Hello! It is to my understanding (atm) that skin production is influenced by champion popularity. With that being said; What are the chances of champions such as Bard and Lissandra, (Just to name two very specific favorites of mine), receiving skins in the near future? Just curious as to what the wait is like?
Hey!
There are a bunch of factors we consider when we're figuring out which champion is getting a skin next - champion popularity is one of the factors, but we also consider -
Supercakes goes into a lot of these factors more in depth - if you're interested - in the 2017 State of Skins Dev Diary. Additionally, she also spoke about more recent happenings in our 2018 State of Skins Dev Diary if you're curious about what we're doing this year! :)
To answer the second half of your post, as SwineTV said, we don't usually discuss what may or may not be in the works at any current time, so I don't have any news about Bard or Lissandra buuuut, there are some other spoilers in the 2018 Dev Diary linked above!
What goes into answering that? Most of the others seem like they could be supported with hard data, but it's unclear to me what a 'risk' is in this context (I mean theres a risk that a skin will be unpopular, but that's true of every skin) and how one could determine if it's worth it while still being responsible with the skin teams time.
Hi~ I'm one of the two product managers/producers on skins (SuperCakes is my boss). My job is basically to answer all of those questions above. The question about risk is particularly challenging, and it's probably the one that requires the most general insight into our players, global tastes, what's resonant in pop culture and media, and just gut calls. As an example, Pug'maw was a risk. We decided to make him an actual dog--that was a controversial move internally, and players were also divided. It was risky because he hadn't had a skin in awhile at the time and the art style was very polarizing--but it was mitigated by releasing it during April Fools, where that sort of silly skin could also be embraced. But we wondered if it went too far. It turned out to be the right call to make, but as with all risks, you won't know until the very end.
After doing this for awhile, you start building up a pretty good gut to making these kind of calculated risks/gut calls--but you know, we're human so it's not a science or anything ^_^
I'd love to see a new Lissandra skin. But they don't talk about upcoming skins on the boards.
Could be 2018 but also 2019 or 2020....
Its weird to me that Zoe could potential get a skin before Kayne though considering Kayn i believe is actually a more popular pick and has been out longer(not that i am complaining that she is getting a skin since i main her and do not actually play kayn that much but still) so he should meet the criteria for a new skin right?
The whole popularity/playrate thing is one thing I never get. Well, I mean I get it in terms of getting sales for popular champs but things never seem to fit.
If popularity was truely a thing, Vayne would get like 2 skins a year and Zed would have more than the 2 you can purchase right now. Neither of these things are true yet Vayne and Zed remain some of the most popular champs by design and don't change playrate much based on meta.
I also never get the 'theme' thing, if they wanted to make a Conqueror of the Sands Azir, they could and they'd make it good.
