It seems that every time the Vietnamese League of Legends launches a new series of events, the wave of dissatisfaction from certain gamers erupts again. Recently, at the time when the new Hung Thần skins were just released, a lengthy and detailed post appeared on Reddit, criticizing the event management of this publisher.
The post was summarized as follows:
“Looking at the predatory business practices of Garena Vietnam
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…
When you log in, the first thing that hits your eyes is promotional event introductions like this; this is one of the many variations of promotions or minigames that Garena offers to 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 bright colors and accompanied by huge countdown timers, all designed to appeal to the players’ psychology.
From direct discounts to ‘interactive’ events, everything is boiling down to buying/using RP to earn points/loot boxes, using flashy buttons, colorful backgrounds, and huge countdown timers, all designed to appeal to the players’ psychology.
An example of a recent event:
1.2: Skins delayed for release during events
Most of Garena’s events are not just about providing discounted items, but often the time they occur is the only opportunity for players to own the latest skins. With each event lasting from 1 to 2 weeks, players are forced to wait or participate in games of chance to soon own their favorite skins.
1.3: Many skins permanently locked
As far as I know, since 2016 with the launch of the Hung Thần skin group, Garena has formed a ‘habit’ of making some skins permanently unavailable for sale after players pay for events to own them. Notable examples include 7 Hung Thần skins, Vladimir Ma Sứ, Aurelion Sol Máy Móc, Freljord Sylas, and Thresh Vũ Khí Tối Thượng, along with many other skins.
Events can be very large scale, from exchanging a certain amount of RP for Hung Thần skins to participating in a random event for a chance to own skins of Thresh or Sylas, which in reality is purchasing them at a higher price than usual.
2: Price charts are also a notable sign
On January 14, 2019, Garena Singapore updated the Shell (Garena’s own currency) to the RP conversion rate, as well as fixed the prices to match global skin prices. This update was not applied to Garena Vietnam. Taking this conversion table as a standard, let’s compare market values here:
As you can see, the skin prices here are very different. A skin priced at 1350 RP here would equate to 250 RP according to Garena’s conversion table, but in reality, their values range from 210, 250, 310, and even up to 396 RP.
The Lee Sin Ma Sứ skin is only an Epic skin but costs more than the Soraka Ma Sứ – a Legendary skin. This absurdity comes from the inflated prices of skins for champions with higher popularity, such as Riven, Yasuo, Akali, or Lee Sin.
Most Legendary skins also have unit prices of 99 RP, much higher than the 500 RP threshold 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 discover that there are 37 skins tagged as Mythical and 59 other skins tagged as Legendary. But when left in Vietnamese, surprisingly? You have up to 45 Mythical skins and ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE Legendary skins.
This not only makes earning skin fragments more difficult, but also creates artificial excitement for many players, as they take pride in owning a ‘Legendary’ skin.
Conclusion
Garena is no different from an extraordinary company that operates solely to milk players. Their predatory business style has been further emphasized since late 2019 when the parent company announced a net loss of nearly 1 billion USD.
I understand that this article cannot change anything, but I still hope it will help the international gaming community understand clearly and shed light on the greed of a publisher.
.”
After being posted, the above article received a lot of feedback from the Reddit community, with nearly 600 comments, including many Vietnamese gamers. Many opinions criticized Garena, mainly related to the lack of full feature releases (Clash) and signs of distortion in attribute metrics as well as skin pricing:
– Please Riot, free SEA from Garena.
– While there have been quite clear materials on Reddit about how Garena is becoming dismal, have we ever heard any response from a Rioter on this issue? Just imagine that they would make some change, but with this silence, I feel everything is completely in Garena’s hands.
– Do you remember the 10th anniversary event of League of Legends? Riot promised to give a free Legendary skin to all players. Unfortunately for us, the players of the Vietnamese server, we received even Epic skins because Garena adjusted them to Legendary skins.
– Worse, most Vietnamese players don’t even care about this even when Garena is draining them dry. They’re willing to spend piles of money on it.
I am a player from the Vietnamese server and I’m still upset that they won’t sell Captain Gangplank here.
You can refer to the original article Here.