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Curious about how skins are chosen / which champs get skins

redfeenix·8/1/2016, 4:30:00 PM·2 votes·1,517 views

Hey guys I was just curious about how this stuff works.

Why do most champs have 3 skins, and a few champs have 10 skins?

I was trying to buy a skin for my main, rumble, but he only has 3 skins. I wasnt interested in dropping so much cash for the space rumble.

Are champions chosen first, then a skin ideas are brainstomred? Or are skin ideas though up first, then they decide which champs should get the skin ?

Also why do most champs only have 2-3 skins, while a few have 10? Is it because they have easier models so it costs Riot less money to make skins for them? Or is it because MANY MANY people play that champ and therefore they will make a lot of sales if they release a new skin on that popular champion.

I understand its not worth the time / money for them to make skins for rumble, and they'll make huge profits creating more Kat skins. Its pretty dissapointing though for people that like playing less popular champs, knowing that we'd have to wait fucking years for a new skin since their business team has correctly deduced that less popular champs = less players = less skin sales.

Cheers, hope you guys enjoy your knew kat skin! You'd probably get 5 more katarina skins before rumble gets another one in a few years.

5 Comments

The Last Ballad8/4/2016, 2:28:11 AM1 votes

Some of the lesser played champs are in the running for a vgu, so they are ineligible for a skin. And other than that, it is by whether a champ can fit in a theme.

RogueWill8/4/2016, 2:47:17 AM1 votes

Some champions are ineligible for skins because they are waiting VGU, this champion will only get a skin if said skin is already developed or woudl result on little effort/time for the team. Example of said skins are Debonair Galio. This sort of skins are the exemption not the rule.

If the champion is eligible for skin then is up to the creative team to decide what champion they are going to brainstorm a skin idea for. Usually on this phase they brainstorm a skin for 10 different champions or so and then decide which champion/skin combination they want to follow, this is usually the way most skin came to.

Some times, they have a topic, said Maruder or Pool Party and with that idea they brainstorm what champions they should be able to fit into that theme.

The reason why some champions have more skins than other is popularity, when the 10 champions/skin ideas is first presented is presented to an outside board that will calculate profit into the equation but also the developer themselves are players (most of them are anyway) so their vision is a tad bias towards whatever champion they main making them sometimes push some champions into getting skins, take for example Dr. Mundo, he is a champion with only 2.8% popularity yet he has gotten a skin per year for the last 2 years so I'm pretty sure someone on the development team mains Mundo. Also Skarner (the guardians of the sand skin) was conceived on similar way since that skin was redundant on him which his lore ties him back to Shurima and the skin seems redundant (since Riot has said they like to put champion on a different timeline or dimension so is not redundant)