It seems that every time the Vietnamese League of Legends launches a new series of events, the wave of discontent from a segment of players erupts. Recently, when the new God of War skins just landed, a lengthy and detailed post appeared again on Reddit, criticizing the publisher’s management of this event.
A summary of the post is as follows:
“Looking at Garena Vietnam’s predatory business practices
Garena has made blatant efforts to profit from their community (in other words, milking their players)
1.1: Events connecting to events, events connecting to events, events connecting to events…
Upon logging in, the first thing that catches your eye is event introductions like this, which are among countless ways to reinterpret promotions or mini-games that Garena provides for players.
From discount activities to interactive events, everything urges players to recharge RP to earn points or open loot boxes. The events are decorated with colorful visuals and accompanied by huge countdown clocks, all designed to appeal to the players’ psychology.
From direct discounts to “interactive” events, everything is heated up to buy/use RP to earn points/lootbox, using flashy buttons, colorful backgrounds, and huge countdown clocks, all crafted to hit the players’ psychology.
An example of a recent event:
1.2: Skins delayed for release during events
Most events from Garena are not simply about providing discounted items, but often the time they occur is the only chance for players to own the latest skins. With each event lasting from 1 to 2 weeks, players are forced to wait or participate in luck-based games to soon own their favorite skins.
1.3: Many skins are permanently locked
As far as I know, since 2016 with the launch of the God of War skin group, Garena has formed a “habit” of making some skins limited and not available for sale, after players have to pay for events to own them. Notable examples include 7 God of War skins, Battle Mage Vladimir, Aurelion Sol Mecha, Freljord Sylas, and Ultimate Weapon Thresh, along with many other skins.
Events are on a very large scale, from exchanging a certain amount of RP for God of War skins, participating in a random event to have the chance to own skins of Thresh or Sylas, which in fact are bought at much higher prices than usual.
2: Price charts are also a noteworthy sign
On January 14, 2019, Garena Singapore updated the Shell (Garena’s own currency) to RP conversion rates, as well as fixed prices to match global skin prices. This update was not applied to Garena Vietnam. Taking this conversion table as a standard, let’s compare the market values here:
As you can see, the prices of skins here vary greatly. A skin priced at 1350 RP here would correspond to 250 RP according to Garena’s conversion table, but in reality, their values fluctuate from 210, 250, 310, and even up to 396 RP.
The Battle Mage Lee Sin is only an Epic skin but is priced higher than the Battle Mage Soraka – a Legendary skin. This absurdity comes from inflating the prices of skins for champions that are more popular, such as Riven, Yasuo, Akali, or Lee Sin.
Most Legendary skins also have unit prices of 99 RP, which is much higher than the 500 RP benchmark applied in other regions.
3: This skin is Legendary, that skin is Legendary. Legendary skins are everywhere
If you switch the Client to English, you will find that there are 37 skins tagged as Mythic and 59 other skins tagged as Legendary. But when left in Vietnamese, surprise! You have up to 45 Mythic skins and ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY THREE Legendary skins.
This not only makes it harder to obtain skin fragments but also creates artificial excitement for many players, as they pride themselves on owning a “Legendary” skin.
Conclusion
Garena is no different from an extraordinary company operating solely with the purpose of milking players. Their predatory business style has been intensified since late 2019, when the parent company announced a net loss of nearly $1 billion.
I understand that this article cannot change anything, but I still hope that it will help the international gaming community understand and clarify the greed of a publisher.
.”
After being posted, the aforementioned article received a lot of feedback from the Reddit community, with nearly 600 comments, among which there were quite a few Vietnamese players. Many criticisms were directed towards Garena, mainly related to the incomplete release of features (Clash) and signs of distortion in the assessment of attributes as well as skin pricing:
– Please Riot, free SEA from Garena.
– Although there have been quite clear materials on Reddit about how Garena is becoming dull, have we ever heard any feedback from a Rioter about this issue? Just imagine they would have any changes, but with this silence, I feel everything is completely in Garena’s hands.
– Do you guys remember the 10th anniversary event of League of Legends? Riot promised to give a free Legendary skin to all players. Unfortunately for us, players from the Vietnamese server, we received even Epic skins because Garena adjusted them to Legendary skins.
– Worse, most Vietnamese players don’t even care about it even when Garena is draining them. They are willing to recharge a ton of money into it.
I am a player on the Vietnamese server and am still frustrated that they won’t release Captain Gangplank for sale.
You can refer to the original post here.