Tencent Goes Full Gacha Greed: LoL Yanks Direct-Purchase Skins Into Loot Boxes While Honor of Kings Drops Two $70+ Gacha Skins in Two Months — Players Smell Blood

One screenshot, one spicy take, and a truth that left every Tencent gamer speechless — when LoL mass-removes skins from direct purchase into gacha pools, and when Honor of Kings drops two Supreme Limited skins averaging $70-110 each within two months, can you still call this 'normal business'?

The story is straightforward. A player posted on NGA pointing out that Honor of Kings released two 'Supreme Limited' (无双限定) skins in just two months — these can't be bought outright, only obtained through gacha rolls, with an average cost of ¥500-800 (roughly $70-110). Even on the secondhand market (Xianyu), they still run ¥400. To make things worse, another Supreme Limited skin for Sun Ce is already queued up, plus a wave of Limited Legendary skins dropped at the start of the year (non-limited Legendaries at ¥168, limited ones at ¥178) — a volume unprecedented in previous years.

Meanwhile, League of Legends on PC is somehow even more egregious. One player shared screenshots showing that outside the 'Play' button in the top-left corner, virtually every clickable element in the game client now leads to a purchase or top-up interface. Scrolling promotional pop-ups bombard players with spending opportunities — as one commenter put it, 'all the ancient relics have been dug up to squeeze gold coins out of players.'

The real kicker is the mass skin migration from direct purchase to gacha. According to player analysis, LoL has fully pivoted to a 'chroma speculation' model — taking a mediocre base skin, churning out seven or eight chroma variants, slapping on 'AI-generated-looking splash art,' and selling them as ¥600 gacha exclusives. This latest batch removal is essentially milking old chromas one final time. A top-voted comment nailed it: 'Most of these skins? I wouldn't even glance at them from an orb. Their VFX are worse than anything they casually release now. They probably stopped selling entirely. Won't buy, huh? Well, with gacha, the choice is no longer yours.'

So why is Tencent suddenly so desperate for cash? The comment section offered multiple angles. One camp argues it's not about being broke — it's about earning *less*. For a mega-corp, slowing growth might as well be a loss. Others pointed to the LoL card game (Legends of Runeterra) hemorrhaging money, and the PC LoL player base shrinking so dramatically that the only option left is to squeeze harder from remaining whales. Some blamed the billions poured into Dream Star (元梦之星) marketing — an all-out campaign that amounted to a spectacular money bonfire.

One particularly insightful comment identified a key trigger: Pony Ma (Ma Huateng) publicly criticized the gaming division for 'lacking ambition' at a company meeting. After that, every Tencent-owned game seemingly entered turbo-monetization mode simultaneously. As one player summarized: 'A company this big doesn't care about how much they're making now — they care about how much *more* they're making compared to before.' This explains why the monetization squeeze hit LoL, Honor of Kings, and DNF all at once — a company-wide revenue extraction drive.

DNF (Dungeon & Fighters) didn't escape either. Players noted that the current patch is actively driving people away with aggressive pay-to-win mechanics, yet the 'Dual Prestige' (双尊) packages this year pushed power creep to new heights — and paradoxically, fewer people are spending. The two biggest revenue pillars, LoL PC and DNF, have both 'lost half their lifeforce,' with some players even speculating that investments into Sunborn (散爆网络, makers of Girls' Frontline) played a role in the financial pressure.

Facing this onslaught, player reactions shifted from fury to dark humor. 'We deserve this for playing on the CN server' became a rallying cry, with many reporting that friends around them have already 'emigrated' (润) to the Taiwan server. Others reminisced about the glory days of iG's 2018 Worlds championship and how they've since 'severed ties' with the game, now only logging in occasionally for custom matches. The prevailing attitude in the comments can be distilled to: if you can let go, leave; if you can't, keep getting milked.

Zooming out, this isn't a single-game problem — it's a systemic shift across Tencent's entire gaming ecosystem. When the growth narrative collapses, when new ventures keep bleeding money, and when the boss himself cracks the whip — player wallets become the last cash cow. Whether this is 'fiscal discipline' or 'killing the golden goose' remains to be seen. But for now, the iconic NGA rallying cry 'F*** Tencent' (煞笔腾讯) continues to gain traction by the day.