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Riot Games is a morally bankrupt and extremely profit-driven company. If they're not abusing Vanguard to provide MSS actors access to user's machines (free VPN

Riot Games is a morally bankrupt and extremely profit-driven company. If they're not abusing Vanguard to provide MSS actors access to user's machines (free VPN to cover your tracks!), then they're mining data from your computer - perhaps for market research or to sell to adtech. As a player of some of their games - they not only don't care about their players, but have a deeply abusive relationship with us.

squigz 1y ago
You seem to feel pretty strongly about Riot. Are you going to stop playing their games?
- throw10920 1y ago
  Yes! I've already gotten about 2/3 of my friends to stop playing their games. I'm working on the last third - after I get a couple key people off I can quit for good.
  - squigz 1y ago
    That's good to hear. A lot of people are unwilling to give up even the smallest things despite talking very strongly against some companies.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Yes. I played League on Linux before they imposed anticheat, and stopped immediately afterwards. Quitting Riot games was one of the easiest things I've ever done, especially now that Deadlock lets you make lobbies.
impulser_ 1y ago
Crazy you think Riot Games is extremely profit driven. I have played League of Legends for 13 years and not once have they required or requested a single penny from me. I have given them 0$. An extremely profit driven company wouldn't allow that.
- devilsdata 1y ago
  This is like saying Google isn’t extremely profit-driven because we don’t pay them.
- cheschire 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Delivers_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Delivers_People Perhaps you may benefit from reading this. But basically, if the product is free, then you are the product.
  - arealaccount 1y ago
    Bummer there’s no link to the video
  - papa_bear 1y ago
    This isn’t a given since there’s still a way to give them money directly for cosmetics (which makes them a ton of money). Many freemium business models give away a lot product for free with the goal of convincing a minority of users to pay and subsidize the rest.
- throw10920 1y ago
  This is wrong in almost every possible way. It's invalid to say "a profit-driven company wouldn't do x" for almost any value of x. It's also invalid to suggest that a company that doesn't require money isn't profit-driven. There are thousands of free-to-play games run by greedy companies that push monetization on users (even if they don't require it). There are tens of thousands of companies that use ads to monetize their games. There's also ample evidence of Riot's greed over the past few years - $500 skins, progressive removal of more and more free cosmetics from the game despite record revenue, encouraging and enabling smurf accounts (which absolutely ruin the experience for other players) because they buy more skins, and many, many more instances.
xeonmc 1y ago
Illustrative examples: https://www.resetera.com/threads/riot-games-sends-cringey-edgelord-employee-to-threaten-creator-of-league-fan-project.416994/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/riot-games-sends-cringey-ed... https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/riot-games-and-rentseeking-behavior-11706 https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/riot-games-and...
- xeonmc 1y ago
  And an extended discussion on the manipulative gaslighting by Riot on their Crowdstrike-esq rollout incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YvcQOSiRM&list=PLzBq1zjrpqShBf9bPPqh_bjuuFtogVpKy&index=14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YvcQOSiRM&list=PLzBq1zjrpq...
- throw10920 1y ago
  Don't forget: - penalizing a pro player for picking a particular champ and rune combo due to it being bugged (which is their fault) even though the player didn't abuse the bug - the CEO of the company doxxing the developer of a competing game - the insane AI-powered "zero tolerance chat filter" that regularly catches comments that, upon human review, are clearly inoffensive - the "lane swap detection" anti-feature - autofill - client and server crashes being blamed on the players ...and many, many, many more examples.

squigz 1y ago

You seem to feel pretty strongly about Riot. Are you going to stop playing their games?

throw10920 1y ago
Yes! I've already gotten about 2/3 of my friends to stop playing their games. I'm working on the last third - after I get a couple key people off I can quit for good.
- squigz 1y ago
  That's good to hear. A lot of people are unwilling to give up even the smallest things despite talking very strongly against some companies.
bigyabai 1y ago
Yes. I played League on Linux before they imposed anticheat, and stopped immediately afterwards. Quitting Riot games was one of the easiest things I've ever done, especially now that Deadlock lets you make lobbies.

impulser_ 1y ago

Crazy you think Riot Games is extremely profit driven. I have played League of Legends for 13 years and not once have they required or requested a single penny from me. I have given them 0$. An extremely profit driven company wouldn't allow that.

devilsdata 1y ago
This is like saying Google isn’t extremely profit-driven because we don’t pay them.
cheschire 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Delivers_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Delivers_People Perhaps you may benefit from reading this. But basically, if the product is free, then you are the product.
- arealaccount 1y ago
  Bummer there’s no link to the video
- papa_bear 1y ago
  This isn’t a given since there’s still a way to give them money directly for cosmetics (which makes them a ton of money). Many freemium business models give away a lot product for free with the goal of convincing a minority of users to pay and subsidize the rest.
throw10920 1y ago
This is wrong in almost every possible way. It's invalid to say "a profit-driven company wouldn't do x" for almost any value of x. It's also invalid to suggest that a company that doesn't require money isn't profit-driven. There are thousands of free-to-play games run by greedy companies that push monetization on users (even if they don't require it). There are tens of thousands of companies that use ads to monetize their games. There's also ample evidence of Riot's greed over the past few years - $500 skins, progressive removal of more and more free cosmetics from the game despite record revenue, encouraging and enabling smurf accounts (which absolutely ruin the experience for other players) because they buy more skins, and many, many more instances.

xeonmc 1y ago

Illustrative examples: https://www.resetera.com/threads/riot-games-sends-cringey-edgelord-employee-to-threaten-creator-of-league-fan-project.416994/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/riot-games-sends-cringey-ed... https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/riot-games-and-rentseeking-behavior-11706 https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/riot-games-and...

xeonmc 1y ago
And an extended discussion on the manipulative gaslighting by Riot on their Crowdstrike-esq rollout incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YvcQOSiRM&list=PLzBq1zjrpqShBf9bPPqh_bjuuFtogVpKy&index=14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YvcQOSiRM&list=PLzBq1zjrpq...
throw10920 1y ago
Don't forget: - penalizing a pro player for picking a particular champ and rune combo due to it being bugged (which is their fault) even though the player didn't abuse the bug - the CEO of the company doxxing the developer of a competing game - the insane AI-powered "zero tolerance chat filter" that regularly catches comments that, upon human review, are clearly inoffensive - the "lane swap detection" anti-feature - autofill - client and server crashes being blamed on the players ...and many, many, many more examples.