Reign of Gaming

It definitely seems cool when you have a skin that people can't buy anymore. I think the skin I would want most is the rusty looking Blitzcrank skin. Even though it is a palette swap, it is just so rare and so awesome!

A point (reason) that you didnt touch on, is the fact that these legendary skins cost a lot of RP, and discounting them even temporarily would devalue the investment others have made a years ago.

Great point! I super briefly mention that idea where I say "Additionally, they may not like taking the risk of angering the people who buy legendary skins by making them less exclusive, as the purchasers of legendary skins are probably the people who individually spend the most on the game. Angering your highest paying customers is usually not good business practice." I definitely agree that this could be a big reason, and I did not give it much due (in an attempt to streamline the post).

I don't have access to the data, but I imagine a good chunk of people never pay anything for the game, and that most of the revenue comes from a small portion of the player base. Making those people unsatisfied could be extremely detrimental to profits if this is the case. Again, just a guess I have.

Well, this made me buy MTF (always loved the skin but didn't have the urge to buy it) and Im happy with the purchase. Also, it's funny that most people who say those skins aren't worth their price are the same who complain about Riot's plot to make "big money" out of this "scam".

Haters gonna hate. Always.

I'd much rather a post talking about the pricing structure of champions than skins. That way I could complain about it loudly in the hopes that Riot finally realizes forcing people to pay for champions (because using IP when the total cost of the roster is in the hundreds of thousands of hours of playtime is totally unrealistic, not to mention runes and rune pages) is severely tarnishing the public's respect for them, and thus the public's actual desire to give them money.

Free to play games are weird like that. People already boycott games from hated developers like EA and Capcom, but when the game is free to play you really need to keep the community on your side since most of your profits (should) come from luxuries and conveniences like skins and rune pages.

Unfortunately this is more about skins so a post like that would be pretty off topic. ;x 

I think that is a very interesting topic, but probably a lot more complicated than this. Maybe someday I will get the chance to explore it :-D

The official forum community is not even a statistically significant portion of the overall playerbase. The phrase 'tempest in a teacup' comes to mind.

Riot does its own data analysis, and bases its business decisions off of this internal analysis.  No one, not you or anyone else, is going to be able to browbeat Riot into changing its business model with a mere forum post or forum-based petition.

(Speaking of boycotts, the fact that EA and Capcom not only remain in business, but are THRIVING, speaks to the general ineffectiveness of the gamer community in terms of holding a boycott of anything)

Personally I think that this decision by Riot and how they handled this was very strong. My main reasons being:

• Exclusivity- That is why it is a Legendary skin. Early on I didn't understand why some Legendary skins were still available. I thought what made them legendary was the fact that they were retired. Low supply and high demand keeps prices high, the only way Riot can do this is by limiting how long of a period of time you have to buy a skin.
• Not announcing the retirement- I personally see this as being a very strong play by Riot. Look at it this way:
• Yes, they do hide the fact that they are retiring these skins without putting them on sale from potential angry customers. But! If you think about it, this lets us (the customers) know that there needs to be some urgency in buying these skins. We now start to realize the skins will not go on sale so this turns Riots sale strategy from: "Maybe we can get a few extra skins sold with a sale at the end" to "Here's our special skin if you want it get it now, were not going to tell you when it might be gone."
• This change in strategy I think will make them more money. Personally, I believe that you have two kinds of people. People who buy skins and people who don't. So with the new strategy, the people that buy skins no longer get to wait for a sale and they will probably buy it full price. Why? Because they are the people that always buy skins and now their time is limited. Yes, its not black and white and there are people in between who occasionally buy a skin for their 3 favorite champions, but those people are not going to care about pricing as much because it's only a couple skins. They probably aren't even up on the sales and probably only differentiate skins by price.

In the end, I think the only people that are mad are the regular skin buyers who are now upset they can't have those skins because they weren't notified.  Which will only teach them to buy their skins early at full price ;)

But how will they know that they skins will disappear if they don't see the announcement? :-P I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again in the future, but it is still hard for me to see any use to hiding this announcement except for fear of backlash. Thanks for your thoughts!

There is a wrinkle in their strategy that I would throw in. They have noted that the quality of their skins is going up over time, and that is used as the justification for some of the retirements they're doing. One thing that Coase's theory does not cover in this case is the utility provided by the product during the waiting period. Certainly two years of making use of a skin provides some benefit. It's not something that one consumes. As long as the value of those two years of use are greater in the eyes of the early adopters than the difference in price of buying it on sale vs. buying at full price, they will regard their choice to purchase early as the "correct" one for future purchases.

For the people coming in two years after release, they're presented with the option of buying a new, higher quality skin or the older, lower quality legendary for the same price. There is no reason to buy the lower quality one unless you're overly enamored with that particular concept, or if you were buying them both anyway. If a two year old legendary no longer measures up to new legendaries, I say don't retire it. Instead, drop the legendary distinction on it, and have it be one of the best 975 skins around.

Edit: A further thought: I totally agree regarding their quiet announcement. There's no mechanical reason to retire skins. The only reason to retire them is to send a signal to the current owners and/or to those who haven't already bought it (those of course adding up to everybody). Since the only purpose to it is to send a signal, doing so quietly makes no sense.

Hey buckx,

I think you are correct, and I certainly expect plenty of people to buy it early; that can be fully rational to many people who value it highly. In the Arkham City example, many more people will buy the first iteration of a game than the Game of the Year Edition I waited for (if my memory of the data on the topic is correct, at least). In my explanation I chose to de-emphasize those people in an attempt to give my argument more clarity, but again, your point is well taken as there is some utility loss from not getting to use the skin during that time. The assumption of patience does mitigate some of that utility loss though.

I tried to argue for Riot's decision behind Pulsefire Ezreal pricing being profit-maximising with the Coase Conjecture but my comment got deleted. Credibility in commitment is everything. Watch this somewhat relevant video for an illustration: http://www.businessinsider.com/golden-balls-game-theory-2012-4

I have seen that video before; quite entertaining. And commitment is always an important topic when looking at future expectations.

Something else that came to mind when I first saw that "Annie in Wonderland" was no longer for sale is the exclusivity of that skin. No one else can own that skin except those who already purchased it.

Now, what happens when you are playing against a summoner who is using "Annie in Wonderland?" You may think "that skin is amazing! I want to own it." You find that it is retired, and can no longer be purchased. This could raise the value of skins in the minds of players, because knowing that skins can be retired makes them much more exclusive and "cool." Do you want to be part of that group of summoners that owns a retired skin?

I also agree at least partially with your assessment of their announcement strategy. What does Riot have to be afraid of? This is a free-to-play game, while skins are a premium feature that does not actually help you in-game. It would have been a great idea to use this as a marketing strategy, instead of attaching the negative connotation that it received. "Last change to get these legendary skins!"

Then again, I would also understand the additional backlash they would surely receive from customers, and their Customer Service may have advised them against it. Many Customer Service departments try to hide their faults, even though I have found that it's much easier to be up front with your customers to gain their trust (I've spent some time working in CS).

Anyways, definitely a thoughtful post, and I hope people recognize the difference between "RIOT as a business" vs. "RIOT as a non-profit Game Company."