Are there plans to remove cosmetics from the in-game store, maybe even permanently?
As time passes more and more items are put in the in-game store. Eventually this may reach a "critical mass" where there are too many items in the store, making using it cumbersome due to the volume of cosmetics on sale. In the future some of the items may be removed temporarily or even permanently from the store to make space for new items.
Note that this does not mean that the items would be removed from player inventories, but just from the store - if you have them you could still use them, but if you do not then you could not get them anymore.
Have the developers confirmed or deconfirmed that they are going to remove items from the in-game store in the future?
EDIT: This is NOT a suggestion, I am very strongly against this. I do however think it is a legitimate possibility that the developers do this in the future and I am looking for possible confirmation or deconfirmation, such as from around the time when the store was first introduced (if such a statement exists).
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Why remove cosmetics, from the store, like ever?
"Critical Mass" "Make space for new items" How can there be ever be enough/too many cosmetics, if people like it, they like it, if they don't, they can always make more.
From a company side: this is a super dumb thing to do, basically making less income by removing cosmetics, or just interest in some characters.
From a player side: this would be very annoying, and perhaps some people get angry for deleting their favorite cosmetic.
I just don't see what the point of it is, if you'd say this about perks, I fully agree that there are too many (but deleting them would be just wasted potential).
But cosmetics, really? Afaik, there's no cap on cosmetics, the more the merrier, how terrible they might be, it does not harm the game in any way.
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Having too many items makes individual items stand out less. A new player who opens the store and sees old / low quality items may not notice the one thing they like and spend no money as a result.
By removing items from the store, but announcing that move first, you can also get players to buy items they would never buy otherwise. Reason being that they don't want to miss out. The same principle applies when they (temporarily) return: "Buy it NOW because who knows when you will have the chance to do so again."
Especially for unpopular cosmetics this could boost sales significantly. For example the Plague (picking Plague because she is the least popular killer) "robe" outfits (picking them because they are probably the least popular cosmetics). Anyone who hasn't bought them yet is unlikely to buy them ever. But by announcing that they are being removed from the store some players may buy it because they might never return.
Essentially removed cosmetics would be "legacy-lite". We know that legacy is popular because people still ask about it to return often. By turning unpopular cosmetics into something akin to legacy (= you can potentially never get it again) the popularity is increased and in turn, the number of sales.
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League of legends has over 800 skins for their 150+ champs. Yeah they make some event skins timed exclusives but bring most of them back every event.
Rainbow six sieges shop is completely a pain to find stuff in but I think, outside of twitch exclusives and seasonal stuff, that they don't remove any cosmetics.
Anything else in monetary loss for them.
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I don't think removing cosmetics for the sake of making some room in the Store even crossed their minds.
A visual re-design of the Store would happen way before that.
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There are no plans to remove cosmetics from the store. And I really don't see a need to do this, if the set up of the Store does become an issue in the future, I'm pretty sure there'd be a design change instead of removing items.
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If people aren't going to buy "unpopular" skins now, I doubt pulling a "buy it now or you won't see it again" will get people to buy those skins.
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By removing items from the store, but announcing that move first, you can also get players to buy items they would never buy otherwise. Reason being that they don't want to miss out. The same principle applies when they (temporarily) return: "Buy it NOW because who knows when you will have the chance to do so again."
Please don't encourage that. That is an extremely anti-consumer practice.
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According to the League of Legends wiki skins were first removed in 2011: https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Legacy_Vault#Retired_skins
I don't think that it will necessarily lead to a monetary loss. See my post above, about the Plague robe skins. Anyone who bought Plague but has not bought the skin is unlikely to do so in the future. Most sales of this skin likely are from new players who buy Plague and like the skins and buy one of them. By announcing a future (temporary) removal some players may buy it who otherwise never would.
That would be the explanation in the news / blog post announcing because straight up saying it's done to boost sales for unpopular skins that are not going to make any money going forward would look bad.
Based on legacy skins and people still asking for them to come back, players disliking the event charm system because it's annoying to get an item that will never come back and also others complaining about the return of the battlepass items (such as the elephant outfit for Clown recently) suggests that exclusivity of items is something that at least some players care about. By turning unpopular skins into (temporary) exclusives at least those players will likely buy them.
I am not encouraging that. I am very much against it. I can however see the developers doing it if it means boosting sales. I am interested in whether or not there has been a clear statement from the developers about whether or not this is something they are going to do.
Thank you, but that does not mean that it won't happen. It may not be planned now but that could change very easily.
The way the battlepass items are handled is already very similar - items are available for a limited time and then any way to get them is removed for a limited period of time. Based on how the battlepass function it seems safe to say that the developers are okay with items not being available temporarily to either boost sales or to make items exclusive for some time because some players like the exclusivity. Whatever the reason for the design of the battlepass item availability is, the same would apply to removing items from the store, permanently or temporarily.
It's also not necessarily about a need, but a possible excuse for why it is being done. The main reason the developers would remove items from the store is to boost sales. Saying that the cause is a restructuring of the store would be the explanation given because outright saying that it's because of money would make a lot of people very angry.
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To be fair, it sounds less like you're merely trying to explain why they might do it and more like you're trying to advocate for it and explain why it's a good idea for the devs.
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Just about your answer to me, I already pointed out that they make event skins and such stuff partly available during events. Of course some never come back but they found out that permanently removing stuff from their shop hurts more than it helps in the long-term and bring them back to make people buy "this time limited offer" (please imagine a tv shopping moderators voice XD).
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There is no way they are removing cosmetics. That's probably 80% of their income.
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