Hey guys. WizardCrab and the LAN Rioters here.
We, as Riot Games, have put ourselves in a pretty shitty position with this and I'd really like your help figuring out what to do.
Just to be totally clear, I'm saying we 100% fucked up.
And to be totally clear on another important point, we will 100% implement some solution one way or another in short order. The situation will not remain as is.
Let me explain my view of the current situation, then discuss some potential solutions we've thought through and their shortcomings, and finally ask for your help in how to proceed.
Background
During the recent Fiesta de Mascaras event, LAN and LAS were offered tiered rewards for increasing levels of participation with the event. With no small amount of effort put forth, LAS achieved the top tier reward of a Mystery skin by the event’s end. LAN fell short. LAN players were understandably upset, describing the goal as unfair/unreachable. The sentiment was that LAS could only reach the goal because they had vacation during the period and could play more.
Riot LAN felt for their players and wanted to make it better, so they made the quick call to provide a 50% Mystery promotion with the desire to get players half of the way to the Mystery skin prize, but not give them a free one when, all things considered, they did not totally earn one.
Riot LAN's hearts may have been in the right place, but the 50% off Mystery solution presented a number of problems. Besides us being very uncomfortable giving away our coolest products for over 60% off in unlimited quantities (after factoring in normal Mystery's implicit expected discount of over 40% off normal price), we realized that players had begun to sign up for and rush smurf accounts to Level 10 to get the 400 RP to gift free skins to their main accounts. This could easily be done ad infinitum, which is an unacceptable business risk and an unacceptable experience for anyone (new players mostly) who happens to get queued with the resultant smurfs and bots. In addition, many Rioters were still uncomfortable with providing any reward for a goal that ultimately was not achieved.
So we backtracked and decided not to do the sale. We messaged it. We did it quickly but not before players had purchased RP in preparation for this amazing deal.
Now we have a ton of pissed off players who are super frustrated because
A) We went back on our decision
B) People feel cheated about buying RP under false pretenses
C) LAS players still want to be treated fairly given that they did achieve their goals
We need a solution. Each one we come up with has its own slew of problems, so I’d really love your help finding a solution together. Please believe me when I say no one at Riot is happy with the current situation. Things have gone so far now that LAN Rioters are receiving significant numbers of death threats, so please trust that we want to make this better as fast as we can.
Possible Solutions
1) We’ve considered refunds, but a significant number of players purchased RP through cash and other non-refundable methods. So that would only hit some players and still not make them whole.
2) We could reinstate the 50% off Mystery promotion, but the smurfing and botting concerns I mentioned above make this largely untenable.
3) We could go back to the original free Mystery skin from the event, but we’ll still frustrate players who now expected and are more interested in the 50% promotion.
4) We could do nothing, but that obviously sucks for everyone so I don’t think we really need to discuss that one.
So please. Help us figure out the best solution or combination of solutions. We can sit in a room all day and try to guess what would best assuage the situation but here I’d rather directly ask you guys. Hopefully together we can find the solution that will help us begin to rebuild the trust we’ve lost from this mistake.
TL;DR We fucked up. We will find a solution. We would love your help finding it.
