Why do skins have to be made unavailable to buy?

Great Muta·Aug 15, 2016·1 votes·1,064 views

I can't really think of a good reason for skins to be made unavailable. There's an easy $30 worth of skins I'd buy right now if they were made available and I doubt I'm the only one. This is especially annoying as someone who plays a lot of Kayle as she has 4 available skins and 4 unavailable skins.

I'm just having trouble understanding the rationale behind not selling something that you have already made and doesn't cost you any extra to keep producing.

Don't you want my money Rito?

29 Comments

AstôlfoAug 15, 20166 votes

Because it works like any limited time sale like with anything else? It's exclusive time-limited content.

Great MutaAug 15, 20162 votes

But what is the point? They are effectively losing money to make something unavailable. And by the time it is available, who knows if I'll be able to buy it or will even care.

And this isn't like a product. It's already made. It costs nothing for them to produce. It's all profit. I can understand why say Pepsi doesn't want to produce Crystal Pepsi all the time - because it will cost them money to produce it. But the skin is already in the game.

AstôlfoAug 15, 20166 votes

Uh, yeah, except. Riot already makes tons of money anyways. And some of the original appeal to buying the said skin in the first place is knowing that it will be Legacy and limited edition only.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

Well, they are losing about $30 from it by not making the skins I want available. My money will just go elsewhere then. Only fools don't sell things they put the effort into making at no extra cost.

AstôlfoAug 15, 20162 votes

Wow, losing $30 to the millions something they probably make. What a tragedy.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

Losing any sale is a tragedy in my opinion. My $30 might not mean a ton in the grand scheme, but I'm not the only one. Riot makes money off selling skins to the masses and they lose money by not making them available. $30 here, $30 there and $30 elsewhere adds up.

If only 1% of the playerbase would buy it, that's 400k people x $10 for the skin = $4 million dollars. I'd prefer the money goes to me instead of going to another game if I were Riot.

AstôlfoAug 15, 20161 votes

Uh yeah compared to the amount of money they make from people who buy it whenever it first came out and/or BECAUSE it's limited? Nah.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

I'd be willing to bet more people would buy it if it's available always since they released it compared to the amount of people who will buy it in the 1 week its available. I'd be happy to take that bet.

BergkAug 15, 20163 votes

I'm a skin collector, but I only collect limited and legacy skins. The only reason I bought the skins are because they are not available year round. So in a sense, having limited availability on some skins does increase profits because more people (like me) buy it.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

The only reason I want the skin is because I play the champ. Don't care if it costs $1 and if everyone has it. Rusty Blitzcrank is one of the rarer skins in the game and I wouldn't spend 100 RP on it.

SukishooAug 15, 20161 votes

The point is to make players that own these skins feel special. It's like buying a collectible item that will either never be seen again or has a very low chance of being seen again.

Like the Victorious skin line for example in which players gain a free skin (Gold or higher in Ranked only) on a champion that it was made for during the season. These are one time only skins that have been made for Jarvan (season 1), Janna (season 2), Elise (season 3), Morgana (season 4) and Sivir (season 5) so far that will NEVER be seen again, and could only be gotten during the year of release.

So when someone gets one of these skins they feel special cause others couldn't get them unless they reached that Ranking.

It's the same with some of the other limited time skins however a lot of things have changed since Riot made limited timed skins and most of these skins are planned to make a return in the future at some point (Most skins but Victorious, Black Alistair, Judgement and Silver Kayle that is).

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

Specialness is dependent on the player. I sold a whole bunch of legendary skins like Infernal Nasus because I didn't want them and they were useless to me. I'd sell DJ Sona in a second as would another user in this thread because we just don't want it.

I personally feel alienated and like the game doesn't care about the customer by not making things available for whatever reason. Riot could make anything available with the click of a mouse since the skins are already in the game and require no extra work. They just don't want to.

SukishooAug 15, 20161 votes

Well again, it's how they or any other company looks at making special products for people to get at a certain time.

Personally I do feel the same way about other skins, such as Championship Riven, which I was here during season 2 but didn't own Riven at the time and then the skin has since been unavailable. Since then it's only been available if you won the guessing game at Worlds which was won by a single person last year and like 10 people the year before. So Riot took that information vs how many people have been begging them to re-release it and will be doing so later this year.

So they do look at making certain things available again when time permits, it's not like they don't want to, it's just "is it the right time?" kind of thing. With the last remaining limited skins they have come around saying most of them last as a limited edition for about 4 years or so and then they will make their return after that time period is over. Riven for example was released in 2012 and it's now 2016 so her time period has passed and she will be seen again near the end of this year.

For other legacy content though, they come back at least once or twice a year, and sometimes in Bundles (sure you don't want the rest of whats in there but it's a way to get what you do)

WarmanreaperAug 15, 20164 votes

"But what is the point? They are effectively losing money to make something unavailable." Very false.. It actually boosts their purchase rate cause everybody that is smart and mains that champ buys it before its off sale , You can still get the unavailable skins out of chests , but other wise its not available because it was a event skin.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

I didn't even play the game when it was available.

WarmanreaperAug 15, 20161 votes

That's just a loss for you then. What skin are you wanting? Judgement?

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

The losses add up. 1 customer loss here, another there, another there and we are easily talking about thousands of dollars. There's 40-60 million players and even if %1 want it, that's $4,000,000(400,000 people x $10). The game makes most of its money by having a lot of product and selling it to a large amount of players. If the skin was like Crystal Pepsi or something and needed to be produced and bought by masses to make it successful, I'd understand. But it requires no effort or recreating to get me that skin. Just a press of the button.

I really want Riot Kayle or unmasked Kayle. I'd buy both if they were available. I've already spent about $85 in Augment/Hextech Chests and neither one showed up. I wasn't buying them specifically for that but I don't want to spend any more and risk neither of them not being there.

I just don't ever want to hear about Riot ever having money issues, because they are telling a bunch of people to go fuck themselves with their money right now.

SukishooAug 15, 20162 votes

Riot is a very rare skin which hasn't been re-released since it was actually made (2014 ), so doubt that will see the light outside of the rare chance of getting it from mystery gifting or chests. Unless of course they make another Riot skin that is, then they have re-released them for a short time.

Unmasked Kayle is a regular legacy skin so it comes back from time to time and has a higher chance from the mystery or chests, I personally just got that one recently but it's only because I own 500+ skins (makes chances of things I get lower)

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

I truly don't want the skin because it's rare. I just want to get a skin for champs I like and Kayle/GP are the only ones I haven't gotten yet because the skins I want aren't available. I just want it because it looks cool.

In the 30ish Hextech/Augment Cache's I bought, I also got 7 pairs of duplicate skin shards which I was not happy about, as it was $10 down the drain. So I'm very hesitant to waste any more money on that, especially when I could put it to better uses. I can afford it, yes, but I'd rather put it towards something guranteed.

SukishooAug 15, 20161 votes

Well when you get duplicates from the chests you can actually re-roll into permanent skins rather then turning them into essence (yes it takes 3 shards but it can be worth it) and it's got a better chance on something you actually do own when you don't have a large collection (like I do).

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

I rerolled 6 shards and one was okay, but I won't use it much and the other was rare I guess, but I'll never ever use it. And do the orange essence scam, I still didn't really have enough to activate all of the skins I wanted.

SukishooAug 15, 20161 votes

Yeah the essence systems need some more work for what they give as they are a big rip off at times. They could spend some more time balancing out how much those things either give you or how much we have to spend on something to unlock them as they can get to a point that feels like buying some of the in-store skins is cheaper.

Great MutaAug 15, 20162 votes

Mystery skins are probably the best option money wise. You won't get as many shard choices, but everything you get will be a guranteed skin.

OleandervineAug 15, 20164 votes

They will actually make more money on these skins, and here's why: 1.) A limited time skins such as Unmasked Kayle will sometimes be released from the vault such as during bundle sales each month or during special sales. Being that 90% of the time these skins are unavailable, people will be very inclined to buy them when they are put on sale again. 2.) Limited skins were created for special events such as Halloween or Christmas. Having these skins be locked out until those holidays makes them more special and desirable once that time of year rolls around. See point 1. 3.) Most limited skins, barring a few, are available from Hextech Crafting and Mystery Gifting. If you and a friend are buying Hextech and Mystery Gifts in hopes of getting limited skins, Riot makes more money than having them permanently available.

Some reasons skins were made unavailable was due to the colossal drop in quality that occurred when those skins were outclassed by future skins in their price point. For instance, Annie in Wonderland and The Magnificent Twisted Fate were considered legendary because in that era, getting a model alteration was considered 1820 work. This pricing model clearly changed as technology improved, so due to their now lack of quality, they were removed from availability. Skins such as these are hard sells even for special events due to the price, so they would have had no hope of selling otherwise.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

6 years of being sold > 1 week of being sold will always make more money. They have over 60 million players.
I bought a lot of augment cache's and it's too much of a gamble to spend possibly hundreds just to get one skin, and it's really not worth it.

Skin quality is up to the person to decide. I only care about champs I play. Some people think DJ Sona is the best skin in the game and I'd sell that for essence in a heartbeat if I got it, because I don't like Sona and play her.

WarmanreaperAug 15, 20161 votes

I would sell DJ sona too.. only ultimate skin I would ever upgrade is udyr.. the rest are ugly.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

Yep. Skin quality or desirability is up to each person to decide.

PermabannedGarenAug 15, 20162 votes

You don't understand how sales work.

By making a skin limited, that increases the demand significantly. People who might be more inclined to wait on buying a skin will jump at the chance to buy a skin that is only available for a limited time or is rare.

Look at how many people have spent literal hundreds of dollars for the chance to own Hextech Annie.

Great MutaAug 15, 20161 votes

Hextech Annie is a different story. There's only one way to get her and that's through gemstones. Atleast you know she's available, it's just going to be expensive. There's no guarantee you get some of the skins I want without hundreds of dollars.