Recent innovations for League of Legends have fans of the Runeterra universe looking anxiously at the ambitious LoL MMORPG. Is the developer destroying a large part of its own fan base due to greed before the game even releases?
Why is there concern? The optimal monetization of a free-to-play game like League of Legends is a balancing act. On one side, players want to enjoy the actual content for free without feeling pressured to spend money regularly due to pay-to-win elements, strict restrictions, or random offers.
On the other side, developers need to create incentives for purchasing microtransactions in order to survive under current market conditions. MyMMO recently reported that Riot Games has not always handled this balance well: Players find the new system in LoL worse than gacha games, criticize skins for 200 euros.
Short-term financial success vs. long-term wise decisions
What does this have to do with the LoL MMORPG? OmegaTier100 expresses concern on Reddit that Riot could significantly harm itself in the foreseeable future due to its own greed for ever-increasing revenues and profits:
“Financially, they may be doing well with the recent changes, but in the long run, they will lose a lot with these decisions.”
OmegaTier100’s thesis: Such actions would drive players away from LoL and take away their interest in the Runeterra universe.
However, an MMORPG needs a large player base to achieve long-term success. Therefore, Riot should be interested in getting as many people excited about the games already released in the Runeterra universe as possible. In their opinion, they are doing the opposite.
How does the community evaluate this? More than 3,200 upvotes and nearly 1,000 comments show that there is a need for discussion. Riot is receiving plenty of criticism, yes, but some players do not believe that the monetization of League of Legends will negatively impact the LoL MMORPG.
- FelysFrost writes on Reddit: “The larger a company gets, the more short-term its planning seems to be, it’s strange.”
- sydal believes (via Reddit): “I think you’re vastly overestimating the number of people who will be driven away by the poor monetization. […] I mean, you must not forget that they have entire teams working on how to best retain players and maximize revenue.”
- eMan117 comments on Reddit: “Is Riot’s greed problematic? Yes. But their MMO success will be based on the merits of their MMO game. There will certainly be many day-1 players, but if the game isn’t fun, people will leave after a month, and their large investment will be a failure.”
How does MyMMO editor Karsten Scholz assess this? In the past two decades with MMORPGs, one thing has stood out to me: There are many players who can complain wonderfully about a game for years, only to keep playing it over and over again.
It’s also somewhat clear: If something is important to you, you get annoyed when it takes a wrong turn. Once there is an emotional connection, however, it takes a lot to sever that connection forever and irrevocably.
However, even more importantly, each game stands on its own. Naturally, fans of the Runeterra universe are especially looking forward to the LoL MMORPG. But from my perspective, it won’t matter how one feels personally about League of Legends or Riot if the game is ultimately really good and fun.
And conversely: If Riot should drive the LoL MMORPG into the ground, perhaps due to a greedy payment model, that would be due to the quality of the LoL MMORPG and not because of what was done in the years prior with League of Legends.
What do you think? Can the quality of League of Legends negatively impact Riot’s MMO project? When do you expect the game’s release? If you want to know more about it, check here: Everything we know about the new MMORPG for LoL in 2025
