Runes /Rune Page Prices: Effects, Why's and What-If's.

Disclaimer: Runes effect in-game stats. This does belong in Gameplay.

Effect on NEW Players

The high price of runes themselves furthers alienation of new players. When you see the daunting task of earning 13000 IP to fill just one page -- which also means not spending that IP on champions you want -- a player feels less compelled to play the game to earn it, as the benefits can't be assessed well when you're just starting out. Take that, and add in the 6300 IP price for a blank page, then making any more than 2 just seems like a cruel joke. And while people are willing to pay $1 for a brainless phone game, not many people are compelled to spend the $5 for just one BLANK page, and then still have to work the 2 months (assuming a person plays only a healthy amount and wins that game every single time) to earn the runes.

#Why, from a business perspective, the current Rune system is in place and a problem with that Riot likes to tote that their game isn't pay-to-win, and that's true for the most part. There are a number of champions that cost very little IP and can stand up to brand-new champions that cost 8 times more. Runes themselves don't cost money as an incentive to grind--and because making them available for purchase would, again, further alienate new players who would assume that they're absolutely necessary to win and so need to be purchased.

The price of a rune page, however, is unreasonable in both RP and IP. RP, it costs $5 for a single blank page. That's exactly the same as pay-to-win and RPG games making players pay real money for empty item slots/inventory expansions, but too a much greater extent since $5 can usually get you more than one blank item slot in other games. In IP, not only is there the same problem as with the runes themselves, but again it's greater. Not only would you be sacrificing the time you could be using to earn IP for a new champion or new runes --things that actually effect gameplay-- but the end result is you have a blank page that does absolutely nothing until you put in another month's worth of gameplay to get the runes to fill it.

#Now, what if Runes and Rune Pages were free? From the business perspective, Riot would lose very little money from those people who find multiple pages necessary. As many argue, a lot of pro players get buy with just the basic AD and AP pages, so it's not like Riot is earning massive amounts of cash from them anyway.

On the other hand, making Runes free would cut down on the grind of new players. And since this is a competitive, match-based game and NOT an RPG, this will actually encourage newer players to continue playing. If they wanted a grind-style RPG, they'd be playing WoW or BnS or Diablo, etc, not a MOBA.

And, though this may be a stretch, Riot would actually earn money by making all runes available to everyone. Without that 30,000 IP grind to make and fill three rune pages, 6300 IP (or 7800, if you want a brand new champion) would be the new maximum grind. Newer players will think that's a lot, and opt for spending the $8 to buy Zed, Yasuo, and Ekko instead of the doing the comparatively long grind. Whereas anyone who's spend IP filling rune pages is very much against spending money on champions, since even 7800 is bearable compared to the price of your first full page's worth of runes.

Then, even IF a newer player is the kind of person who would never spend money on a game aspect that can be earned for free, they'd feel better about purchasing a SKIN for a champion that they've earned through IP, since unlike older players, they don't know what it's like to have tons of IP or to have gone through the tons of IP needed for runes when you get to level 30.

How this change would effect gameplay Simply put, it would make things more fair for everyone. New players wouldn't be put at a disadvantage against players who decided they'd purchase IP boosts. Older players would be able to make rune pages and have runes for any situation, optimized for any champion, without being forced to use runes that are just whatever damage type that Tank happens to scale when he actually needed HP. New players would have earlier access to newer champions without the early-game crippling disadvantage of having no runes.