I have the opposite experience (in LoL which I played for too long some time ago). If you encountered an enemy in default you knew you were in for a beating. Mo

I have the opposite experience (in LoL which I played for too long some time ago). If you encountered an enemy in default you knew you were in for a beating. Most probably a smurf (high level player on a fresh low level account). Most of the really good players I knew couldn't care less about skins. People that did suck bought skins to feel better about themselves ("yeah, you won, but I have a $20 Udyr skin, noob!") Except one guy which was pretty good but had a gambling problem and liked the random aspect of buying chests. What you describe is probably the social dynamics in your son's group of friends, which are probably kids and mostly suck, which makes buying skins the social signaling of their worth, for lack of a better metric.