Friday, March 25, 2011

League of Legends and Free to Play buiness models

I have been playing League of Legends since last summer, and I really enjoy the game. For those of you who do not know anything about League of Legends(LOL), you control a powerful champion placed on a battlefield. Each side has armies of automated minions that try to push forward, with you and a team of champions turn the tides of battle.

This game is also free to play forever.

Riot Games does have to make money, and they do so with micro transactions. There are a lot of different champions, and they do not give access to all of them. If you want to "catch them all" you have to put forth the cash. There are ways to get champions by just playing well, each time you play a match you get points, but it is at a slow enough rate you have to spend small amounts of money.


This is a good business model because a lot of people I know don't mind spending a couple of dollars on a new skin for a champion they love, and they will keep doing this. And the level of entry is lowered by having the game free in the first place, opening up the game for people who would normally not spend the money.

16 comments:

  1. I am a huge fan of the league of legends business model. I personally find myself spending more then if I had a subscription sometimes but its worth it because I get exactly what I want.

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  2. I just downloaded this game last week, as request from several of my friends. I haven't played it yet, but will shortly! Good post!

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  3. @Kuda

    There is talk about Riot making a Mac version of LOL, but I do not think it is available yet.

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  4. I tried it and didn't like it. DotA <3 !

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  5. I love dota and hon. Never tried Lol... Followed! alphabetalife.blogspot.com

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  6. they have a very very solid micro trans system. isn't extremely limited like, say, DND online.

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  7. Sort of like DoTA and HoN?
    Gotta try it...

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  8. I'm a fan of LoL, but Riot has made some mistakes developing it though...
    EU services are just crap because they used an open source chatclient and it wasn't built for the huge amounts of players in the EU.
    My principles now prohibit me from buying any further RP, until they fix this.

    Anyway enough about that, nice blog I think I'll follow

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  9. I have a lot of friends who play LoL, I also thought about getting into it.

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  10. Awesome blog man! Keep up the good work! It will pay off!

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  11. ive been meaning to check this out for awhile now. thanks for reminding me. going to look at it now.

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