For the past year and a half, I’ve been cheating on my console. I’ve left its hard plastic body sitting cold on my shelf while my laptop’s internal parts turn into a fiery hurricane to run League of Legends on all low settings.
I still remember my first few hours of League of Legends. I played Master Yi surrounded by a room full of people who had spent hundreds of hours playing the game. They laughed as I failed to kill easy bots, wondering why I bought one item over another or why I leveled ‘W’ instead of ‘Q.’ I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I had a blast doing it.
I had just as much fun then as I do now – a rarity, considering the hundreds of hours I’ve spent playing the insanely popular game’s more than 120 champions.
I’ve been playing League of Legends since the Mac client came out during my sophomore year in the spring of 2013.
The game was already popular when I was a freshman – not the phenomenon, selling out stadiums around the world, like it is today, but still prevalent – but I didn’t even know it existed. When my friend showed me the game, it was only playable on PC. I lost interest while the game began to grow into the global craze it is today because I was Unable to play it on my Mac
That all changed about a year later when the OSX version came out.
Now, over a year and a half after the Mac client’s release, I’ve played more than 600 games, pouring hundreds of hours into the game and about a $100 of real money. Considering most games these days cost $60 and don’t have an entertainment or replay value that lasts nearly as long, I’d say $100 isn’t too bad for the hours I’ve spent wrecking baddies in the ‘bot lane’ as Varus or a host of my other favorite champs.
But here’s the great thing about free to play games, like League: I chose to spend that money. And I spent it all on cosmetic skins for my favorite characters, a few dollars at a time.
People might say I’ve wasted money; they are just cosmetic changes after all. Who cares how cool your character looks in a game when you’ve spent more than 20 hours as a few of them?
Given how profitable Riot Games, the game’s developer, has become off League of Legends, I’m inclined to say I’m not the only one spending money on the game for a new costume and ability effects for various characters.
With new champions and skins being released each week, I’m sure my purchase of Arcade Miss Fortune won’t be my last.
Even after spending hundreds of hours, paling in comparison to my fellow League lovers with thousands of wins and losses, I never feel bored or dragged down by the experience.
I can choose to spend $100 on some skins with in a game I can play for thousands of hours for free. It’s a bargain compared to buying a game for $65 and finding out it doesn’t live up to the hype – I’m looking at you Destiny.
email: jordan.oscar@ubspectrum.com
