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Does Riot actually care about anything besides money?

ryona··6 votes·774 views

Basically, I respect a lot of animating and video game studios (like Blizzard) for doing what they have proven and admitted to doing what they do also because they genuinely love it and have passion for it.

I just find it hard to see LoL by comparison as anything but a soulless, colorless money grabbing monstrosity where I liken Riot more to the developers of No Man's Sky than anything else. There is no love for anything they do even in their art department, just what is most efficient to take the common consumer's money and LoL itself is a fad that, if similar fad machine PUBG proves, will never be remembered or treasured once it dies to the next fad that takes it place.

But that's purely my impression of the developers and their product, so I'm wondering if there's anything seemingly "incorrect" about it, because I actually want to be wrong that I have been behind something so apparently meaningless for years once moving forward into 2018.

20 Comments

GreenLore8 votes

Honestly if they were really that interested in what makes the most money they wouldn't have done the Varus lore update like this. I mean Varus isn't a very popular champion and most of the playerbase doesn't care about the lore anyway.

And there'd be no point in doing risky changes like his if they didn't care about the champs.I mean why bother changing champion lores like this if they could just reuse the old lores anyway?That would be waaay easier and wouldn't risk loosing old fans of the champ.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I call shenanigans. Riot had interview and created music video just to celebrate the fact they now a gay champion. That was entirely done to get out the word how they now have a gay champion. In order to get more people to buy the game or play Varus so they can potentially buy skins.

The fact Varus wasn’t super popular is exactly why changing the lore as they did was more profitable.

Ralanr4 votes

What is wrong exactly about attracting new players? Every game company tries to do this. Blizzard does this with every advertisement and Riot has been very heavy handed on getting new people with their “It is ok to be a noob” message in their advertisements.

Warlord Dienekes2 votes

Nothing. I don’t even think I implied there was.

But make no mistake trying to attract players is because they want to make money. Because this is a business and it is being run like a business. I.E. competently (for the most part).

There is this weird sort of divide that we seem to have that if a company is trying to make money they must be evil. Which is idiotic. A company must try to make money or it won’t exist for long. What makes a company evil is when the strive to make money crosses the line to predatory business practices. Which for the most part Riot has not done.

They’re a “good” business. But a business just the same. Do not delude yourself that they are something other than what they are.

Ralanr4 votes

“I call shenanigans” could be taken as implying there was. And your post (while I agree with on certain levels) can be taken negatively.

How we say things is just as important as what we say. I should know, I’m a communications major.

Warlord Dienekes2 votes

I’m a historian. I make long rants about how things were.

You are right, my shenanigans comment was too aggressive. But it was to point out that each of GreenLore’s points actually do fit an economic model. Far more than because of some desire for high art.

GreenLore3 votes

In that case they could have made a new champ instead of risking to destroy the fanbase of an existing one.

Heck their newest champ Zoe has a lore that easily makes her unlikeable for a lot as she kills people by accident,if they just wanted her to be popular they wouldn't have given her such a lore.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

But Zoe is adored by some. That’s the key here. Riot has 130+ champions. Making genericly cool heroes doesn’t cut it anymore. But getting a hero that some small fraction will go absolutely bonkers about is a net profit for them.

Besides you said yourself, Varus was not all that popular. They probably didn’t think there was much risk to them, and since he wasn’t popular getting rid of the old lore means you do not have to waste resources on material that will not gain at least some mass support.

That’s the key here. For all profit really. When you have this many heroes the goal no longer becomes get a wide playerbase. They already have the wide playerbase. They want the decently sized niche groups. And if a champions niche appeal is underperforming: Urgot, Yorick, Varus, etc. They’ll get reworked to appeal to a different hopefully more profitable niche group.

GreenLore1 votes

People who like Zoe like her for being cute and energetic,I've never seen anyone say that he/she likes how Zoe accidently killed people.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Here’s the thing. Just because an attempt to cater to a group doesn’t make it successful.

But in Zoe ‘s case the only people I see complaining are already opposed to her

GreenLore1 votes

Well then appearantly you haven't read the reactions about her lore.

If Riot wanted to play it safe,they would have made her more harmless to regular people.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I did. Hell I was part of most those discussions.

But I would repeat, she is clearly a design to cater to a certain type of person.

It is impossible to please everyone, but to make something that a certain group would absolutely eat up can be profitable.

However, just because that is the design intention doesn’t mean they actually hit the ball out of the park every time.

Remember, Waarghobo was straight up bewildered that people were taking the side of the guards over Zoe. He did not consider that people would think that the whole town was destroyed or that people would villainize Zoe for, in his eyes, defending herself.

That just shows what a gap can exist between what makers think they’re making vs what they actually end up making.

Zoe was designed to be bought. Arguing against that is pretty ludicrous. Whether the execution was perfect is a whole other debate.

Final Spark Lux6 votes

I'm wondering why you feel this way...it kinda makes me sad that you might not see Riot how I see them.

Sure, some things have changed. It doesn't seem as easy to get certain things anymore, etc, but the game is still free to play, and Riot is still releasing new high quality content frequently. I think comparing Riot to Blizzard in this sense is sort of a mistake. Blizzard's income is from games that cost money to buy the initial game, and in some cases, a mandatory monthly subscription, on top of all the micro-transactions that they do have. Riot on the other hand doesn't actually charge anything at any point of the game. Sure, you don't have access to all the champions right off the bat, but you can play and enjoy league without spending a dime if you choose to.

Riot does care about making money; they're a company first and foremost, with tons expenses to take care of, but I don't think that makes them greedy. I don't know if you've ever taken the time to talk to any of the game devs / artists, or follow them on any social networking sites / read about them, etc, but they're extremely passionate about this game, and I think that's reflected in the quality of their work, and the way they socialize with the community. (maybe not on boards per-say, but a lot of them do the whole twitter / facebook thing)

ModWulf Helhammer6 votes

Got any proof that they don't care about what do they?

Have you ever even looked at Universe?

HonestJohnTheCon3 votes

Yes, a free to play game where you can be on an equal skill level with everybody else without spending a cent.

Such a soulless money-grab.

Sure, Riot's made some questionable decisions. Some were probably fueled by revenue alone, but things like Runes Reforged? Possibly a tool to get more people into the game. Possibly a way that Riot wanted to make the game better. It's more likely that it was a combination of both.

Riot's motivations are up for debate, but more money is a way to motivate them into making things better, at least, because they know worse things will make them lose money. On the other side, if they make the game better, they will make more money in the process. It's not like they've upped the prices of skins or the game or something. Some recent things could be seen as cash-grabby, like emotes or the OE nerfs.

Also, LoL's not really a fad in the way PUBG was. PUBG lasted a few months, tops. LoL's been around for several years.

Ralanr2 votes

Soulless? I don’t know about that. But as a company that not only needs to pay its several employees but also turn a profit to continue creating content, getting money is important.

I get that we all like to “stick it to the corporate fat cats” by saying all they care about is getting more money. And while there is some truth to the idea, it’s actually really dumb when you consider how important money actually is.

Rent, food, Internet, gas, medicine, etc. these are all things people can (or cannot) afford due to the money they earn. The very smart phone I’m typing on is something that I (or rather my family because I’m still on the plan) paid for to use. It’s not free nor is it a right. I work 40 hours a week to make enough money to pay rent (and I’m still learning to budget) and I always would prefer a little extra money to buy stuff I want. If I could make more money with similar hours so I could buy more stuff, I’d do it.

Does that make me greedy? Some would say yes and others no.

Riot isn’t forcing you to pay them anything and they do work to make the game fun and interesting for a large majority of people. If they were really as “soulless” as every edgy kid says they are, then we probably wouldn’t have Rioters that interact with us or even much of a story department.

Yes the goal for most if not all the creations Riot makes is to generate an income. That’s not evil, that’s just business. They don’t have to go the lengths they do however. There’s enough passionate people at Riot behind those projects to give us good (and sometimes bad) work.

I don’t see much of a difference between Riot and Blizzard in terms of passion behind their creations.

Jo0o2 votes

Commissioning original songs and music videos for their champs that we can experience for free seems contrary to them being wholly soulless, no?

I mean, I'm sure those projects DO end up a net positive to Riot's bottom line when you factor in how they bring in audience engagement, but hey, it's a company. They want to make money. What's the alternative?

The Anagram King1 votes

Well, I mean, they WERE bought out. :P

Dreamspitter1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Anagram King,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=APyIZnyZ,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-12-08T08:12:43.106+0000)

Well, I mean, they WERE bought out. :P

Hey, Digital Extremes is pretty cool and they made Warframe. And hey -they're owned by a Chinese Chicken company. Tyson never put out anything cool 'cept tendies.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I just wrote a huge thing about this.

Riot is a company. Literally everything they do must go through the lense of “does this benefit the company?”

Now specific writers may care about their creations. The workers probably have tangential goals beyond the bottom line. But the company as a whole is all about profit. It has to be. That’s how companies grow and become profitable. Without that the company dies.

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