[throw10920]

AI-generated, and also highly untrustworthy given its source - Riot Games is an extraordinarily player-, community-, and pro-player-hostile company. On top of all of the new and exciting ways that they manage to not only screw up software engineering but also screw over their users, their business model is selling skins at the expense of their games (in the sames sense that Google's business model is selling ads at the expense of search quality).

It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that Riot is the Monsanto of game developers - because EA/Activision/Blizzard/Epic all contend for that spot too.

[cowthulhu]

This is the first time I’ve heard someone criticize the “selling cosmetics” business model. I assume you feel the same about R6, TF2 and CSGO, naturally.

Since selling skins is unacceptable, how would you have them make money given the game is F2P?

[throw10920]

> I assume you feel the same about R6, TF2 and CSGO, naturally.

It seems like you think you've pulled a "gotcha" on me?

I don't play those games. I don't have any feelings about them. And they're not relevant to this discussion.

Please take a look at the HN Guidelines, and especially:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[eska]

Selling skins is what they used to do originally, which was their edge over their competition that didn’t want to do F2P. Nowadays they engage in gacha, with skins effectively costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Backed by statistics, champs that receive new skins are also always guaranteed to be strong or even overpowered for a while (rebalanced before any tournament patch).

[AstralSerenity]

Honestly, I strongly disagree. I've played a wide breadth of games, and I can't think of a game studio the size of Riot that is as community-engaged and pro-consumer.

Examples range from the quality of their patch notes, dev articles and videos, to their constant presence on reddit, and willingness to walk back decisions based on public outcry (Hextech Chests, League Classic monetization, etc).

Heck, after Riot gave up on Hytale, they were willing to sell the IP and assets back to the original creator while providing extremely generous severance packages for the entire team. I genuinely don't think any of the other companies you listed would have done the same.

[throw10920]

> I can't think of a game studio the size of Riot that is as community-engaged and pro-consumer

Valve.

This is also just a crazy statement to make.

> Examples range from the quality of their patch notes, dev articles and videos, to their constant presence on reddit

None of this is pro-user.

What's highly anti-user is the not only permittance but endorsement of smurf accounts, kernel-level anticheat, penalizing users for your own bugs (said anticheat, crashes, LLM chat filters catching on nothing, "parental controls" that trigger on every user multiple times), propagating an extremely toxic community (players telling others to kill themselves or using racial slurs is a regular occurrence) by refusing to do chat moderation or any sort of sane penalty system, fining pro players in pro games for picking a champ+rune combo with a bug that they refused to fix for months (and that the player didn't exploit), whatever this[1] is, the CEO of the company intentionally doxxing the lead developer of a competing game, and many, many other malicious things.

[1] https://www.resetera.com/threads/riot-games-sends-cringey-ed...

[AstralSerenity]

Note my comment on size. I think folks forget how lean Valve is with only ~330 employees. I love Valve, but it's not quite apples to apples. Their flat, lean structure doesn't function like a typical corporation, and their industry-leading margins and functional monopoly (one that I enjoy) places far less pressure on their need to monetize.

That said, if we're trying to hinge our discussion on moderation, anyone who plays CS knows players to this day can utter the most reprehensible, racist garbage and expect no punishment. There is a reason Valorant, in comparison, has an incredibly diverse gender pool. I've heard from plenty of women about how "enjoyable" it is to use voice chat in CS.

This also doesn't even touch on Valve's role in gambling addiction...

I still stand by my original statement as it was intended.