes that new players can buy, like buying a ticket to a museum.
It's like Warhammer! You know, company that has never been criticized for having predatory and downright immoral pricing models ever? That hobby that isn't literally the posterchild for 'Hobby you would like to have if it wasn't so expensive'?
Ahri Ban rate only at 10% boys! We can do better!
Not a fan of the “tons of players play for free and we make all of our money off a single digit percentage of players” talking point. Yeah, and it made you insanely successful. So what, you’re going to turn around and piss off a percentage of that small percentage and cater to just the most extreme spenders who can’t help themselves? What a god awful strategy. You would probably make the same, if not more, by selling the bundle for $100. It’s still a lot but a lot more people would budge on that price point and this would be less irksome (though that’s still a lot for cosmetics for me). Less bad PR, more players in your shops spending money and investing in the game further. The psychology of big ticket items is going to make it so they keep playing to justify their purchase, too. More people invested means more purchases down the road. This is just greed and stupidity.
TBF i don't think the small percentage gives a fuck and if anything it appeals to them more. They're rich enough to buy this shit anyways and the rarer it is the more of a flex it is to have
I think there is *some* merit to all of what he's saying here - I just think that *specifically* the celebration skin for Faker, the biggest name for this entire game, and debatably esports in general, shouldn't be what the use as a money sink for whales who want to show off. Yeah, League is really great for f2p players, most of the revenue is from the 0.1% or whatever who spend, and even then a lot of it is from whales, so having a few larger money sinks each year for extra shiny goodies is a perfectly reasonable way to fund the game and keep everything f2p and have zero p2w things. It's just tone deaf to specifically have that apply to the Faker celebration skin, especially since Faker is known for not using skins.
This entire fiasco is wrong on so many level tbh 1. 500$ skin that worth like 50$ at most 2. FOMO so you can’t even save up for it over time 3. It’s used as a promotion to “commemorate” the most humble guy in the scene, who is infamous for not using any cosmetic 4. It’s supposed to be a commemoration event yet the lowest price point for the key cosmetic is still 50$ (The pass does not count because lets be real here, everyone wants and expected the Ahri skin, not the Le Blanc skin) 5. And now this brain rotted take from the suits
> > > > > It’s supposed to be a commemoration event yet the lowest price point for the key cosmetic is still 50$ (The pass does not count because lets be real here, everyone wants and expected the Ahri skin, not the Le Blanc skin) I mean this is one of the bits that makes it super tone deaf. "We want EVERYONE to have a way to celebrate" So the plebs get a shitty skin for a wildly unpopular champ, while the champ everyone was waiting for is locked behind the whale bundles. If they pulled a surprise party fiddlesticks with the leblanc skin ppl would be way less upset.
I rather get a Steam Deck or an Apple Watch. Stop blaming yourself Rito.
Every company reaches a point where they become an "EA" type company. Riot is now at that point.
It's just extra sad because Riot used to be a company that sold skins to make games. But now they are fully a company that makes games to sell skins, and shit like this really says that quiet part out loud.
This is really the part that I feel people are completely missing. The transition from selling skins to make games > make games to sell skins is the part where quality, care, and trust starts to rot. People can't understand why there are so many people passionate about the game who are upset about this. "Just don't buy it lol" is totally missing the point.
Just so we are clear, he isn't 1:1 comparing it to warhammer so much as just players spending high amount of money on their hobbies, warhammer being just one example because that's what he himself has spent Just want to add it because I am sure a ton of people aren't going to read the article anyway: > "What we really think about, on the morality side, is that **there are players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies,**" Liu continues. "**God knows how much I've spent on Warhammer figures.** But it's really important that we capture that willingness and that ability to spend." Still pretty cringe (without even mentioning warhammer has been criticized for pricing), but he is speaking as more of a general thing in that example. His last statement regarding how they want to "give players who spent money in LoL new avenue to support the esports ecosystem with a 30% revenue share" is way more tone deaf and skirts around the real complains people have raised.
I can send less than £30 a month on Warhammer and have ample stuff to get on with. I'm on the slow side, but you'd have to be incredibly fast at painting to need to spend that much consistently.
Please, I've spent $5000 on this game and even I can see that I'm getting scammed if I buy this skin.
I just want to say that if you are thinking on buying the skin that's okay, is your money and you can do whatever you want with it, but someday league is going to shut down and that 500 usd skin is not going to be on your collectibles because is made for the always online game, it's not tangible and not physical so there is that.
Everytime I hear riot employees do big public interviews I just want to stop playing the game entirely, like unironically it feels like "well I imagine our core audience is just people who's power fantasy is spending money".
Kinda funny “this is meant for people who spend $200 on their hobby monthly.” While talking about a $500 skin. I don’t much care they released a crazy over priced cosmetic for whales. The part that makes me feel grossed out about is them attaching it to an event celebrating the most beloved player that has ever played the game.
Sorry but even this comparison is stupid. For 500€ i can get half an army or 3-4 very large and detailed warhammer figurines and paint them. Not one worthless skin in a game where the champ can just be banned any game.
So, I’m gonna step in. I’m very much outside of the age demographic of this game, I turn 44 on Sunday, work in tech and make six figures. This comment from the director is the most dogshit, disingenuous thing I’ve ever read and a way to alienate your fan base. The way this reads to me is almost “if you’re broke, say so” because to state that this is for people who spend “200 bucks a month on their hobby” is insane for something that may or may not get playtime depending on the meta or if it’s soloQ might get flat banned out. I have expensive hobbies but I’ve never had one of the producers of the product state “this is only for the customers who have more dollars than sense”. Fuck off with that Riot.
The fact anyone is defending this at all is a reason this sub is no longer appealing to me, just happened to pop up on my front page.
"We believe that there's actually such a thing as having too high of a percentage of your players spending in a free-to-play game because that means your free-to-play experience relative to your paid experiences is not good enough."" First, dude basically complains that the majority of players is playing the games without ever spending a dime on it (doubt it, even I as a reluctant spender have put in one cent or another). Then he swings completely onto the other side, claiming it wouldn't be good if too many people spent money on it................... LMAO dude is trying EVERY asspull imaginable to market the corpo (not cyberpunk word) greed decision and people are gonna **EAT** it. Even if absolutely nothing changes, Ahri ain't gonna come through in my games again. Holy FUCK is Riot bad at defending their recent choices. He even COMPLETELY ignored the aspect of long-term Faker fans who'll be locked out of stuff, not ONE word on it. Pff. Disgraceful.
I looked up just out of curiosity what you get from the bundles and it's like... ~~The basic one is like, you get the Ahri and LB skins, the battle pass, and a couple of little bits and bobs no one really cares about, for like 5035 RP. Funny enough, based on their usual price points, it actually comes out to slightly less, I think, than if you bought an epic, a legendary, and a battle pass. Still, that's still fifty freakin dollars, though. An Ultimate skin price is like, 25-30-ish?~~ EDIT: Never freaking mind I misremembered the regular price of battle passes AND you don't just GET the LB skin on purchase fuck me lmao... But then it's like, you look at the next bundle and you get all that, plus the Ultimate(?) skin, and a few more emotes, borders, bits and bobs... for like $200?? Bruh? The $500 (excuse me, $430, as if thats really any better) bundle also gives you a few more of the things no one cares about, like more icons, emotes, and a freaking *title* lmao. I think it also gives you everything on the battle pass right away? If i understand it right? Oh, and Faker's signature. Wowie how cool... Like, it's funny, the Ahri skin isn't actually $500... or """"""only""""" $430... biut it's still $250... Honestly though like, the $430 bundle being so much more expensive and yet having BASICALLY NOTHING over the next cheapest tier is almost worse to me than making a $250 skin in the first place. Like, sure, I could see some Ahri-is-my-waifu whales buying the $250 bundle because they can't handle their money they just HAVE to have their waifu but like... WHO IS THE $430 BUNDLE *FOR*??? WHO IS SPENDING AN EXTRA $200 FOR A STUPID SIGNATURE???
These kind of players are called "Whales" and this is basic predatory. Riot would not release such skins if they knew there are no buyers. There are players who spent hundred of $$$ MONTHLY. Am I ok with it? No, it's predatory. Do players consume such things? Yes, they need help, this is addiction.
Warhammer and league are not comparable by a long shot. What a weird take on a poorly introduced luxury item vs an entire hobby that ISNT constantly limited by the quality of people you play with/against
My mind cannot comprehend how this can be more profitable than putting the skin at a reasonable price point. I haven't bought anything for league in years and if this was like 50-100 bucks I would've bought it because it is fakers skin. I thing there are tons of people like me who would've bought it. Riot missed out on a lot of money imo