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[Debate] Skin Spectacle Creep

Sir ArmaMalum·4/9/2014, 6:19:29 PM·2 votes·456 views

######Hey, I'm actually on schedule this time! Woo!

Hello and welcome to my weekly (at least that's what I shoot for) [Debate] post. In this post series I outline a subject with LoL, and encourage people to post their own opinions and views about the subject. I hope to spark intelligent, civil and open-minded debate amongst the community. Just in case you don’t know how to do debate that here are the guidelines:

  • Don't dismiss anyone's opinions, opinions are never wrong, you just disagree with them.
  • You are free to disagree with someone always, but always do your best to explain why.
  • Don't get emotional, hopefully we're all adults here, keep it in 'debate' mode. No catfights allowed.
  • Feel free to disagree with my OP as well! I love feedback, but this is a debate thread, I'll respond where I can!
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#####Want to help decide what topic comes next? Well you can! Poll below!

##What is ‘Spectacle Creep’?

No it isn’t some fabulously dressed monster somewhere, ‘Spectacle Creep’ is just like its sister term ‘Power Creep’ but does not deal with in-game numbers or gameplay itself. Spectacle Creep is the trend of making things look better, shinier and higher quality to keep content fresh and new. As the bar is raised, the next thing has to be even better to compete, making the overall direction creep ever upwards.
#####https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKzJWoZWMOI <-----Here’s a professional explanation

##What does this have to do with skins?

I’d be surprised if you haven’t noticed the trend for skins over the years. For those just joining us recently, the skins you see being released now are at a level of quality reserved for legendary skins back in the day. I think we can all agree on that as an established fact. Hell, we didn’t even think about having Ultimate grade skins in Season 2.
This is a direct result of Spectacle Creep. As Riot’s skin teams got more tools, more money and more experience their capacity for skin quality increased, and so they could put out better and better skins. Now, it’s hard to justify using these tools for a skin of what was ‘good back then’. Every skin has to at least meet the previous skin’s quality.
######Note: This is mostly educated speculation, if a Rioter from the skins team wants to correct me anywhere I will welcome it and thank you!

##The Question

So what do you think of this trend? Don’t forget, this can be a good trend depending on your opinion. Do you think Riot should continue constantly raising the bar on skin quality? Or do you think they should take a step back?

##My Personal Take

As an individual, I think this is actually a good thing to keep doing. It brings in new aesthetic mechanics (Void fizz’s animations for example) and can really bring out some awesome products. But that in itself isn’t the biggest reason in my opinion.

There are only a limited amount of workable ideas. I’d rather not see the ‘slot’ for a skin idea taken by something less than the best Riot thinks they can do. There are a lot of ideas that have yet to be untapped, a single visit to Fan Creations can tell you that, but it will eventually get to the point where it will be harder and harder to come up with an original idea for a new skin, and I would rather wait now for better skins and extend that time of new, original content myself.

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6 Comments

AbiwonKenabi4/9/2014, 7:40:28 PM3 votes

I personally don't think this one is really all that much of a hot topic. Since the beginning of time, people want a "bang for their buck" so to speak. They want the best possible product, and they want to select among many good products. Skins are no exception.

There's a reason there are positions in companies like "quality assurance" or the existence of seals of approval. Remember the early days of video games, when you had no idea what the quality of the game was until you played it? That's why Nintendo and many other companies started using a "seal of approval". It's a guarantee for customers, because they don't want to risk getting ripped off. Seeing a company increase their quality, it's only natural for us to be glad that the product we're getting is getting better and not worse.

That said, I can think of one major trade-off: price. As the skins get fancier and better and take more time and money to make, their average price increases. Now granted, these prices are still relatively low, but as skins are approaching the $10 mark, it's something to think about. Thinking of the last 10 or so skins, none of them have been below 920 and many of them are 1350 after their first week of release.

So in the end, I'm glad we get amazing skins like Void Fizz and Popstar Ahri and the like. The benefits definitely outweigh any negatives. Spectacle creep is a good thing...however, it might be nice to see a skin in a lower priced tier now and then, simply to have some cheaper options available. (I believe the SKT T1 skins will be cheaper, not sure though.)

Tulare4/10/2014, 8:27:36 PM2 votes

I think there are degrees of luxury. As with real-world goods, improvements in productivity - the new tools and experience that you mentioned - should have TWO products. One, high-end skins should be ever better. Two, average and budget skins should be ever less expensive. Now, I understand that there should be limits to this phenomenon. They don't want to produce anything that looks "cheap" (recolours, for example) and they don't want to flood the market. Having said that, I think there's lots of room for them to produce more merely-decent skins for budget-conscious players. For example, I don't think that neither Silent Night Sona, Queen Ashe, Hextech Janna, nor Sewn Chaos Orianna has any different particles or animations. They're "just" model changes. Nonetheless, they're some of my favourites. If such skins are easier and cheaper to produce now than they were two years ago, I'd still appreciate more of them.

Rubitonabuilding4/11/2014, 3:21:18 PM1 votes

Yeah old skins like nightmare cho'gath. lol. Literally just a recolour and they didn't even bother to make new splash art.

I agree with you in that I'd rather wait a bit and have AWESOME skins than just have cheap recolours and poorly done skins. That being said, I also think Rito could step up the skin output speed (arctic varus and void fizz came out pretty close together, but they're not my kind of champs xD).

More skins = more money, Rito.

More AWESOME skins = even MORE money.