But… I Need It 

at this point you stand out with default skins in high level play.

1:13 Linus leaned back and whispered that he has chicken nuggets in his pockets.

The thing is ... the skin doesn't need sell well, only "whales" (people who spend more than the entire population of the game by themselves) need to buy it. Yeah .. 1% of the population is more profitable then the 99% people actually playing the game either completely f2p or occasionally spend a dollar/euro in the game.

The biggest issue is that it's the same skin you get from the 30$ skins but with a 470$ markup because of the name attached to it, they didn't even try. Riot also started selling recolors of older skins through a gacha system.

The player the skin is based around (Faker) doesn’t even use skins lmao he uses default skins and crushes everyone.

I love Linus describing his gaming degen days.

When journalism touches real life. It’s important to talk about gambling addiction

This is a great example of the economic principles of lower middle and upper classes. The lower class has a desire for perceived wealth, so the item itself is irrelevant, and the price means everything. (A deal on a pair of shoes is actually a bad thing because the item is not worth as much as it should be and if you buy things at discount you will “look poor”.) The middle class is concerned about increasing actual value instead of perceived value. This is where you see, bargain hunters, and people searching for discount over quality. (Buying shoes at discount is the only way that shoes should be purchased.) And the true upper class really does not care about namebrand unless it provides additional sources of revenue for them. (Being paid to wear a brand to the Met Gala) The focus is primarily on finding someone else to custom make your clothes. Or a personal shopper that does everything without you having to consider brands. Or they don’t actually care at all and just get whatever they find the most comfortable and never really look at the price. For example, t-shirt, and jeans, tech Bros, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Hype culture is literally designed to make poor people poorer.

OMG the Teams phone call ring tone at the very beginning just about gave me PTSD

My best defense against impulse purchases (not like $500, but more like $20) is to not save my credit card information to places where i might do so.

My nephews find it insanely cool when I play Fortnite with them, this is the only time I play this game mind you. They are 12 and 9 I am 39. I grew up playing Doom, Quake, Half-Life and UT (ect. ect.). They are decked out in the most amazing skins and gear and have the coolest dances. I make it my mission to be default steve with the standard skin on, no flashiness, no dance moves and still carry them most of the time. One of the fun parts is when they have a dance off with friends, I just spin my character in place while looking up and down (Kinda like how Red vs. Blue 'Talked' to eachother). So yeah, there is certainly some fomo in that stuff for them to wanting to flaunt that to their friends.

Tha FUCKING TEAMS call sound gave me a god damn heart attack.... its 4 fuck am over here....gawd

Gambling companies in the UK started talking about spending limits in the last few years presumably due to some regulation. I'd imagine in the good timeline the EU have already done something similar for microtransactions.

They wouldn't do a $100/month unlock service. Because part of the addiction psychology is that they get you to "buy in" and now you have a ton of sunk cost on your account (which can't be sold or shared under TOS) and the only way to show off your collection is to queue up and play. It's not like graded TCG or sealed videogames where I can at least hang them on my wall. You literally can't see the skins unless you're in the game. And they'd rather you have $2000+ sunk in the game, rather than know that you can always buy a subscription renewal whenever you want.

A lot of the issue is a lack of education of financial restraint and better spend (and not just games). Micro transactions came to me in elden scroll era with horse armor and the only time I ever started spending extra money on in-game stuff was years later with overwatch. I had time to really check myself on if I want some extra content but many young and possible low income players are going to run straight into these transactions without really planning.

0:01 uhm, IS THAT THE SKYPE RINGTONE I HEAR!?

ok to clarify some stuff in CS the rent skin option isnt because you can try before buying it there are comunity servers for that where you can take the skin link, paste it in the chat and it gives it to you only for that server the rent option was (imo) added due to "gambling" being banned in china now and now they can say "oh you can just rent the skin its not gambling if its renting" and it works only with the newest case (slot machine simulator) and the rent option is 2.35€ and you get all the cosmetics in that case the ahri skin on the other hand is pretty damn predatory... if we compare it to apex legends heirloom skins for characters (bcs they also evolve just like the faker ahri skin), in apex the heirloom skin event costs about 140€ to get it + you get another 20 or so cosmetics, the final skin evolves by playing with it, but the ahri skin is just the skin alone base price 50€ for the first evolve another one is 235€ and the last one is the same as the 235€ one but when you destroy an objective in game it makes Fakers signature apear beneath it which apparently makes it cost 500€ also sorry for bad english its not my first language

There should be a demo mode in every game with skins similar to dota where you can try on sets in different lighting, scenarios, etc.

At least most players are just permabanning the champion 😂

I mean I buy rust skins but I’ve also made money. I also do t buy a lot but most rust skins I get are the “newer” skins that are cheap. But rust also has skins that cost upwards $1800. No one is paying that but they are limited skins and people buy several “I’ve done it” and when the price skyrockets then you sell the extra

I had never aligned this with other "status" symbols like brand premiums, but that makes a lot of sense. I have never been a brand person either, but have seen and understood it.

"YES"

RCA Lyra, that's a name I hadn't thought about for years. Had a few different of those thru the years. Also had I believe it was also RCA but it was meant to be a video player mainly. Had 3.5mm headphone style jack for component breakout to play but also record. Had a HDD inside and Compact flash slot on top for extra storage. Back when 500Mb compact flash card cost more than the player it self. Had a 8Gb internal drive if I remember correctly. That thing replaced my VCR for "time-shifting" TV

I’ve probably spent less than $500 total on in game transactions for games in the last 10 years. That’s between multiple games on console, PC, and mobile. The game that really made me decide not to buy anything anymore was Diablo Immortal. I bought the $5 starter bundle because I do that in most games I believe I’ll play for a while, however, I immediately was shown more bundles that I kept declining after every major instance. As a natural born quitter, I had no issue deciding I don’t need to spend money on free games anymore.

In the best case, the social benefit of "flexing" is fake friends you don't need.

Hey Linus, maybe you can understand it this way: A car wrap is just like a skin: some change in appearance that only applies in a certain time of the day and is visible to some people. Car wraps can cost _much_ more than $500 dollars. Granted, a $500 skin is still absurdly much for a few bytes (from a production angle), but from a consumer side it isn't that ridiculous if you spend hours per day in the game. EDIT: Typo.

I spent 1000-1500$ on skins and I am ashamed. I had no control

hope Elijah gets paid for his time

The most egregious example is Lost Ark's Esther weapons. I think everyone gets one but you need to level up multiple times to even equal a regular "F2P" weapon.. and it costs something like $50-80k to max out. Oh and you will be "forced" to keep upgrading it as the game comes out with new tiers... sunk cost fallacy and all. Even in Korea, the land of the mega whales, only a dozen people have done this.

The rush of anxiety I got when I heard the Teams ringer was really bad 💀

This is true for all forms of status symbols, gucci (or fake gucci) bags, watches, cars, phones, whatever....they are used by people to increase their status...they aren't (or feel they aren't) of that status without the status symbol. Ergo the "the real baller move is to not need the status symbol" is both true and also unhelpful to people who use the status symbol.

4:25 like for me the 50 usd bundle is one of the highest value we have had has the pass is 20 and gives a skin and other goodies worth 35++ (skin is 13 in my currency and the chroma and other stuff and orbs giving more) and a skin (value can be from how u view it but minimum is 13 again in my currency converted to usd to has high has 35 if we say its "unlimited tier") with ward (one of the best imo) and other goodies making the 50 usd bundles the best we have seen from them (the others is fking horrid in price even if we say the special chroma's added are full skins not just color change they are skin only then making the bundles 100 usd of skins plus pass for 20usd and the ward and emotes (even the 200usd is a bad price for it and the 500 is dumb) but the 50usd is a "good deal" (even compared to other games and there skin bundles)

as a player if the company thinks so little of me that they'd put a $500 skin in the game. and i still play the game then i clearly dont respect my self :P

People buy $200 on shoes, just so people can see them. So, this is not far off. Me : Walmart shoes 😂

5:20 that third party sellers feels like BS "oh please don't go in debt, anyways I'm still accepting your money". If he had an issue with it, he'd stop the service or refund and block the users, like actually do something instead of pretending to be shocked on twitter.

I don't have an issue with any of this actually. To be clear, I'm not someone that would ever likely buy a $500 skin bundle in a game, and rarely spend real money on cosmetics at all (actually don't think I have in the last year or more). Yes, some people are addicted to this stuff. But that is also the case for many, many things, many of which are more harmful. How is this ANY different to any other sort of collectable? Yes, spending a large amount of money on like a painting or something gives you a physical object you can potentially offload, but... Realistically, most people buying these as a collectable have zero intention of offloading them anyway, so it's still just a sunk cost. I guess technically, yes, eventually you lose access to that skin when the game inevitably gets shelved. But you still presumably got your money's worth out of it in that time. And again, plenty of things with an actual use lose value over time. There are also some things I just straight think make less sense even though they're more broadly "accepted". Take make-up. It's also very expensive, purely cosmetic most of the time, and much, much more temporary than a skin in a game you could potentially use a lot. Yet marketing make-up aggressively doesn't have the same stigma attached. Why? I think the only reason it's more accepted is people have been doing it longer. Actually, realistically... Make-up and game skins are basically just the same exact thing. As was said in the video, for some people, a large portion of their social circle is online. Why is buying make-up and jewellery fine but skins cross the line?

I started playing League early on, and to support the game I got the, at the time, expensive Ezreal skin because I played him a lot and to support the game. With the left over Riot Points I got a bunch of other skins. I don't regret it, cool skin I got and I helped the, at the time, relatively small company make a cool game. Would I have taken out a loan to do so? Absolutely not. Have I been called an idiot for playing with the expensive skin? Absolutely.

i think an important addition is in game cosmetics became very prominent during gen z’s formative, impressionable years

Me and my wife play overwatch pretty much every day, but she does not like spending one dime me. I get the battle pass every time.

I love Elijah

5:27 wait until he finds out a couple days ago a skin sold for $1.5M

Is that a galaxy note 9 linus is using?? please say yes. I loved that phone. I think I want to go back to it...

Usually the people that care about status symbols tend to be the ones who have nothing else to offer.

Personally I get easily addicted and have heavy FOMO, so I never spent money on opening cases. That's what I recommend everybody who knows they are easily addicted. Don't start, not even one case. I know too many people who couldn't stop. Sure, they drew some bangers every now and then but all in all it was a huge net loss. At least in CS you can make good profit from keeping your case drops or selling new drops, buying cheaper ones and waiting for them to appreciate

My steam spending total is way higher than all my friends because of Fighting Game DLC character. Not because I want to play as them but because I need to have them unlocked in training mode so i can figure out how to beat them.

i am lucky even though me and my friends play Dota a lot like every day, we still don't spend too much on cosmetics. like maybe $60 dollar a year for skins.

I think the good thing about my childhood is that I was so damn uncool, nobody ever peer pressured me to buying dlcs or gachas And even if people did - I knew I was uncool so they were clearly faking it

ik people who have easily spent £2000 + on dota skins - i can never understand it when i will wait 2 + years waiting for a full game i want to play go from 50 to 30 ££££. they ain't even rich or anything either? also same people who automatically just buy the battlepass as soon as they get onto a new game - its gotta be some personality trait or sm

I would love to see more of the staff roster comin in on WAN, assuming they'd be interested in it. Maybe you don't do guests, but you guys employ some great folks who have opinions I'd love to hear. Edit: Then again I do get a lot of the reactions to these news pieces from Riley/Jakob/Jessica/James XD

the amount of people who are fine with this and gambling mechanics that can literally get you addicted to spending more and more money is baffeling to me

I'm thankful that I'm not an Ahri player/main because I also have a slight case of FOMO. But the underlying issue is that while most of the community agrees that it's absolutely ludicrous that Riot is even selling a $500 skin in the first place, the few people that will buy it is enough of a signal to their marketing that they should keep doing it. It started with the $200 gatcha chromas and has just gone downhill from there.

I mean personally for me when I played the same character long enough and if the skins looks good, I’d be happy to spend a little for it… its sorta like buying new clothes and once you have some its fun to change around every now and then. Personally 100$ is the max limit that i’m willing to spent for that kind of stuff. Still I don’t get the concept of flexing skin just to get that “status” when in the end those who have legendary skins yet no skills will end up being worthless anyway..?

As someone who has never paid more than 10 bucks for a skin in CS, I like the idea of testing skins before I buy them. I'm very cheap on skins in that game.

I love how a big enough chunk of the community is banning Ahri not necessarily because of their strategy. But because they want to protest the skin

You know what I can fucking get for 50 dollars? Elden Ring DLC!! You know what I can get for 500 dollars? 10 of those for all my friends.. if I had any

The problem is if you don’t have skins your account is not valuable so if you have skins you can’t seem to be possibly hacking people who are good at the game and don’t have skins are termed as hackers because their level is too low all they levelled up by hacking but they don’t have skins a hacker will not put money in the game if they know the account is going to get banned

As someone that had a mini disk player, I was not one of the cool kids. The mini disk player was pretty sweet though.

Well as an dota 2 veteran player, from the moment dota 2 came out i switched from dota 1 to it. Then i played for 7 years long before 1 of my party friend suddenly gone by a traffic accident in real life. And in the same day(a day i know what were happen to him) in year - 2020, the year i decide to quit dota 2 and i was shock went i checked my items value. Its 5000 USD, i know that number is kind of small for some whale or trader out there but for me - an usual player at 4000 mmr it's a huge number for what it is. So after a day of thinking, i decide to sell all of it and take the money and gave it to his parent to spend in the funeral. So now as a 33 years old adult men, i can understand why young people will spend that kind of money to make them happy when they see a tiny model of their character on the screen. So yeah, ITS A HOBBY and as long as PEOPLE CAN BUY IT ON THEIR OWN MONEY. Its fine. BUT PLEASE DON'T LOAN!

I was gonna laugh at gambling addiction, but then I remembered i play with Options.

I used to struggle with microtransactions, but my experience seems to be completely different from Elija's. I've never felt any prestige from them. See, I grew up as a completionist. Mario 64? Donkey Kong Country 3? Spyro games? Crash games? I hit 100% (sometimes labeled as up to 200%+ in games). I even unlocked everything in F-Zero GX (This was brutal). So when I'd buy a game for $60 and they offered an expansion for $40? That was a no brainer. Then when it was a dozen cosmetics for ten or so bucks each, still didn't see it as a problem, still got all the content in the game I paid for. It became a problem when Loot Boxes took off. Now a skin that cost $5 or less required anywhere between $25 and $400 worth of lootboxes to get. Guild Wars 2's black lion chests, Path of Exile's lootboxes, and ultimately Fire Emblem Heroes were what got me to realize I had a problem. I don't deal with sunk cost fallacy. Even with hundreds of dollars sunk into some of those games, when I realized it was a problem, I deleted and blacklisted the games *and* their developers (in nintendo's case, I blacklisted their mobile games completely). Anyhow, After the Battlefront 2 lootbox fiasco. Companies mostly phased out lootboxes, bringing single purchase cosmetics back, but now they're in the range of $10-$20 without any added value. I haven't spent any money on those types of games since. And I hope I never will again. It's easy to wish everyone would just stop spending on them, but I think that's a pipe dream. Casinos never went away and those needed to be regulated into the ground to reduce the damage they did to the community. This stuff should be slammed constantly for it's poor value proposition, whether it affects gameplay or is just cosmetic is irrelevant.

Why Linus doesn't change the back cover of his Note 9?😂

A steam deck or some red pixels on the monitor (the skin) let me think what is better

My friend has spent thousands on skins. Fortnite, COD, Apex, CS They’re making millions.

I feel like everyone that's shocked about how expensive this is, haven't seen Path of Exile's supporter packs

Someone just paid over a million dollars for a CSGO weapon skin. Yeah. The collection of pixels in question is called: "StatTrak Factory New AK-47 in Blue Gem pattern 661".

I wonder if skins like this actually pray on people who don't actually have that kind of money. Like its easy to think its for whales and if you're not that rich I feel like people might feel if I get this skin people will think I'm rich and cool and in reality they really should not be the ones paying that kind of money for a skin.

learn self control and if you can't tough luck

Renting skins is genius because it brings in more money, while at the same time makes skins less of a brag object because people won't know if you _really_ have a fancy skin or are just renting it.

Imagine buying an expensive pair of shoes you'll wear once, then they are immediately out of fashion, and you wouldn't be caught dead wearing them anymore! That is the world of High Fashion. And many of those people just throw the items in the trash after a few years (if not immediately after they are "old"). The worst victims in all of this, are the people who have to save up to afford this stuff, so they can Flex for a few hours or days or months!

his whole argument could apply to just general advertisement as well. If i see a billboard telling me to get the latest iphone and feel like without it I would be missing out, is it Apple's responsibility to make sure it wont send me down a rabbit whole? Or maybe theres some responsibility on the individual to realize after buying 2,5,10 lootboxes and not getting what he wants, it probably isnt going to happen and he should probably take a second and step back to see what is actually happening with some introspective thinking. Much like common sense, i cant help but feel like self responsibility is slowly leaving the general population

i quit league i spend 250€ on the game played it for 14 years and the resson i quit was the vanguard announcment. this is just one more resson

"I've got the brains, you've got the looks. Let's make lots of money."

Well, in Brazil people get in real debt for a dumb-fucking-ass overpriced iPhone just because of status, even hating ios

I feel like i would enjoy league, but i also understand what that would mean, so i have never and will never play it

At a certain point, you have to stop, step back, and just let the fools be fools. You can't protect people forever. As the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." If people who buy those skins hear the wisdom of questioning the value and the predatory practices those companies are engaging in, and disregard it anyway... then let them learn the hard way! At the end of the day, the only people each of us is responsible for, is ourselves. And that is how it should be.

i think linus as a porsche driver should understand that sometimes its just nice to have something for having it. he could drive a ford or even a Mercedes. that this practice from riot games is greedy as hell and moraly questionable, there is no doubt but i feel like linus acts stupid for acting like he doesnt understand people that buy expensive skins just because they want to have them. its like collecting. people collect all kinds of expensive shit just because they like it.

I think the most I've paid for a skin is like $80, and that included some in game "functional" stuff so by my calculation(since I do go for cost effective "functional" stuff) it was closer to $40. Generally speaking, $500 is more than what I'd spend on digital content in a year(note). This is partly because I just don't do digital media, I don't pay for any streaming service etc. Instead, I buy physical, I have bookcases of blu ray and books. About half of my digital spending are in game purchases, then there is about a hundred bucks or so in new(to me) games (either one or two direct purchase and/or some HB/fanatical stuff). Rest goes to various content creator for various reasons. Art, music, game mods, that sort of stuff. Fundamentally this is because I prefer having physical stuff that people can't take away than digital stuff that the company can poof at any moment. This extend to luxury products like skins. Now, I'm no a bag/clothing person, but I do collect figures and, as noted, blu rays etc. One of my most basic ceiling on how much I'm willing to spend on digital stuff is whether I can get something physical for the money. There is, for example, a pretty good KDA Ahri figure out there and I would refuse to buy anything digital for Ahri that cost more than half the price of that figure(I mean I'm not a big LoL or Ahri fan so I won't be buying those anyway, but that would be what I'd go by). Note: There are two exceptions. During my first year of getting a real job, I did buy a lot of backlog, stuff that I've sailed the sea for years and enjoyed. This included dozens of games, some being entire franchises, on steam, some web novel that are only in digital form and a number of others things. I probably spent around 2 grand that year. Then there was one year where I went over "budget" because I decided to donate to an abridged project. I consider it a donation as I don't really get anything out of the money past the first 5 or 10 bucks(which comes with download link to a drive with all their stuff) and do actually wanted to support the project. The amount was significant enough to break the "budget". I consider this a digital content spending because... the project produced is digital, on YT. P.S. While I do not care for LoL in general, I am quite taken by the Riven design from the Awaken MV. So I will buy a good figure of that if available. There are some homebrewed ones out there but they are just not good enough. But if Riot want my money, that's about the only way. that.

The difference between CSGO and League skins is that you can actually sell CS Skins. For me, that is why I never buy Riot skins.

The funny thing about the skin is that the person it's celebrated for is famous for not using skins.

What people addicted to ingame purchases value in that puchases is how unique they are, how much this item makes them stand out and feel special('flex'). Being unique in an online game, according to marketing teams, is a success in this virtual social life. And the more expensive the item is, the more unique it is. And that is why weak to that kind of social engineering(i think this is partly that) people buy it - they don't want to stay in sort of a 'lower caste' or want to feel that they are special. Or they are just bozos with no money managment skills and don't know or care that they are being milked hard

To me this sort of thing is the pinnacle of immorality. The fact that most people’s response is “obviously don’t buy it”, because, obviously, just don’t buy it, means that there is no way the executives behind doing this don’t know the same thing and are doing it anyway. The fact that they then sell so many of these things means that they also know that they’re exploiting a vulnerable population on purpose, purely for the purpose of making more money. I cannot and will never respect that - it’s inhumane and frankly, evil, plain and simple. I think anyone who engages in that sort of exploitation deserves, at the very least, to be fully and completely ostracized by everyone in society, until the point that those people seek professional help for their affliction and work to become decent members of society. I doubt anything could change my mind about that, but I’ll remain open-minded to the possibility just in case I’m wrong. It’s just that I’m certain I’m not wrong about it.

I've played league from 2011 to 2024 when they implemented mandatory riot vanguard. But if I knew you and saw you buy a 500 dollar skin for league or any other game I would honestly consider stop being friends with you. And the point of "If the skin makes you stronger in game its worth it" I think that honestly makes it MUCH worse.

they should have allow you to be able to pay like 25$ a month for 20 months if you really want it

For me the skin thing is ok but the cost is egregious. I can't pull the trigger on anything like this that is even close to 5 dollars. I'm coming from a place of playing games, need for speed, when the item was available for free on their website. Now with cars costing over a dollar feels too much for me. The Forza bundles don't offer enough as an example. And now with the collector editions or season passes now being so limited where it used to mean you get every dlc to come out. I just can't hand money over for something nonphysical anymore. Even preorder bundles where the in-game item you paid extra for is now offered in a game store for less. This special skin is now not special at all. Or Day-1 packs you can just buy any time after Day-1 and have all the same stuff.

Man who owns a Porsche confused about spending six figures on a status symbol.

They introduce this Hall of Legends, start with the goat, who doesn't use skin ever. Now, put it into normal price so everybody has it? Or when it's legendary you put legendary price sticker. On one hand, they say all this stuff about them trying to create good enviroment, monetize the game not greedily, yet they with every patch they push expensive skins, for many years we haven't seen cheap skin. They add 200$ recolored skins. And now 500$ skin for a few animations, ik it's called "Immortalized Legend" skin but they made it immortal by price not for those few animations. When he's the best player of league, have it as normal legendary skin for 20 bucks, and all of those extra effects have locked behind hard missions in game so only good players can earn it like he did, not pull out your wallet and pay. Idk but I feel that since they are under Tencent all they care are juicing microtransactions not the game itself.

Most people commenting have no idea about addiction, they fall into the trap of using their own logic to compare and belittle. Addiction is a nasty thing to have, wether it be skins, drugs, alcohol.

ofc it was Elias

Last I looked I spent about $1600 on league skins. Be it was over the course of about 8 years, 2013-2021. Kind of glad that I stopped playing the game.

Wait whats wrong with tobacco?

Supporting game development for "Free" to play games is one thing, but that isn't a blank cheque to push that as far as is tolerable constantly. Exploitation of the audience just because it's "free" to play to the extreme degrees we're seeing is straight up abusive of the audience. And really, it doesn't matter whether the game is "free" to play or not, predatory pricing of anything in any regards is bad for society at large. Hell was raised when cancer treatment pills were going to be $2000/ea in the USA (forget the exact numbers) and that is of similar pricing nature to this very topic. $500 for a skin pack, especially when HALF of the purchases are VIA A LOAN is conclusively abusive treatment of the audience and predatory in nature. Games do NOT take that much money to develop. Where is that money ACTUALLY going? Into the game development? Or just lining the executives, and shareholders pockets even more? Yes, there's going to be a percentage of it going into game development, but the lion's share of it is going to line the pockets of executives and stock holders. Prove me wrong. I am deeply disgusted that it has gotten to this degree. Not because it's really impossible to imagine, but because the people making the decisions for the pricing never stopped to think... just because we can, does that mean we SHOULD? Even if they thought that question to themselves, it's damn obvious their answer would have been to the effect of "nobody is going to stop us so let's just do it anyways because we're a business and it's acceptable that profit is the only thing that drives us, because that's how this works.".

Product cycles and marketing campaigns are fine tuned to exploit our lizard brains. Doesn't matter if we're talking about character skins, sneakers, screwdrivers, cars or movie collectibles it's all part of the same problem. It's toxic and incredibly manipulative. Even being aware of all this and giving myself a strict budget I still find myself fighting these impulses every single month.

I feel like the problem was misinterpreted. Riot is trying to target the whale market-the wallets of people with a lot of disposable income. This skin and bundle were hugely anticipated by the player base, as they were made with Faker (the most famous League player) and for one of the most popular champions, Ahri. The problem is that they will release it almost exclusively for the whales who can afford it, causing this highly anticipated item to be enjoyed by only a few players. Skins in League are becoming more and more of a luxury, whereas they used to be a healthy way to support a free-to-play game.

and that is why, i decided to get the cheapest well looing skins I found for CSGO, and bought cheap stickers to write the most racist stuff I coud so insted of people saying that's a cool sin, they say, wtf!

"I've never reaped the social benefit of flexing." What about that gold xbox controller?

Linus: Why would i want to milk their cents and dimes? Me: LMG really is a great independent company... If they had investors they would be milking everyone too 😢

as someone that plays a lot of gacha games, mostly free or spending small ammounts i get how dangerous it can be, and I'm lucky i have self control and when i don't get what i want i ragequit instead of spending, but still i have spended on it and it just feels trash, so it's really important to inform people of the dangers, personally i think overspending in these games isn't worth it, and spending a bit can be worth it if you want to support the devs, but it's scummy how much they try to manipulate you innto spending stupid ammounts

i think you guys forgot the fact that the skin is of a cute fox girl

Bro said he's never reaped the social benefit of flexing but.... he pretty much said "I want to be a famous media person" and built a media empire on his name and likeness? And gets invited to things he's interested in/meets people he admires?

Micro transactions are okay. They help cover the cost of maintenance and continued development; ideally some nice profit too. Pay to win items are not okay. Loot boxes that enable gambling are not okay. If people can’t manage money properly or parents are not properly securing their wallets, I think the blame mostly lies on themselves.