The cost of LoL + the champion bundle is on par with other professional entertainment software. Just look at it that way. You must spend about $50 to get the full game. Dont try to by individual heroes or you will lose money. I doubted Riot Games at first when it was looking like we'd have to spend ...lots.... of money for the full game, but then when they announced the bundle and made runes only availible with IP I came to the conclusion that they really are trying to be fair and competitive. My dealings with customer service have been positive also.

So far, I'm impressed.

It is possible that Riot marketing folks didn't realize exactly how much fun it is for people to experiment with different champions, and therefore suggested that the average player is only going to want to permanently unlock their favorite champion. When the store opened, I had maybe 11,000 IP saved up, so I could have purchased any 2-4 champions that I wanted. They probably based their projections on something like this. With this kind of thinking, only folks that really wanted to experiment with a lot of champions would need to unlock with Riot points.

Also, it bears mentioning that until you play as a champion, you are really handicapping yourself when you play against that champion. For example, I used to let Ashe push me back in the lane because I was afraid of getting hit by her ult and then permaslowed to death. After playing as her for just one game, I realized that she is a fragile glass cannon that is easily chased away by even moderate damage.

In a sense, Riot is a victim of their own success in making the game intriguing to explore. I honestly would have priced things the way they did before I started spending some serious time playing the game. After playing, you almost have to go with one of the bundles if you want to stay competitive--the pricing structure to unlock champions individually is probably impractical for the serious player.

I'm not one to whine, but I have to agree that the prices for the high-end champions are a bit unreasonable. For the price of 3-4 of them, you could just buy the collector's pack, and some people would like to unlock their favorite heroes for a reasonable price without needing to do that.

I managed to play about 80-90 games after the last reset. Some days I didn't even play a game, and other days I played for a few hours with friends and managed, in the timeframe, to accumulate 14,000 IP. When the shop was released, I unlocked the only heroes that I really play. Most heroes I don't even bother playing them, because I have my own playstyle, and only a few characters suit that. So I am perfectly fine spending my 7k points or whatever it took me.

That is how free-to-play works. It takes a good deal of time to get things. There are a lot of free FPS games and MMORPG games that use this same game model. They are a business and need to make money. MOST games allow you to have access to either all, or nearly every bit of content that is available. However, if you pay money, you have the ability to aquire things much faster. I don't know why people are surpirsed by the prices and marketing teqniques of RIOT. They aren't doing anything new. It's the same thing that every other game has done, since, forever, that has been free-to-play. Your demands can only go so far when it comes to in-game content pricing, when the game you are playing is relatively high quality and free of charge. That doesn't mean, however, that the company will make prices so high that people will not play. But they can't make them to low, or there will be very little incentive to spend money.

This game really isn't about playing a different champion every game. I found that out real quick. It's much funner to pick a few select champions that have different playstyles that you can master. This way you can be useful to your team in any build and not feel like you are hurting your team due to the fact that you not comfortable with your spells. I don't get the fuss over "well to buy EVERY SINGLE CHAMPION". Really? Who actually plays EVERY single champion on a regular basis? I've been playing for quite a bit now and there are still 2-3 champs that I haven't even bothered playing.

yeah im confused on how to buy the collector's edition and champion bundle for 45 dollars without having to pay a total of 50 dollars to get the rest of riot points

IMHO I think that the pricing is fair. Really if you think about it some people are going to pay it and some are not. If you play enough you will be able to unlock it. If you could unlock everything have the best of everything in a matter of weeks the game would get dull and you would stop playing. You will probably find that the pricing will go down in time and as new champions come out they will be priced higher.

Its a give take relationship if you can think of it that way. Riot gives you a game for free, you can get all characters and all runes for free, but only if you spend heaps and heaps of time doing so. Or you can support their hard work and the people that will try to get everything for free and buy some stuff. Depends on how desparte you are really i guess.

Like I said though its my thoughts on the matter and I believe they have done right.