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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Look, either DotA 2 WILL make significant money from its running, or it ALREADY IS. That's just how business works. No two ways around it.
OMG I JUST BOUGHT VAYNE GDI ?? !!
W/e, now I can buy Ez and Vlad. Might buy Renek too, but he just falls off. ;w; Still love him though~ uwu
Is the eSports scene the after school club that only the cool boys and girls are allowed into? Because the reason that sports events are televised is for entertainment. From the multiple millions of summoners playing and watching League daily, I'd say that it's quite entertaining.
Do Basketball fans complain about hockey's equipment cost? Because that's whats happening here. All gameplay content in league of legends is obtainable without spending a cent however.
Someone link the video about perfect imbalance, as an answer to the balance topic before.
- If you're going to make free to play games, you're going to actually have to be okay with people playing for free
- Let players earn every type of currency in your game, even the ones they can also pay for
- Never sell power, convenience however, that's good stuff.
- Always keep your monetization plan in mind as you build the game
- Never split your community. (Aka, no 'paying player only special zones')
- Market test prices, do research
How does League rate against these rules?- Solid. I see no queue timers for free players, energy systems, any of that bull. Only way I can tell another player paid is if they look pretty.
- Needs work, there's some RP given out to players, but there's no way to earn more after you hit level 30.
- Awesome. What are Mastery Pages? Convenience, so very much of it.
- f2p from the start, seems pretty legit.
- Solid again. What map is pay only? None of them.
- Hippa-whatever had mentioned in the Q&A thread for the price change that the new pricing scale was done after much research, testing, data, etc etc. So, that seems like a checkoff as well.
So, 5/6 as a final score? I can fly with that, they've made moves in the last year to try and make RP a reward for free players, nothing really...great, but maybe that'll change in the future, who knows. Riot's been pretty dang good to us players, very responsive to player concerns. There's a ~620 page thread on the official forums that's Q&A with just one of the Riot team, Ezreal, that he's been keeping up with for months. That's pretty cool. Phreak, Xypherious, Morello, Guinsoo, Iron Stylus, a lot of the dev team, art team, marketing, player support, they all participate and pay attention to the community. I'd be surprised to see them do something that's actually harmful to those players.Riot is only charging for champions ultimately to make money obviously. They want you to do one of the following:
- Get pissed off at the time it takes to get the IP for a champ and buy RP
- Spend lots of time playing the game getting IP and getting more hooked on the game, and hopefully get involved enough to buy skins and other champs with RP
If you want to play a new character but don't want to save up that much for the first week then you can buy it if you really feel the need to, but again you don't have to. It's not like they raised the price exceptionally, it was just a bit. They also lowered the price on the really good champs so you can't complain there.
Although wish it wasnt vayne as I hate her so much :U
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