Riot Games is increasing the price of in-game Riot Points (RP) in the UK by 20% due to a drop in value of the pound.
This drop occurred after the UK voted to leave the European Union last year (aka Brexit). Riot says it has monitored pricing and waited a year for the pound to recover, but because it hasn’t, Riot has taken the decision to make an RP price hike.
Riot has also removed the unpopular £2.50 price point and added a new £15 option to make it easier for players to buy legendary skins, without having to pay £20 to get enough RP.
The price hike comes into effect on July 25th at 11.59pm. Any RP purchased before then will be unaffected by the change. And the cost of champions, skins and wards etc will not change after the RP hike either.
The new RP prices are as follows:
- £5 – 790RP (was 975RP)
- £10 – 1,650RP (was 2,075RP)
- £15 – 2,525RP (new option)
- £20 – 3,350RP (was 4,200RP)
- £35 – 5,950RP (was 7,450RP)
- £50 – 8,600RP (was 10,700RP)
“We monitored the situation closely over several months to see whether the pound would recover, but it’s been over a year now and we feel we’ve reached the point where a price change is necessary to restore parity.”
Riot Benshirro
Riot Benshirro, who leads the publishing efforts for Riot from the developer’s Dublin office, said in a forum post today: “Last June, the UK voted to leave the European Union, triggering a drop in the value of the pound relative to other global currencies, particularly the US dollar.
“This change meant that while UK players were spending the same number of pounds on RP as before, players elsewhere in the world were paying a lot more in comparison.
“Like a lot of companies who sell digital content, we monitored the situation closely over several months to see whether the pound would recover, but it’s been over a year now and we feel we’ve reached the point where a price change is necessary to restore parity.
“In order to do that, we will be raising the price of RP by 20% on July 25th 2017 at 23:59 BST. This is a one-time change to restore balance in RP pricing around the world. None of your existing purchases will be affected.
“The result of the change will be that whenever a player in the UK buys RP from July 25th onwards, they will receive roughly the same amount that they would get if they exchanged their money into dollars and bought RP in North America.”
In an FAQ, Riot responded to the question: ‘Why now?’
Riot Benshirro said: “The value of currencies goes up and down, so we wanted to leave it for a while to make sure the change was sticking.”
Riot UK head of publishing Mark Cox (aka GeneralCoxy) also answered questions from League of Legends forum users.
“This is not about greed it’s about player parity,” he said. “We want players globally to receive the same amount of RP for their chosen currency.
“Brexit has hit the pound and this has unbalanced us vs. North America, so we feel its only fair to bring this into balance for all players. I hope you can understand, and I do appreciate your comments.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
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