#and riot simply refuses to adress is

[messenger-imp]

That's half the truth. Because people do join up on TFT and League after watching Arcane. There is a big influx of "What do I play, how do I best start out", etc. posts on the socials. The biggest issues though are: 1: Riot had the absolutely genius idea of making Arcane canon to the League-verse. "Why is that bad" you ask, canonity is good isn't it? In theory it sure is. But in practice it isn't because Riot games wants profits, while not committing. Look at Warwick. Warwick in League of Legends has been, since his release, a wonderful puppydog wolfman who rends the flesh of his enemies asunder with his wolfface. But now that Arcane is canon, shouldn't the much more human form we see in the game be the primarily playable creature and not this wonderful creature?

No, says riot and the old players. Because despite the canonity of Arcane, this is what you get. But perhaps Vanderwick isn't the marketing move. Perhaps he's more of a niche interest so lets look at the big sellers. Lets look at Jinx. Jinx is a cheap champion to buy early after the tutorials. A little Arcane fan goes in, expecting the somber yet somewhat crazy Jinx to be playable. Nope, instead they get a manic pixie dream girl who just wants to destroy with a distinctively different voice actor. But look there! There is an Arcane Jinx skin that puts her look more in line with her Arcane variation. But isn't that strange? Arcane is canon and yet I have to pay just to get the slight idea of the look my character had in the show? And what do you say? They are releasing a Jinx skin for 250$ dollars that you have to gacha for? That sure doesn't sound like it will keep new players. The same is obviously true for every other Arcane champion except for Ambessa and coming up the new Viktor remake...which in turn has gameplay-wise NOTHING to do with what Viktor does in the show except using his funny third arm to shoot laser beams while all his old skins lose details. The old community hates it and surely that won't keep Arcane watchers play him either. Then there is the extremely huge number 2: Lets say you managed to say "Oh yeah whatever I will just mute chat every game, I will ignore the toxicity." Good job thats half a step. The second half of the step is that there are 169 champions in LoL with distinct kits and roles and items they need to buy and battleplans they need to make. With a very barebones tutorial and extremely wishy washy roles this is obviously hard to start out. Adding up to this there are SO MANY experienced players making new accounts to get ready for Ranked matches that a new player has no chance of really learning any time soon after starting out. "Then I will just play with my friends who are playing, they can explain it to me." No they can't. Because playing with them will match you up with extremely high levled players that will also destroy you, a new player. New players can only lose when starting after arcane unless they do their homework. A lot of it and that's just not worth it. So if they just play for the fantasy of playing dolls with their favorite Arcane champions they have to pay unreasonable prices. Or if they are interested in the actual game they will get curbstomped. There is no player retention from Arcane because League of Legends is, naturally extremely hostile for anyone joining in.

And with Riot's changed it will remain so.

Posted this on BlueSky but…

The popularity of Arcane and K/DA has done nothing to increase the amount of League of Legends players.

Lots of y’all saying “GOOD” don’t understand that without new blood or new users things die and that means no more things like Arcane or K/DA if it’s not doing what was intended by bringing in new users.

Which means that if thing doesn’t do what it is intended to do, like bring in new players, it will end even if people like it better than the thing it’s advertising.

It’s worth noting there are a multitude of non-LoL games set in that world and intended for more single player/story based experiences that Riot has made.

And they’re fun too.

But all those fun and neat and good things that are being made will just be trimmed off at the tip because it’s not doing what was intended. Which means neeeeeever get attached to these projects.