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Skins and Scams

Daetnas·4/14/2017, 12:11:07 PM·1 votes·534 views

So with the announcement that Dreadnova Darius will be another lootbox only skin, I think It's time we had a discussion about lootboxes and crafting only skins.

Let's start with the basic question. Why would Riot make skins 'crafting only' ? IMO It's about artificially inflating the value of certain skins for the most dedicated players , and incentivizing spending a huge amounts of money on crates to unlock said skins.

Let's take Hextech Annie as an example. Just how much does it cost on average to get this skin? You can either pray you get it from a 1 in a thousand chance as a random drop (good luck) OR 10 gemstones. The estimated dropchance of Bullshitgems is 4%, which means it takes 250 chests on average to get one of these skins. That'll cost you about 300 USD, and you're not even guaranteed to get enough BS gems for that price.

With outlooks like these a reasonable player would never spend this much money on lootboxes just for one skin, right? Well, certainly not everyone, but the system was designed to fool people into buying crates; Riot is obfuscating the droprates of skins, gemstones etc. People who don't dig deep enough have no idea how low some of these hidden dropchances are, and so are more likely to just buy chests as a result. And since it's inherently a gambling system, It uses the same tricks as traditional casinos. The notion that you just need to get lucky once, the gambler's fallacy and many more.

But mainly, the average player is NOT the target of skin releases like these. The average player doesn't really care whether they get Panda Annie or Hextech Annie from a lootbox, as long as they like both. The people that Riot targets with 'limited' skins like these are the most dedicated, high spending players; Dedicated champion mains, skin collectors, players who like to gamble. F2P mobile developers (disgustingly) call these high spending dedicated players 'whales', and they get the majority of their revenue from exploiting them. You can find thousands of stories online of gullible people getting suckered in and losing their livelyhood over these scams of games.

With the 'lootbox only' skins, Riot has adopted one of the worst practices of these mobile developers as they openly targeted their most dedicated players. This isn't good for anyone. Not the average player that wants these skins, but can't get them. It isn't good for the dedicated players that would have to spend a small fortune for a skin they want to get. This move only benefits Riot's bank accounts.

At the end of the day these are just some skins in a videogame. Noone has to buy them. But at the same time I trust Riot to be better than this. To respect their players, and their own work more than to resort to shady practises borrowed from mobile developers, and erode player trust. Give players the option to gamble for skins, but also the option to just buy them, If they want to. Riot gets their money, players get the skin they want, everyone's satisfied.

4 Comments

GankedByWindows4/14/2017, 12:31:39 PM2 votes

I don't see where the scam is. All the information is out there. It is entirely voluntary, the drop rate is public, and there are many, many youtube videos out there to test the drop rate. In addition, it is CHANCE in the end. I could flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads every time. The next coin flip is still a 50/50.

The Hextech system is so, so different from the fremium models that you're railing on of mobile games. Skins are ENTIRELY cosmetic. They give no advantage at all in game. For mobile games, buying microtransactions give bonuses, experience, and items that are otherwise either unobtainable or would take stupidly long to get otherwise, and give a significant advantage over those who don't buy them.

If someone has the money to drop, let them do it. It is their money. They aren't getting an advantage over those who didn't spend money, so I don't really see the problem.