Please understand that Riot is a business. Also that there are different business models.

Hyrum Graff·5/20/2016, 10:16:46 PM·6 votes·572 views

Whenever I see people debating about whether things like Hextech Crafting are a money grab, someone invariably mentions how "Riot is a business, which means they'll only do something if there's a profit for them." The implication: Riot won't do something that's purely good for players.

There's more than one business strategy.

One is, indeed, to make a cash grab at the expense of your consumers to squeeze out as much money as you can, right now.

Another is to do something that might lose you money in the short run, because you're building a relationship with a base of loyal customers who will support your business.

Maybe it's to create a bunch of really cheap content and give everyone deals that they'll buy because why not?

Maybe it's to create expensive content that's worth the cost.

tl;dr, "Riot is a business" doesn't mean anything. What matters is the kind of business they are.

13 Comments

SirArcticWarfare5/21/2016, 7:35:10 AM1 votes

that's why they have specials ?

Sahn Uzal5/21/2016, 9:55:44 AM1 votes

''What the fuck, how dare you try to make money off something?! Even though this is a free to play game where the only products that we would need to pay for are cosmetic products, WHICH we can now also get for free through Hextech Crafting'' -The community

BloodyTompon5/22/2016, 7:20:28 AM1 votes

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Riots business model is much like the chicken and egg. It's never possible to say what comes first because they feed into each other and cycle. Take Hextech crafting as an example. It is a new avenue from which Riot can make profit, true. However, it's also a new avenue for people to earn free stuff and something that (despite some of the complaints) brings extra enjoyment to the game.