Game News League of Legends players ban characters in protest against skins
Despite its more than ten years of existence, League of Legends still unleashes passions. Recently, Riot Games unveiled a new skin and players decided to ban the champion to never see him in the game. We explain why.
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A terribly expensive new skin
If there is one video game whose competitive scene continues to break records more than 10 years after its release, it is League of Legends. Year after year, Riot Games’ game confirms that, despite the reputation of its community, it can still attract a very large audience. As in many free-to-play games, League of Legends’ economic system is based on a variety of skins and other cosmetic items available for purchase. For several years now, the quality of the skins has been improving more and more and some are particularly successful today. However, The latest skin revealed by Riot Games is at the center of a very heated controversy.
On the occasion of the inauguration of the Hall of Legends (corresponds to the Hall of Fame for professional League of Legends players) Riot Games recently presented the entire cosmetic range that accompanies this new concept. The focus of the latter is in particular on a new skin for Ahria popular character from Fraudsterthe first player to be inducted into the Hall of Legends. In fact, the skin in question is available in three different versions, and the prices are absolutely staggering:
- Transcended Legend Collection: 5430 RP (equivalent to approx. 47$)
- Collection of immortal legends: 32430 RP (equivalent to approx. 282$)
- Legend Signature Collection: 59260 RP (equivalent to approx. 500$)
The price of the first collection alone would be enough to raise eyebrows, but it was obviously the price of the most expensive version that got Riot Games all worked up. Even though the skin is actually great and includes very often requested elements that have never been released in the game (elimination counter, special effect when destroying a tower, etc.), Nothing really justifies such a high price.
The community is organizing to get Riot Games to react
This is not the first time players have expressed their anger at Riot Games over their new economic practices. Until not long ago, the most expensive skins cost 3250 RP (a little less than thirty dollars) and were already the subject of debate. Recently, however, Riot Games has decided to push the boundaries a little further by offering variants that are unique to a specific system and very close to those we find in gacha games, pushing players to spend even more money. So when they announced the prices of the Ahri Transcended, Immortalized and Signature skins, it must be said that the pill had a hard time making its mark.
Let’s ban Ahri for now.
This new skin should have been a celebration for everyone who loves the game and Faker. But it costs $500, which is a scam.
If we decide to ban Ahri altogether (sorry, I like that champion too), it might not change anything, but we can at least try to do something.
It’s time to choose the right side of history.
To protest the sky-high prices for this skin, players are starting to organize to mass ban the champion, making him completely unplayable. For those who don’t play League of Legends, any player can ban a champion before the match starts to avoid falling on their counter or to avoid falling against a champion they hate (hello Shaco). Instead of using this feature strategically, players start by sending a message to Riot Games: Ahri’s skin is too expensive. This strategy could work well, since developers have access to ban stats and generally use them to determine which champions are causing problems with players. Knowing that Ahri is by no means a particularly overpowered character in the game, a sudden spike in her ban rate should alarm them.
In addition, banning Ahri in every game would also be a way to punish players who supported Riot Games’ decisions by purchasing the skin, since they would not even be able to use it outside of the smaller game modes (Quickplay, Arena, ARAM…). Since Riot Games has already proven in the past that they can be both open to their community and completely ignore it, it remains to be seen how they will react to this protest.
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