Riot Games adjusts its Riot IDs changes following player backlash

Riot Games is rolling back changes it had planned to make to Riot IDs following a revolt from its own community.

Riot had originally intended to migrate all accounts to Riot ID and then restrict the number of times players could amend their IDs, as well as charge them $10 for the privilege of changing their online identifier.

Now, however, Riot says that in response to community feedback, it has "made some big updates to the plan" and while it is still "moving forward with Riot IDs" – and Summoner names in League of Legends will be retired as planned from 20th November – it is no longer restricting players to one name change every 365 days. It will continue to permit players to amend their names for free once every 90 days.

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"We want there to be something that makes you think twice about changing your name," Riot explained. "Historically, for Summoner Names, Blue Essence or RP did this. For Riot IDs, it was time. Under our new plan, we think we found the right balance with time alone. If it turns out this approach isn’t hitting the right goals, we’re keeping the door open to modifications in the future, including adding paid or earned options for faster Rioter ID changes.

"We heard concerns about players with the same name in the same game," it continued. "Based on data from games where we already use Riot ID, it’s a rare scenario, but just in case, we've updated the game scoreboards to always display the hashtag when multiple players with the same name are in the same game. In our first announcement, we also should have been clearer that you’ll be able to see the hashtag portion of a name at any time by hovering that player on the scoreboard and that the hashtag is customisable, not randomised like how some other games assign names."

For content creators and professional players "concerned about impersonation", Riot says it has "a good solution in the works", and it'll share more "when details are final".

Interestingly, Riot says the original plans came about because "picking a unique Summoner Name is a terrible new player experience", and acknowledged that "just making it to the tutorial shouldn't be this hard". And whilst Valorant, Legends of Runeterra and Wild Rift players had become used to changing their Riot ID, "candidly, it was never [Riot's] intention with Riot IDs that they'd be changed so often".

Riot Games recently confirmed that 46 staff have lost their jobs in a recent round of layoffs.

"Riot Games implemented strategic shifts within a few teams to sharpen our focus in a number of areas. With these shifts, certain roles were eliminated, impacting a total of 46 Rioters. This is part of our normal course of our business: We periodically make changes to our structure and our teams based on what we believe will allow us to deliver the best content and experiences for players," Riot said in a statement to Eurogamer.

"We never make these decisions lightly and will always start from a place of wanting to retain Rioters and have them focus on our highest priorities. While that's not always possible, it's our primary goal."