and why is RP in Russia cheaper then in EU?
This is not a PR-approved answer (actually none of them are but the other ones probably could be), but the reality is that Russia is so dominated by DOTA and World of Tanks that the small Riot team there operates more independently as it tries to break through and achieve success in that market.
...probably a safe bet that anyone who can see the future of currency values doesn't need to launch a MOBA to make their fortune.
this^
I get where you're coming from but with the rising electricity costs obviously the servers are getting more expensive
Energy is not a big expense for us. Riot's largest expense is our people and the average compensation per person has gone up more than 50% since we began selling RP in North America thirteen years ago, and almost 10% in the past year.
There’s no excuse for this change. Riot makes billions of dollars per year. No amount of employee costs could ever offset the massive profits
You're right that our revenue is in the low billions per year, but our costs are as well, and they have recently been growing faster than revenue because of how much we invest in our games and everything else we deliver to players. That trend isn't sustainable, and premium pricing for optional cosmetics is, believe it or not, the most player focused way that Riot can stay financially healthy long term.
I don't know if you're even a part of the team who handles monetization and sales strategy at Riot, but I still find it interesting that there are a ton of pre-done ways that the game could be monetized that seemingly aren't done, I know the Halloween map has no updated assets and was Old SR, but I feel like Riot has missed the mark on so many opportunities regarding optimizing the sales strategy instead of just this linear content cannon of patch to patch 14+ skins.
There needs to be some level of optimization that comes into giving people more variety to encourage spending that is not only consistent (both for cash flow to riot and for freshness on the side of the players) Because seeing the way it's going I also wouldn't be surprised to see skin sales % drop drastically over time. Stuff like announcer VO's, Map Skins, even something like custom HUD's would be an amazing addition to the game.
I am one of the people that likes to think I keep the game free because i have spent a ton of money and own all the skins over a period of 10+ years playing, and the biggest driving factor for me is knowing that I can help support the company that has given me such a great game, but I feel like as of recently riot has been doing a bit of corner cutting at the niche of big spending players who have put a lot of money towards the game in favor of getting more people at the base line interested. So even seeing something like different cosmetics outside of skins would do wonders for people like me that still want to support the game without having to deal with a consistently buggy/problematic loot system.
Just food for thought and I appreciate everyone working over at Riot even just for leaving occasional comments here.
Hi - I really appreciate thoughtful comments like this one and will make sure that our League team sees it. Contrary to the typical Reddit perception, Riot is made up primarily of players who love our games and want to make them better for people like us/you. There's been some research and prototyping over the years into VO, map skins, etc., and I don't know the latest details, but the cost/benefit has proven challenging in the past for a variety of reasons. That said, enthusiasm from our players/fans is what helps a lot of things get done so I'm happy to share.