There might be some big changes coming to the gacha system in League of Legends and TFT.
Slowly but surely, Riot has been introducing more and more gacha features to the League of Legends client. Sure, there have always been some forms of loot boxes in the game with chests, but thanks to the addition of mythic variants, some 'rare' skins could cost up to $200.
But it seems that this could change throughout 2024, with the Chinese government adding some new regulations to online content, League might be getting less gacha in the future... or at least the Chinese server will, but it could bleed over to international servers as well.
LoL: Tencent Shares Drop Dramatically After New Gacha Regulations
Tencent owns Riot Games, we all know this already. In China, the League of Legends client is also separate from the one we have on international servers, which means that there are a lot of features which we do not have in the west, but that are common in China.
Tencent, the Chinese multinational conglomerate, fully acquired Riot Games in December 2015. Before this complete acquisition, Tencent had already been a majority stakeholder in Riot Games since 2011, when it bought a 93% stake in the company. The full acquisition in 2015 resulted in Tencent owning 100% of Riot Games, the developer known for the popular game "League of Legends."
While players have been complaining about $200 dollar gacha skins and Little Legends in TFT, the Chinese server has featured multiple different kinds of gacha systems, for special chromas and skins. But it seems, all that could be coming to an end with China implementing some new regulations.
It seems that there will be more rigid in-game currency limit, as well as a removal of "luck-based" content for minors, which could mean that there is going to be a huge change in monetization for Tencent, as well as other game developers like HoYoverse who make a living off gacha.
This could also have a ripple effect in League of Legends for international players, since Riot Games is owned by Tencent and some of the monetization strategies could have bled over from their Chinese success, but of course, we aren't actually part of the Riot Games business team so we aren't sure where the decisions on monetization truly come from.
It would be welcomed though to remove things like super expensive Little Legends and chromas from the game. Most players just hate the gacha system, since it is pretty predatory, but wouldn't mind if Riot just put an honest $200 price tag on the damn skin or chroma.
Because of the announcement of the new regulations, Tencen't share value dropped by a huge margin, which has prompted the Chinese government to hold off on implementing the new rules right away, but will slowly be rolling them out soon.