This week I played, or rather, relapsed back into League of Legends (LoL), developed by Riot Games for players 13+. I’ve played LoL on and off for years, but returning to it now with a design-focused lens was eye-opening to say the least. LoL is a competitive team-based game on PC and Mac, known for its fast-paced matches, high-skill ceiling, and vibrant esports scene. It’s also one of the most polished and profitable “live service” games out there, supported entirely through cosmetic microtransactions—skins, loot boxes, and event passes. The game’s primary audience ranges from casual strategy fans to hyper-competitive ranked grinders, most often teens and twenty-somethings who stick around for the rush of victory and the illusion of progress.
What I noticed this time around wasn’t just the gameplay, but the systems around it. League of Legends uses live service mechanics—like endless ranked resets, randomized loot boxes, and fear-of-missing-out event passes—to foster compulsive play and spending. While not as overtly aggressive as some gacha games, LoL’s design subtly manipulates players’ emotions and behaviors in ways that make it harder to stop, easier to spend, and riskier for addiction.
The Grind That Never Ends
One of the first things that hit me coming back to LoL was the weight of progression. The ranked ladder resets every season, meaning no matter how far you climb, your achievements are temporary. There’s always one more win needed to break into the next tier. One more game to reach the next mastery level. This seasonal cycle feels like a treadmill—except the finish line moves every few months.
Riot builds in progression systems (ranked, mastery levels, event missions) that push you to keep playing “just one more.” LoL never ends. It simply just resets, sending the players back on a perpetual cycle of grinding, similar to what the article describes as a zombie game: undead, unending, always hungry.
Image 1: My current Ranked Ladder, where I was deliberately given less League Points (LP) in my last match to prevent me from hitting Iron 1, forcing me to play again to try and win to get to the next rank tier.
LoL uses probability-based matchmaking to pair players of similar skill levels based on their MMR—a hidden calculation that looks at your recent wins and losses. While this creates natural randomness through unknown teammates and opponents (unless you queue with five friends), the system becomes psychologically manipulative through its emotional peaks and valleys. When you go on a losing streak, your MMR decreases, pairing you with lower-skilled teammates against higher-level opponents, compelling you to play more to break the streak and experience that burst of relief from finally winning. Conversely, win streaks increase your MMR, encouraging you to keep playing “in the zone.” This often creates lopsided matches where teams dominate or get steamrolled within 10-15 minutes, yet the unpredictability keeps players queueing up as they lose track of time. The champion selection process intensifies this slot machine-like suspense—players pick one-by-one with identities obscured until they hover over a champion, which then flashes dramatically onto the screen when locked in. Even champion bans add randomness: what happens when your intended pick gets banned? Like pulling a slot machine lever, each queue becomes a gamble on whether you’ll get the satisfying match or the frustrating steamroll.
Is this ethical? I would say so. Each round is inherently random through the matchmaking system and the gameplay, which can swing in either direction at any moment. The gamplay’s addictiveness stems from the inherent nature of LoL’s design as a 5v5 MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) rather than from specific design choices within LoL. In MOBA’s like LoL, stealing an objective, dodging a gank, or landing the combo that wins you the teamfight can turn the game around at any time. It’s all very unpredictable and random, yet gives the player a constant feeling of “near-wins” through missing a combo or losing out on farm. “Oh, if only I smited earlier” or “if only I wasn’t so pushed out in lane,” are common sayings that I’ve heard playing with people in the League community when describing mistakes, and this “near-win” feeling is what keeps them from playing one more round to overcome their previous rounds’ mistakes or loss. This feeling of “near-win” is exacerbated when you believe you played well throughout the game and lost because your teammates were bad (an unfortunately common mentality in the League community), thus believing that you’ll do better next game with better teammates and win. As a result, the randomness of each game and its outcomes become very addicting, keeping players playing again and again.
Loot Boxes: Pure Variable Reinforcement
Then comes the loot boxes: Hextech Chests, Orbs, Champion Capsules. You earn keys slowly through gameplay or buy bundles from the shop using RP—LoL’s in-game currency—then open randomized boxes hoping for that rare prestige skin. It’s pure variable reinforcement that keeps the player coming back for more.
Image 2: The RP Store where players can use money to buy in-game currency
Opening these boxes is oddly thrilling, like pulling a lever on a slot machine. Will I get the new Legendary skin or another emote? The thrill of randomness is intentional. Riot keeps drop rates disclosed, but obfuscated enough to maintain the psychological pull, and with loot boxes giving 2-3 items at most, LoL forces players to either grind more games or to spend more money. This is especially problematic for children, who may not yet understand the immoral natures of gacha systems or gambling, who spend their parents’ money into these loot boxes and gachas.
Image 3: The store where you can buy Hextech Chests and Orb Bundles (both are “loot boxes”).
Compared to a game like Fortnite, where you can buy what you want from a store, LoL’s system feels murky. The Sanctum represents the pinnacle of LoL’s system of randomness and chance, with the player needing “ancient sparks”—only obtainable through monetary purchase—to roll for a coveted, limited-time, skin, creating a sense of urgency for the player. The rate for the prestige skin is low, at 0.5%, but the pity system in which it’s guarranteed after 80 rolls (after a vast amount of money is spent) may keep players from continuing to roll via the sunk cost fallacy thinking they’re a little bit closer to getting the skin.
Image 4 + 5: The Sanctum System in League of Legends. To roll, you need an orb of sanctum which costs RP
Events, FOMO, and the Myth of Value
LoL also hosts limited-time events with exclusive loot locked behind event passes, which costs money. In these events, you complete missions via matches to progress along the pass and unlock rewards. These mission’s aren’t hard, but they’re designed to be routine. With new missions released every day and week in these limited-time events, the game creates a sense of urgency for players to come back, to log in, do their daily quests, and stay in the ecosystem. These events compel players to come back habitually and play every day, leading them to compulsively play in order to go further up the event pass for better rewards. This triggers players’ fear-of-missing-out—that missing a day may lead them to be unable to get their desired rewards—pressuring players into playing more.
Image 6+7: The Current Spirit Blossom Beyond Act 1 gives a Prestige Spirit Blossom Lux skin, which is a really nice skin, but forces players to buy the event pass and grind for the skin.
A new addition to League of Legends’ monetization strategy is the Hall of Legends—an event that immortalizes the game’s most iconic pro players through exclusive skins. On the surface, it mimics traditional sports Hall of Fame tributes, but Riot Games twists this into a predatory scheme. These skins are not just premium—they’re extortionate, priced at over $500 each (with Faker’s Ahri skin being $500 last year). Recently, former pro-player ‘Uzi,’, one of China’s most beloved esports legends, was inducted into the Hall of Legends and is rumored to release a $600 Kai’sa skin in June (Kai’sa is one of the game’s most popular champions). By tying the skin’s exclusivity to false scarcity (due to the events occuring for a limited time) and emotional manipulation (triggering peoples’ nostalgia of Uzi’s gameplay), Riot preys on fans’ devotion—especially in China, where Uzi is a cultural icon. Within this new upcoming event, players aren’t just buying a cosmetic; they’re pressured into proving their fandom through exorbitant spending.
Image 8: Uzi’s new Kai’sa skin rumored to release in the summer for around $600
Conclusion
League of Legends’ monetization system, while wrapped in the polish of competitive gameplay, ultimately leverages randomness not to enhance play—but to monetize it. Randomness can be amazing in games when used to create tension, surprise, and story. But in LoL, it’s a tool for compulsion. From loot boxes with obscured drop rates to time-limited events and emotionally charged $500 skins, Riot has designed an ecosystem that pressures players into spending through psychological manipulation. There’s nothing inherently wrong with random rewards or cool cosmetics, but when those desires are funneled through layered gacha systems and in-game currencies that don’t overlap, the result is a monetization model built on gambling logic. While LoL’s core gameplay is skill-based and engaging, the systems around it deliberately blur the line between game and gambling through its intermittent rewards, false scarcity, and the constant pressure to “keep up” create a loop that’s hard to break—especially for its younger players who may not recognize how their habits are being shaped.
