League of Legends slowing champion release schedule, raising initial champion price to 7800 IP
Several pricing changes, including price drops
Riot Games eCommerce Director Hippalus is yet again burdened with the unfortunate task of announcing another price raise to League of Legends players. And of course it wouldn't be quite right unless it was done in an obtuse and slightly misleading manner. Long story short, Riot Games is slowing down the release schedule of champions from 2-3 weeks to 3-4 weeks and quite likely as a result new champion prices will be raised to 7800 for the first week of release.
There are several additional changes being made to try lessen the cost burden that players will soon have to bear for new champions. Here's a list of the changes being made:
- RP/IP Price Tiers Normalized
-
450 IP 260 RP 1350 IP 585 RP 3150 IP 790 RP 4800 IP 880 RP 6300 IP 975 RP 7800 IP (first week) 975 RP
-
- Champion Price Reductions - The seven oldest 6300 IP champions have been adjusted down to 4800 IP. These champions include: Ezreal, Vladimir, Renekton, Nocturne, Lee Sin, Brand and Vayne.
- Updated and Normalized Price Reduction Schedule
- Each time a new champion is released, an older 6300 champion will have its price reduced to 4800.
- For every third champion released (2-3 months) another champion with a lower-than-6300 price point will have its price dropped to the next tier.
- New champions will cost 7800 IP for the first week of release and then drop to the lower IP price of 6300 IP. RP price will not change.
I'll be straight forward, if this was just an honest and simple price increase for new champions I would be disappointed, but I'd understand. Riot is slowing the champion release schedule and they have to retain their profits. The RP price of new champions is not increasing, however, it is staying the same. As such, all Riot is doing is increasing the burden on free-to-play gamers if they want to acquire and play new champions, which I consider unfair.
Hippalus even goes on to say, clarifying some of the purpose behind the changes:
"Yeah we hope this makes first week champion ownership a little more exclusive and less frustrating."
Wait, so the price is being raised specifically to prevent more players from playing new champions? Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall. In my years playing League of Legends there is no event, beyond professional competitions, that gets players excited about playing than a new champion's release. Apparently Riot thinks that's a negative thing and really needs to be cut back on.
I suppose the argument is that this will persuade more players to pay real money instead of IP for champions at launch. I still can't agree, because I already think it's difficult for free-to-play players to keep up with the champion release schedule. Is it really okay to increase the burden on the players who are most excited for a champion's release? I hope Riot and Hippalus reconsider, just like they did with temporary ward skins.
League of Legends' pricing changes take effect immediately. Check out Hippalus' announcement for all the details.
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Math:
- 6300 every 2 weeks
- 7800 every 3 weeks
That's:- 3150 IP a week
- 2600 IP a week
How this is being perceived as more expensive is beyond me.If people don't want that extra 550 IP they are saving every week, I'll gladly take it and spend it on some of those cheaper old champions that are now becoming a normal price reduction plan. Something put in to directly benefit free players.
Never taken an ethics class before, but I'd like to think Riot asking me to farm less IP per month to keep up with releases, is something agreeable. I've never come across an instance where Riot didn't respect their players and what they have to say. Hopefully that day will never come.
For a majority of players the change will result in shaving to wait another month or two to potentially buy a new champion, or simply giving up on purchasing a new champion ever. It says it straight in the quote, this change is meant to exclusionary.
It's worth putting on someone else's shoes and seeing how these changes affect the greater LoL community.
There are no ethics to it. Its common sense for a player to be able to successfully counter pick and choose heroes that work well of each other and make an actual team composition without worrying if you have a certain hero unlocked. The only DotA-like that sells heroes is LoL and its extremely odd.
And again, no one is making you buy the new champion on release, if you want to, those 7-8 extra games are the price you'll have to pay.
... and add to that, "for a week". This only affects those people who purchase Champions with IP within the week that they are released. Considering the majority of on-release purchases are with RP, that's not saying a lot.
What sort of "bang" are you getting from buying a single hero in a DotA game?
I don't think comparing Valve and Riot is entirely fair. Valve is... Valve. They are legendary in the gaming industry. All Riot has is League. They've monetized their game in a way that works for them and their community deems "fair."
In all honesty I'm more excited about the regular IP reductions on old champs. For every new champ that comes out an old one gets an IP reduction. Whats more fair than that?
From here, DotA financial model can go three routes.
a) They can go the parasitic route, where they take losses and leech off of their mother company for as long as possible to drive competitors to the ground, and then bounce back and mark a profit since you've d*ck-moved your way into a monopoly.
b) They can go the spectacular third-party route, in which they become so popular they can keep themselves afloat solely on advertising.
c) They give you incentives to pay for content; I.E, the LoL model.
It's going to end up being one of the three. A can't last forever. It's hard to justify to the company and even harder for shareholders. B is going to be extremely difficult, given that even LoL is feeling the squeeze, despite rampant success in the eSports world. To fully commit to model B, DotA 2 would have to surpass LoL's achievements and put DotA 2 on the same revenue level as the MLB or NHL. Or they just go C, and you find DotA 2 advocates repeating the words made by their LoL counterparts months or years earlier, in order to justify the rising "cost".
We are talking about a company who made its top fps game free to play, or sold 3 of its largest games in a box set for 20 dollars, or pretty much runs a PC gaming monopoly in a closet in Seattle. DOTA2 isn't a money drain in the first place, Valve didn't create DotA, they just revamped the engine and models and made it look pretty. In return they get a huge influx of Steam downloads, an extremely dedicated fanbase, and a small cosmetic item shop that will wheel in dosh on the side, its quite enough for everybody. What kind of PC gamer wouldn't have Steam downloaded with DOTA2 on it after it releases? In a business sense its extremely profitable.
Sure, you can say they "get" an influx of Steam downloads, and a small cash shop where people dabble, but that's it. You have to compare that against the cost of a balance team to maintain the game meta, a design team to produce new content, an network team to maintain the servers, a marketing team, a customer relations team, etc, etc, etc. Those are all running costs. Costs that, if not met on a basic level by revenue from the game itself, will eventually run the project into the ground.
Sure you get intangible benefits. Try explaining intangibles to shareholders when the budget for DotA 2 has a big fat red number with a lot of zeros behind it. You can't. Shareholders are dumb. They'll ask why can't they cut this or that to improve the bottom line.
Eventually, DotA 2 will have to find cash somewhere. If it really is a free as you say, it won't last.
- People that are hardcore will get the latest champion even if its a thousand IP more
- Less people getting the latest champ means less people dodging games because they can't try the latest champ (Seriously, it can be pretty hard to actually play the latest champ during its first week.)
- More people playing the PBE because of previous point = more testers
- Champion prices are now constantly going down so you can buy MORE champions
Seriously, its a win-win for everyone. Can't buy the latest champion, oh well, ima just buy the now cheaper Lee Sin or Vayne.7800 is larger as a number than 6300, yes. But what is completely ignored here is frequency. To afford a new champion, per week, any given player has to play less games per week in order to afford new champions on day 1 even at the 7800 price point. 550 IP less a week you need to gain. 1650 per each average release timeframe. That's if you decide the champion really isn't worth it, and you decide to wait a week longer, saving you that extra 1500 for a grand total of 2150.
This is not bad for players. New players, old players, people who play a little, people who play a lot. It is a flat decrease in the amount of IP you need to gain each week to afford new releases. There is only one type of player this affects, and that is a player who specifically plays to gain IP for a new champion, never simply to play the game. Dunno what to call those kinds of players, Pokemon Summoners? Only playing to catch 'em all? Never playing to simply...play, thus having a kind of IP income for simply having fun? Either way, if they wait out a week, they can still do what they do now, for whatever reason they try for that in the first place.
Underlines are there specifically because this is the...fifth time this has been mentioned here that I can remember. I've brought it up three times, Inuyasha has also noted it, Azuma as well. It has yet to actually be acknowledged or rebutted by anybody claiming the opposite.
LoL and DotA2 cater to two separate types of people. There's some overlap, tournament-level play, hardcore people, but as for the casual gamer, LoL tries to help them. DotA2 not so much, as a direct revamp of the original, it is very, very painful for new players, and is not made to be casually enjoyed. It's learn or die. Neither needs to be better than the other, neither needs to justify it's existence to the other game. Not sure why you feel the need to do that for the developers, when neither has ever voiced they care about each other. It's like comparing CoD to Borderlands. Yeah they're shooters, but the people they market to are different, they're not competing, nor do the developers care about the other series.
On the cash flow front, Riot's trying solo to keep up the LoL servers, which by this point are, well, gigantic. Valve's got cash inflow to help out from DotA2 still costing money to enter, advertising on Steam, cuts from sales on games, you know, the billion things Valve makes money from. Not saying Valve is evil, I love Valve, but you are comparing apples to oranges.
And really, the apple doesn't care what the orange does. Nor does it probably want bad rep by members of it's community bashing on the orange. They're happily co-existing, as two kinds of fruit.
In short, take a chill pill Marc. Nobody here is trying to make you hate DotA2 and love LoL. We are perfectly fine with playing a game we enjoy, peacefully. If you want I can send you a fruit basket as a truce?
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