Riot Games connected with the Make-A-Wish Foundation last year to grant a wish to a teenager suffering from osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, who wanted to visit Riot headquarters and create a skin for Cho'Gath, his favorite League of Legends character. From that collaboration, Dark Star Cho'Gath was born, and now Riot is selling skins, icons, emotes, and bundles featuring the champion, with 100 percent of proceeds going to charity.
The teen, Bryan, played LoL during his treatment and recovery, and his parents told Riot that they could tell how we was feeling by how much he played. On the worst days he wouldn't play at all, but as his condition improved he worked his way up to a Platinum V rank. Before his visit to the studio, he "brainstormed" with Riot over email and in video chats; while he was there he provided feedback on an early version of the Dark Star Cho'Gath skin, playtested new content, and played clarinet in a recording of an official Dark Star Cho'Gath theme song.
The original idea had been to create a "local" skin exclusive to Bryan's account, but after the visit was over and the design was complete, developers began to kick around the idea of making it available to everyone. "At the end of our work with Bryan, we knew the end result was too good to keep local to Bryan’s machine," Riot said.
"Each year, we select a few key projects to go big and bold," Riot Karma chief Jeff Burrell told GamesBeat. "This started as local, as Bryan wanted to design his own skin just for himself. It turns out he had a really good idea."
Dark Star Cho'Gath is available for 1350 RP, which translates to roughly $10, while the emote is 600 RP and the icon is 350 RP, and there are also a couple of bundles available if you want to pick up the whole works. All money raised will go to GlobalGiving, which will distribute grants on a proportional basis to more than 20 non-profit organizations around the world, each of which will receive a minimum $10,000.
The skin and accessories will be available for purchase through August 10. The skin will eventually be brought back as a Gemstone skin, but all other Dark Star Cho'gath content will only be offered during the fundraising period.
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