Riot Games Tencent Holdings LTD Micro transactions force the user to multi-pay Culver City, California

4th of Nov, 2011 by User788163

Riot Games is a video games developer based in the United States of America which runs the popular free-to-play game League of Legends. League of Legends is funded almost entirely through micro transactions by players. There are two virtual currencies in use in League of Legends; Influence Points, and Riot Points. Influence points are gained through normal playing of the game while Riot Points must be purchased. Both currencies can be used in the in-game store to buy various virtual items for use by the player Champion Skins to change the look of the player's character New Champions allow the player to play a different character with different abilities and skills. Runes which increase a player's character attributes so they might do more damage for example Boosts which increase a player's experience or Influence point gain Bundles which include a number of different items put into one pack for a bulk discount Scrolls which allow the player to change his in game name Rune Pages which give the player a more convenient time of building the various attributes of their character by allow him to have multiple pages for different play styles rather than having to change it whenever he wants to play as a different 'Champion' With the exception of the Runes which can only be bought by Influence points, everything can be bought with real currency through the Riot Point virtual currency. The problem is actually paying for the items. Riot Point virtual currency comes in a choice of five packages depending on your choice of payment and or country and each one gives a bulk buy bonus of the previous package. Being positioned in the UK at this time, I will simply list the Bank Card options for the United Kingdom; £4.50 - 839 Riot Points - No Bonus £9.01 - 1779 Riot Points - Bonus of 102 from 1677 £18.03 - 3612 Riot Points - Bonus of 258 from 3354 £31.56 - 6451 Riot Points - Bonus of 581 from 5870 £45.09 - 9305 Riot Points - Bonus of 905 from 8400
Now I am not arguing with the prices as Riot Games have the right to set whatever they want as the real life charge, my issue is with the Riot Point quantity, and you will see why now. Each item from the Riot Point Store costs a set number of Riot Points, as Skins are the most common purchase, I will concentrate on their pricings which come in five Riot Point quantities 1820 975 520 487 390
The store also runs a weekly sale of a selection of skins which are usually 50% off so at this time there is also a sixth price of 260 riot points. Now as anyone will quickly notice, none of these prices allow a person to purchase the required Riot Points to be able to afford just the Skin that they want without any points left over which I believe to be quite a disgraceful tactic. You do not go into a shop and get forced into paying £100 for two different priced shirts when you only wanted to spend £60 for one. What makes it worse is the more desirable skins in the 975 bracket and 1820 legendary bracket actually force you to pay just almost double the real life cost to get the extra 136 or 41 Riot Points needed to afford the item. Going through the whole of the Riot Point store it is difficult to clear out your Riot Point balance to zero meaning you actually 'spent' what you paid for with cold hard cash, the vast majority of the time you would have to make multiple purchases to make it so you got your money's worth. Riot Games should either do away with Riot Points altogether and allow the player to purchase the item directly as Valve Software's In-Game store does, or completely re-evaluate the Riot Point pricing scheme so as to allow for easier purchases. As a reference, here is the current list of Riot Point prices for all items not on sale (which are usually 50%): *3900 - *3410 - *2600 *1949 - 1846 - 1820 - *1462 - 1300 975 - 670 - 590 - 585 - 520 487 - 460 - 390 - 350 290 - 260 - 150 Numbers marked with a * are Bundles and/or Bulk Packs consisting of multiple items only (Some of the Boost items are technical Bundles as they come in different durations)

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