Recently Riot, the company behind League of Legends, has made a big announcement: they are no longer going to make skin codes. For those of you who play League of Legends you will be aware that Riot (like many other companies) create exclusive content that can only be acquired by attending conventions - in this case skin codes. Skin codes are rare, expensive and very difficult to acquire. Many people who play League of Legends and some of the other large MOBAs like to collect all of the cosmetic products in these free to play games, and there is a very high demand for the convention skin codes.
Skin codes and other similar collectables are big business and it would seem that this has attracted fraudsters. Riot have decided that the skin codes are causing a problem and have decided to end their production in the hopes of reducing fraud within the League of Legends community. We'll see if this pays off, personally it seems like a step in the right direction. Riot has also announced that any skin codes that have been claimed will not be revoked. It is not a surprising move and Riot had this to say on the matter:
“"We are working with multiple payment processors to inform them of the situation and recommend they no longer process fraudulent payments from these sites, additionally we will be deactivating all previously issued skin codes starting today [July 11, 2014]. If you have a skin code that you acquired legitimately please send a request to Player Support and include proof of ownership. We’d be happy to help redeem the content to your account, but please note after 23/07/14 we will no longer be redeeming codes for any reason."
Is it the correct move to entirely kill this market? We will have to see but it is certainly a very direct approach to the matter.