Riot has acknowledged League of Legends players' frustration with the recently revealed "Faker" skins for the champion Ahri, saying that the backlash to the prices was "justified."
The Immortalized Legend Ahri skin is now available for people to buy if they have an extra $250 to $450 to shell out. Game director Pu "PuPuLaser" Liu talked about the controversy, saying that after more than a decade, League of Legends players are used to "living under a certain price point."
Riot Acknowledges Frustration Over Ahri Skin
(Photo : Riot / Screenshot taken from official website)
Despite acknowledging players' frustrations, Liu also defended the expensive Ahri skin bundle, saying that the products were given their prices due to their rarity. He also talked about how they fit into the game's monetization strategy as a whole.
The game director explained that these kinds of products are designed for a very small percentage of League of Legends players to be able to buy and flex.
Liu also revealed that last year, the game released more than 130 or 140 skins, less than a handful of which were priced at that point, according to GameSpot.
Liu noted that it is important to share with League of Legends players about the situation that the game is currently in. He said that it is competitively oriented and that cosmetics are only sold as a means of visual pleasure and will not make the game pay-to-win or pay-for-power.
He explained that the vast majority of players play the game, watch esports, and enjoy all content, cinematics, and music for free. Liu added that the majority of the game's revenue comes from a small, single-digit percentage of players.
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The game director then shared some of the thoughts that went into pricing the premium-level skin bundle "on the morality side." He compared it to Warhammer fans who spend roughly $200 every month on their hobby.
He then said that it was crucial for them to capture players' willingness and their ability to spend while keeping in mind what would look bad for them. The new skin is supposedly targeting players who already have a history of spending real money on skins by giving them a new option, said PCGamesN.
Inspiration for the New Bundle
The legendary Ahri skin was to commemorate player Faker being inducted into Riot's League of Legends esports Hall of Fame known as the Hall of Legends. The discontent regarding the bundle's price quickly sparked widespread criticism.
However, what is also worth noting is that the situation has caused Ahri to have a booming ban rate in-game after the new skin was released. The new bundle arrived with the game's patch 14.12 which hit servers on Wednesday.
Since then, Ahri's ban rate went from 8% of ranked games to more than 15% of ranked games. This increase is something that is being seen globally but it is most pronounced in North America, which saw an increase from 10% to 23%.
This unusual change in ban rate is typically seen in champions who get substantial in-game buffs or those who have abnormally high win rates. However, neither of these is true for Ahri and the only thing that changed was that the champion got a new skin, according to Polygon.
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