League of Legends’ recent controversy around Blue Essence and the process of unlocking champions has raised a lot of questions from the community. A developer by the name of Maddy Marquissee, who leads a team in charge of the new player experience, had some answers.
It’s no secret that League of Legends is a difficult game to get into, with Arcane having a hard time bringing new players in despite being one of the most successful shows ever put on Netflix in terms of viewership.
Riot Games has implemented a team that’s in charge of the new player experience to try and onboard more players and make sure they stick around. Getting new players interested is a necessary part of keeping LoL alive and thriving for years to come. Maddy Marquissee, growth lead for League of Legends, represents that team and is open about her process on her personal Twitter/X account.
However, the answers Marquissee had to give when asked why everyone isn’t free didn’t leave players satisfied. Many players were skeptical of her answers and left wondering why there isn’t a solution other than spending potentially years grinding for new characters.
LoL dev explains why champions aren’t free
Considering LoL has 169 Champions, getting your hands on all of them is pricy. Buying every champion that’s in the game currently (not including Mel Medarda who’ll be added soon) would put you out 119,265 RP, which would be $860 if you bought the highest amount of RP available on the store twice.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the game provides a number of ways to get new champions for free and earn them in-game. It’s not like you’d realistically have to buy every single character in one go, but Riot wouldn’t have a price on them if they didn’t expect you to buy them.
Alternatively, you can get PC Game Pass for $10 a month, though you have to keep your subscription, and there’s no telling how long Riot will be working with Microsoft. If that partnership ever ends, you’re left having to buy the champions all over again after having paid $10 a month for however long you played.
You can earn all of them in-game, though that’d take a long time. Not nearly as long now that the League of Legends dev team has gone in and significantly increased the amount of Blue Essence players will earn, but it’s a grind that can often take years.
All of this could be circumvented by just making all the characters free. Or, at least, that’s what you’d think. LoL dev Maddy Marquissee finally explained why it is that League of Legends doesn’t make champions free, and players weren’t exactly thrilled by her answer:
Agreed on the latter and I’m pitching some big projects in the space to improve it! But unlocking all champs at once actually hurts new players — no guidance towards champs who are easy to understand, just a long list of names in champ select that is overwhelming.
— Maddy Marquissee (@maddizzlee) January 13, 2025
“Unlocking all champs at once actually hurts new players,” she explained. “No guidance towards champs who are easy to understand, just a long list of names in champ select that is overwhelming.”
An unhappy player replied, “No. Unlocking all the champs would just hurt Riot’s monetization.”
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Another claimed it was a “lame excuse” for not making champions free, to which the dev replied, “My data would disagree,” with a tongue out emoji.
My data would disagree 🤪
— Maddy Marquissee (@maddizzlee) January 14, 2025
“Maybe just give them groups of champs as they level up? Like 3-5 from each category,” suggested Dr. Jordan Tsai, a LoL team owner.
Several other players expressed their distaste under her tweet thread, claiming that the reason they stopped playing is because of the massive wall the BE grind puts in front of getting new characters.
Marquissee did specify that she works on a team geared toward the new player experience, and that she has nothing to do with the game’s monetization. She also got a bit more in depth about the data in which she’s working off of to make these decisions.
I did a bit here, but also different champions have different retention rates for new players because some are inherently hard to understand! Then they leave the game because they don’t get it. I’m not going to share those graphs (I’m not allowed to) but we measure these things. https://t.co/lHRhTF4lqX
— Maddy Marquissee (@maddizzlee) January 14, 2025
She claimed that champions have drastically different “retention rates” depending on how difficult they are, with some players bouncing off the game entirely if the character they pick is too difficult. Marquissee also suggested that the team is working on a sort of “personality test” to direct new players toward champions that may suit them.
However, suggestions of rolling out champions gradually and controlling which characters a player has access to early on would accomplish roughly the same goal. Without costing over $800.
Competitors to League of Legends like DOTA 2 and Marvel Rivals offer all their characters for free. SMITE, another MOBA, has a one-time purchase of $30 that’ll allow players to get all the characters, finding a balance between the two business models.
Riot’s emergency BE changes also didn’t revert everything they changed going into Season 2025. Hextech Chests still can’t be earned for free anymore, with that being much of the reason players are outraged at 2025’s changes.
That was the easiest way to earn skins for free and get a shot at earning a skin for your favorite champion without forking over cash, not to mention all the players who have Hextech Keys just sitting in their inventory.
Granted, the Battle Pass changes do allow for players to get a free skin every new Battle Pass Season (roughly 8 weeks), and the BP changes allow players to get a lot more bang for their buck when buying the pass compared to before.
