In League of Legends, everything is obtainable for
free except esthetics changes to your champions. While there is no in
game disadvantage of not having invested a single penny, Riot the game
producer is able to prosper on its large player
base. Why?
The urge to get the better champions
There are 115 Champions in the game, all with a
specific gameplay. Players like to change, looking for a set of skills
that better match their style, but most of all they look for the most
powerful champions. Professional games often set
trends and players want to be able to emulate them. The issue is that
you don’t have all champions available. To “buy” the latest champion you
need 6300 influence points (IP) or 975 Rior points (RP).
To get 6300 IP points you will need to play a lot
of games. Let’s say you win 100 points per game, plus an extra 150 every
day that you play the game. It means that you need to play for half a
month, 3 games per day to obtain a new champion.
45 games with a subpar champion, 45 hours of despair waiting for the
new ultimate warrior! That proves to be too much waiting for most
players.
The alternative solution is to buy RP. You get the
new champion for USD7.5 or EUR5.81 (less if you buy a big chunk of
points via Paypal, more if you use only micro transactions with mobile
phone). It can be even cheaper if the champion
is on sale, and there are always 3 champions on sale. Who can’t afford 3
Euros to have some fun? But be aware, that it will cost you 300 USD to
have them all.
Buy to optimize your build
In League of Legend you can choose “Runes” that
will apply bonus to your champion before the game starts. A set of runes
is not very expensive and all players reaching level 30 (when the
ranked games start) can have 2 basic sets of efficient
runes. The issue is that you can only have these 2 set of runes, which
is not enough to fit all roles. To simplify, you will have one for mages
and one for warriors, but what about your support character, your tank,
your jungler? You are forced to play with
slightly suboptimal builds and while not game breaking at the lower-mid
levels, can be increasingly frustrating.
To fix that you need to buy a rune page at 6300 IP
or 590 RP. Farming for a champion can be boring, but farming for an
empty page of rune, and then farming to fill it with runes can become
excruciating. One more reason to quickly buy a
page rune, or even better a “7 rune page bundle” and get rid of this
issue.
Enjoying customization Skins and Icons
I do not know how much it represents in term of
revenues but “Skins” i.e. changing the appearance of a champion in game
and in the loading screen have proved to be a big success. Players can
show the world which champion they like, take
sexy skins they like or troll their opponents with ridiculous
animations. Players that spam hundreds of game with the same champion
appreciate the variety and can show their dedication with the most
expensive skins.
The skins and icons are only available with Riot
Points, so one more reason to open your wallet. The nicest skins (that
also include spell animations) cost more than the champion themselves
and can reach 20 USD! It literally cost a small
fortune to have them all (1905USD just for the one available in the
shop that do not include special events)!
What do almost mature gamers do?
A survey was organized on a major generalist French
Forum (HFR). The population is 25 year old on average, most are
university trained and employed, and finally most are good players
(average league Gold, with many in Diamond).
-
26% did not invest seriously in the game
-
39% payed the price of a regular game 20 to 75 euros
-
36% invested more than 75 Euros, more than 200 Euros for 17% of them
As mentioned before, these people have an income
and dedicate a major part of their free time to this game, so they might
be among the biggest spenders. But still, it is amazing that so much
money was invested in what is basically a free
game. A common explanation among the posters that explained their
choices was that it was a very small amount in regards to their budget.
Many also pointed out that having played LoL for countless hours they
had a very good Money over Time ratio. Finally a
few also explained that it was a good way to burn money that was locked
in expiring mobile phone credit.
Another factor was the seniority in the game.
Players that were here since the beta had time to buy almost everything
with influence points, while people that got sucked in much later
invested much more to build their champion pool. However
I still enjoyed it a great bit!
How I do it: I do not buy, I do not farm, I just play
I did not spend a single penny on this game and
wrote this article because I was intrigued by the rational of others.
The game is balanced enough so you can have great fun using the low
priced champions and just expend your champion pool
by playing regularly. The only issue for me is never having the new
“broken” / “imbalanced” champions available, but honestly I can live
without it. The only found myself at a disadvantage when trying to play
in an amateur tournament, where my lack of response
to certain champions was showing. I could not counter some opponents
and was forced to start the game in a considerably weaker position.
As for skin and varieties, there are so many other
games to test that I do not feel the need to customize this one. I
would definitively buy League of Legends for 50 Euros as this would have
a very high usage value. However I have a hard
time buying goodies that are in no way as rich as mods that have been
created for free by fans for other games! So I just play and enjoy the
game.
Some facts about League of Legends and Money:
-
70 Millions Registered players
-
1 billion hours played each month
-
USD 200 millions of revenues (estimate Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter)
-
USD 40 millions of income before taxes
(Broad estimate based on average gaming transaction value and sale of
Riot to Tecent). That would indicate a very high margin.
- Sponsored professional gaming: Salary for
top players (a hundred person for Europe and North America) and large
cash prizes for competitions (estimate USD 8 million for Season 3,
2013)
Are you a big spender on Free-To-Play? Please help
me understand! That said, the target for next week end is to try World
of Tanks, another promising Free-To-Play.
EuroExark
