Buying skins without owning champions.

Detective Mako·10/3/2014, 1:22:20 AM·6 votes·1,790 views

I've thought about this for the past few years, especially when I didn't have very many champions. What would be the problem with buying a skin for a champion that you don't own? It gives the player something to look forward to when buying a champion that they already have a skin for, and it gives you, RIOT, the sale and the benefit of knowing that the player is going to stick around for a while longer. This just came back into my head because my friend has been working to get Lulu before her Dragon Trainer skin goes off of sale on Friday, although he's probably not going to get the IP for her in time. I just think it would be a great idea, especially because it would let a lot more people take advantage of the skin sales. If anyone looks at this, thanks for reading and considering it. -Forever addicted to LoL

9 Comments

Deep Terror Nami10/3/2014, 2:08:05 AM3 votes

And when you later decide you'd rather spend your IP/RP on a different champion or Runes? Riot would start hearing "I made a poor decision with real money and I demand you fix it!".

redniwediS10/3/2014, 5:13:56 AM2 votes

I would love to buy skins for champions I do not own, but I wouldn't want to receive them from mystery gifts. Maybe if someone bought a specific skin for me sure, but I would rather have a random skin use a champion I already own.

Athenes Lulu10/3/2014, 3:29:19 AM1 votes

What if I tell you that he/she ends up not liking the champ anymore and regrets wasting actual money on it?

So... no thanks.

RoyaiChaos10/3/2014, 6:23:35 AM1 votes

Once I had to refund Malphite to buy Morgana because her skin went on sale. ._. Not to mention the countless sales I've missed because I didn't own the champion at the time.

Thunder Dreamss10/3/2014, 2:41:23 PM1 votes

This just came back into my head because my friend has been working to get Lulu before her Dragon Trainer skin goes off of sale on Friday, although he's probably not going to get the IP for her in time.

I think the key piece you're missing is that Riot wants your friend to buy Lulu for RP instead of IP. If your friend is going to buy Dragon Trainer Lulu no matter what then Riot either gets the full non-sale price of the skin or gets the RP sale of the champion along with the skin. Either way, more money.

As predatory sales behavior goes this isn't really that bad, imo.

Levyathyn10/3/2014, 11:48:21 PM1 votes

Hmm. Not a bad idea. The trade off here would be waiting, but it would definitely seem as if it were costing Riot some RP sales, even if it really wasn't. I buy a lot of skins, though, and I've only had my hand forced on a few champions. I don't think it would hurt sales too much, and might replace them with much more skin sales, but this would be during half-off periods. A solid idea, but I don't know if Riot would go for it without good marketplace data.