Everybody likes free things, and normally don’t mind if that comes on the heels of somebody else’s mistake. The internet, however, does not love missing out on the free things that others have capitalized on, and we can see that based on Riot’s recent store bug in League of Legends.
The bug itself appeared yesterday and has since been repaired, but for a brief period, players were able to purchase skin capsules and prestige points that normally cost Riot points (which cost real people money) for a minuscule amount of the game’s free currency, blue essence. Prestige points can be combined to create rare skins, and skin capsules are redeemed for gems and skin shards. In a post on Twitter, Product Manager for Riot Ken Adams revealed that Riot would be reverting all prestige points earned with blue essence, as well as the Blood Moon Aatrox skin which was also available for blue essence. When a user responded asking about the capsules, he said there was nothing planned at the time.
This caused an uproar with the community, with user Aurekkon on Reddit saying things like, “After this bug, every cent i’ve spent in this game feels 100% worthless when others got in minutes more than I’ve got in a span of 5 years.” and user PunisherOfDeth saying, “it’s spitting in the face of your customers if you don’t rollback or punish the exploiters. And those are the people you really don’t want to piss off.” There are people on the other side of the spectrum as well who feel that while they missed out on a good deal, it doesn’t actually affect their gameplay in any way that these others have taken advantage of this situation.
There were lots of comparisons to pricing errors in the physical marketplace, and how once a sale occurs it is final and the product belongs to you alone. This is not a bad comparison on the surface. Riot made a blunder and paid the price for it by missing out on thousands of full price sales, and some people missed out on that blunder. This is a digital marketplace, of course, where consumers don’t actually own the purchases but are buying licenses to use said product. I personally am not upset by the situation. Mistakes get made, and while the result isn’t always fair it doesn’t give any other player an advantage over me. I can understand one being upset though, especially if over the years you have put thousands of dollars into cosmetics to have somebody else acquire them overnight, but if we spend every day looking into someone else’s bowl we’ll never be happy with what is in our own.
That is the most “feel-y” I will ever get with you. Live and learn, Riot. Live and learn.
