In early 2023, Riot and VNGGames officially took over and re-released League of Legends (LoL) after the game “parted ways” with Garena. Naturally, there has been a lot of discussion around this, especially since Vietnamese gamers have been accustomed to Garena for a long time. Many opinions at the time were very excited to be able to own items and skins at prices comparable to global standards. However, issues began to arise as event seasons approached.
As we know, Riot doesn’t usually have major events for gamers to freely “spend money” like Garena did in the past. Fundamentally, this publisher doesn’t need players to top up a lot to own skins or items in the Shop. Therefore, VNGGames also cannot offer players significant promotions like those that Garena used to implement. This has long been a topic of extensive discussion within the Vietnamese LoL community, especially after periods when Garena would hold significant events like summer breaks, Mid-Autumn Festival, or the upcoming National Day on September 2.
Recently, according to announcements from Riot and VNGGames, the publisher will have a promotion for RP top-ups through Zalopay, valid until September 5. Accordingly, first-time players topping up RP via Zalopay will receive a 40% discount on a maximum top-up of 100k. With the code QUOCKHANH0209, players will receive a 7% discount, up to 20k when topping up from 200k. Simply put, aside from new players topping up for the first time, the promotion from Riot and VNGGames is only a maximum of 20k for each player with a 200k package. This can be considered an extremely low figure.
Of course, this has led to frustration among Vietnamese LoL players. Some even compared it to the time of Garena, when this publisher was famous for providing numerous promotions and events for players to top up money. Although it is known that those promotions had no other purpose than to force players to “reach into their pockets,” the abundance of promotions and offers made it reasonable for gamers to spend money.
The events from Riot and VNGGames are truly leaving many gamers feeling disappointed. Of course, Riot has its principles, but clearly, this publisher is making the Vietnamese LoL community feel a lack of connection and necessary concern to understand its customer base.