Summary
Riot Gameshas increased the price of its various virtual currencies in Ukraine by between 64 and 76 per cent. These changes will go into effect on September 18.
Riot routinely adjusts microtransaction pricing in its games in response to global and local economic shifts. This is done to combat resellers who use virtual private networks (VPNs) to purchase Riot /ValorantPoints in a cheaper region, only to sell them on for a profit in other regions.
To combat this, Riot attempts to bring parity between the prices of different regions. This doesn’t really factor in the vastly different levels of incomes and purchasing power between different countries, meaning, if you’re from a lower-income country, you’re going to be paying a much larger percentage of your income for the same amount of Riot Points as someone in a higher income country.
Ukraine Set For Significant Price Hikes
Ukraine is going to experience the largest increase in prices in this adjustment, with every Riot game increasing the cost of their respective currency:League of Legends(up 74%), Legends of Runeterra (up 64%), Valorant (up 66%) and Wild Rift (up 76%).
Riot Smiley Joe explained the price increase in Ukraine onReddit, saying “Yeah [the Ukraine increase] especially sucks. When we did our last price adjustments two years ago, we kept prices the same in Ukraine largely because of the war, but unfortunately, because we kept prices the same, Ukraine has become by far the top market for out-of-market purchases. The vast majority of purchases in Ukranian Hryvnia are being made by accounts that normally play outside the country or follow the patterns we see with account/currency resellers.”
There were large increases in other regions, too. Brazil increased by between 14 and 20 per cent, The Philippines increased by 40 per cent and Taiwan by 33 per cent for League of Legends. Turkey’s prices were raised by between 15 and 63 per cent, depending on the game. You can read the full list of changes onRiot’s blog post.
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